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AMD CEO sees Netbooks going away

Advanced Micro Devices' chief executive predicts that Netbooks will eventually disappear. This thinking, though obviously favorable to AMD's strategy, isn't completely at odds with Intel's.

"The distinction between what is a Netbook and what is a notebook is going to go away," AMD CEO Dirk Meyer said Thursday in the company's earnings conference call.

"There will be a continuum of price points and form factors," he said.

"Given the way Netbooks are configured today, consumers who want a notebook at those kind of (low) price points have to compromise and as … Read more

Notebooks of note at CES: HP, Asus

LAS VEGAS--Some notebooks and an un-Netbook are worth noting on the CES show floor Thursday.

From top to bottom: An Asus concept computer; the just-announced Asus S121 (officially not a Netbook) with an optional 512GB solid-state drive--yes, that's 512 gigabytes; HP's new Pavilion dv2 and dv3 powered by processors from Advanced Micro Devices, including its newest Neo silicon.

New HP ultraportable first to use AMD Neo chip

Updated at 11:05 p.m. PST with additional information throughout.

Another Netbook? No, not exactly. Hewlett-Packard's new Pavilion dv2 is an ultraportable, thank you. And the new Athlon Neo silicon inside from Advanced Micro Devices will try to prove that point.

AMD is introducing new chips at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that target the no-man's land between Netbooks and notebooks. Typically, these designs are referred to as ultraportables--the most salient examples being Apple's MacBook Air, the Toshiba Portege, and the Sony Vaio TT series.

So what makes AMD's platform different? In one … Read more

Not quite a Netbook: Meet the AMD Athlon Neo platform

You and I may see the laptop market as completely oversaturated, but chipmaker AMD sees only opportunities and underserved markets. Hence the new Athlon Neo, which AMD calls a "platform for ultrathin notebooks."

The company sees Netbooks as occupying the space between 7- and 11-inch displays with prices under $499, while traditional ultraportrable laptops run from 11 to 13 inches and cost $1,499 or more. Somewhere in there, AMD reckons, there's room for systems with slightly bigger screens than Netbooks, and that cost slightly more.

The 1.6GHz Neo handles multiple apps better than the Intel … Read more