Instead of three chips that the initial Atom platform comprised, Pine Trail consists of only two. The CPU, memory controller and GPU were all fit into a single chip, while the rest of the assignments were taken over by the NM10 Express chipset, codenamed Tiger Point. Pine Trail brings several advantages. The reduction in platform complexity will cheapen production, plus the entire system spends significantly less energy than its predecessor generation, which we proved ourselves during the testing process of the 1005PE. The central chip with the aforementioned components was developed under the Pineview codename, and the netbook we received for testing bore the N450 name. Basically, there is no performance difference between the old Atom N280 and the new N450, since both are clocked at 1.66 GHz. The improved graphics core is the second largest novelty. Instead of the old GMA 950, the N450 contains the GMA 3150 core, which was based on the well-known X3100, familiar because of the Intel G31 chipset that contained it. A head-to-head comparison shows a significant improvement in performance, but the GMA 950 was so slow that the improvement is barely recognisable in everyday use. We’ll reply to the multimedia enthusiasts straight away - yes, you will be able to watch HD video on the new Atom platform, but barely. This incarnation doesn’t include HD playback support either; the feature seems to have been reserved for Cedar Trail, i.e. the third version of the platform. That means that it’s all up to the decrepit back of the CPU once again. Our test files showed that 720p material playback in an .mkv container was on the low end of acceptable. It was smooth most of the time, with occasional stuttering, but your luck basically depends on the bitrate of the video you’re trying to watch. A piece of information surfaced some time ago that Intel enabled netbook manufacturers to install a Broadcom chip which enables material as demanding as 1080p to be smoothly reproduced. The goal of such a move was to kick out one of the most important arguments in favour of Nvidia’s ION platform, but the problem lies in the fact that the installation of the Broadcom chip additionally increases the netbook price (according to some sources, up to 30$).

Integration improvements nearly halved the effective power consumption, but the autonomy in general hasn’t been doubled compared to the previous generation, because certain components (such as the hard disk and display) couldn’t be affected. Still, an increase of more than 20% isn’t negligible at all and is sure to be a strong point in the marketing of these new netbook models.