Intel N550 Dual-Core Netbook Available At $349-399 By Q310

Intel Corp is so successful in creating netbook segment but at the same time it also gives room for ARM-based design to grow especially in entry level market. In order to continuously scale up to differentiate itself from others’ competitors, the giant chipmaker has planned to relese its next generation dual-core N550 by Q3 this year.

The new N550 will be a dual core processor (with 1MB sharable internal cache) with each of them clocking at 1.5GHz maximum frequency. And as expected, its N550 based system’s retail price is expected to be in the range between $349 to $399, approximately $50 increase as compared to current pricing of $249-$349 for Atom N455 and N475 series. And with this substantial amount of price adjustment, users can expect a whole system performance boost, especially when its thermally efficient (TDP at 8.5Watt) dual-core Atom architecture are further coupled with the new DDR3 memory configuration support along with other new enhancements like either a 20GB to 32GB SSD or a 250GB conventional hard disk drive. However, graphics and chipset upgrade are not mentioned, which is by far the major concern for those that tried to treat their netbook as multimedia machine.

Since it is still categorized under netbook so don’t expect the screen size will scale beyond 10.1-inch, and at a higher price point closer to entry level notebook segment, some may rather spend extra buck on normal notebook if budget is not really a concern.