Intel Confirms Upcoming $200 Android Notebooks

By Kevin Parrish in Tom's Hardware

Intel executive vice president and chief product officer Dadi Pelmutter has confirmed with CNET that $200 devices using the company's "Bay Trail" Atom SoCs will mostly consist of notebooks based on Google's Android platform, not Windows 8. Solutions with the same price point and Microsoft's latest Windows release will actually depend on Microsoft itself.

"We have a good technology that enables a very cost-effective price point," Perlmutter said. "[The price of Windows 8 laptops] depends on how Microsoft prices Windows 8. It may be a slightly higher price point."

Naturally OEMs may favor Android because it's an open-source platform and Google does not charge a licensing fee. Microsoft, on the other hand, is supposedly reducing its licensing fee in response to the lackluster demand for Windows 8 products. Sources claimed in March that the Redmond company has offered a Windows 8 and Office bundle for some touch-screen systems at a cost of $30, instead of $120.

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Intel Is Basically Trying to Revive the Netbook

By Jared Newman in Time

The netbook is dead. Or so says nearly every pundit, analyst and research firm that watches the PC market.

But don’t tell that to Intel, whose next-generation processors will power a wave of dirt-cheap Windows laptops later this year.

CNet reports:

“If you look at touch-enabled Intel-based notebooks that are ultrathin using [Bay Trail] processors. Those prices are going to be down to as low as $200,” said Intel CEO Paul Otellini.

The Bay Trail chip is a complete redesign of the Atom micro architecture and is expected to get Atom chips closer to mainstream Intel chips in performance.

Okay, so no one at Intel actually says the word “netbook.” You can’t blame them, given the death sentence the product category has received.

But all the signs are there: sub-$300 price tags (possibly spurred by discount Windows 8 licenses), Atom-based processors and small screens (we assume, given that Atom chips are nearly impossible to find in larger displays). It all seems so familiar.

Read full story @ Time