At a scale this small…without a major revision in the underlying technologies at play here, I don't see anything from the same company making enough of a difference to matter beyond small differences here and there.

The big thing that would change the situation is Via based stuff, and hopefully some kind of answer from AMD to the Atom situation(I know, wishful thinking, but a guy can dream, no?).

Of course it's going to get even stranger when the inevitable ARM books come out. How do we compare things performance-wise then? Do we even want to? I'd contend yes, because you can do much with windows that you can with linux these days. But at the same time I can see the counter arguments having to do with different price structures, and possibly use structures stemming from that.

One of the most interesting things about this tiny revolution is the different questions we're asking now…and even the different ways we're asking them. There are absolutes, as ever…but this site and others like it are documents of a change in the game overall.

Actually, it turns out that the AMD Neo, which AMD billed as being significantly more powerful than the Atom or VIA Nano isn't really that much different in terms of performance:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10216940-1….

Well of course 60MHz core and a 134MHz FSB won't do much, but the really exciting thing to come out of the N280 refresh is the new GN40 chipset. Apparently it can even decode high definition 720p video, but no one seems to have tried it out yet!

the N280 also has a lower CPU voltage, which perhaps could give you an extra 5 to 15 mins of battery life?
Also there seems to be upto 10% performance gain, but most of that is below 4% gain.

good