Intel has released a short animated video illustrating the process by which sand is turned into silicon and a CPU. But the over-simplicity has us leaning towards AMD's older and more interesting video

A stunning piece of design matched with excellent battery life, but with an Atom inside the price is surely too high

Here's what's in store for 2010, including Intel's big gun - the Clarkdale CPU - and the highly anticipated new netbook platform

A new build of Apple's Now Leopard OS has retained its Atom support – but will this be the case in the final version?

So, the last big name has fallen. HP gave out in April 2008, and both Dell and Toshiba's resistance crumbled by the autumn. But it's taken Sony until the middle of 2009 to produce what it confesses to be a netbook, the VAIO Mini W Series.

Apple is prepping a Snow Leopard update that will kill off support for the Intel Atom chipset, preventing users installing the OS on inexpensive netbooks

Samsung's Q1 was originally touted as an iPod killer and a UMPC style tablet perfect for travelling business users - but it never worked and it never took off. Why? We may have the answer.

Battery life lets down this otherwise solid netbook from a local manufacturer

Part laptop and part nettop, the Gigabyte Booktop M1022M is the first netbook we’ve seen that overcomes the ‘3 USB problem'.

Well priced, with a robust chassis and touchscreen option that make it a good choice for classroom use, and any one else wanting a netbook that's a little bit different

The Vostro may look like a netbook to the inexperienced eye, but its more powerful processor gives it more flexibility and speed

Not quite the consumer/business crossover it aims to be, but there’s a lot to like in this clever mix of old-style business laptop and feature-packed modern machine

It may be lovely, but Sony’s under-powered P-series costs too much and features features poor battery life.

The Nvidia Ion finally pops up in HP's latest netbook addition with an 11.6in screen, 250GB HDD and a graphics chip devoted to 1080p video and even some games.

Portable, attractive and affordable - HP haven't given up on pushing home media servers into Australian homes just yet. HP hopes that two new 1TB MediaSmart models will entice a new generation of users to give home servers a go

Acer has outed the Aspire One with Android dual booting laptop, which will allow users to choose between a quick-loading Android and Windows 7 OS

As one of Australia's few locally designed netbooks, the Kogan Agora lives up to some lofty netbook ideals, but it’s sadly ho-hum in too many aspects to be seen as a real netbook contender.

In a world first, we've managed to get our hands on a review unit of Sony's stunningly thin ultraportable. Most surprisingly, it sports the newest Atom chip from Intel - the Z550 2.0GHz and GMA 500 graphics.

Intel's Atom platform may provide the backbone of today's netbooks, but with rivals emerging, Intel could find itself playing a smaller part in the future, as players such as Nvidia's Tegra take hold.

Apple has rehired one of the original members of the Newton development team, fuelling reports that the company is planning a tablet launch shortly.