While we may not see a lot of VIA C7-M or VIA Nano-powered computers in the US or western Europe in the near future, this initiative could result in an awful lot of computers in developing nations being powered by VIA chips. And who knows, if the VIA Nano lives up to its promise overseas, perhaps we’ll see major western companies like HP take another look at the chip maker’s products in the not too distant future.

Losing the only high-resolution netbook is a pretty big hit for people, well, like me. I cannot stand seeing pixels, with their little square borders givin' me the eye. Low resolution is holding back a lot of prospective buyers, because it's hard to go from 1440x900 or greater to 1000x600. The Mini Note, all 1280x768 was dead-sexy, and at least someone at Dell noticed.

Not every computer with an Atom CPU is a netbook - or is it? @ Lilliputing

Dell has officially pulled back the curtain on the Inspiron Mini 12, a light weight and relatively cheap 12 inch notebook. It looks almost exactly like the Dell Inspiron Mini 9, which has a 9 inch screen. But the Mini 12 is bigger, has a higher resolution display, a full sized keyboard (with function keys), and a different version of the Intel Atom CPU which uses less energy thus providing longer battery life.

So it doesn't have the 7,200 RPM hard drive or Via graphics, but it's a little cheaper, and weighs less, too.