As growth of netbook shipments is still being impacted by sales of tablet PC products, vendors have already dropped the price of their Intel Atom N400 series netbooks to around NT$9,000-10,000 (US$297-330), while prices for some dual-core models have declined to around NT$11,000, in Taiwan, according to sources from channel vendors.

Although Intel is set to launch its Oak Trail platform with better performance for netbooks and tablet PCs in the first quarter of 2011, most notebook vendors are still conservative about the platform's effect on the netbook industry. Players are still expected to launch Oak Trail-based tablet PCs, but will still push the combination of ARM-based processor and Google's Android as their sales focus.

Intel's Oak Trail platform combines a Lincroft-based Atom Z600 series processor with Whitney Point chipset, and is capable of supporting MeeGo, Windows 7 and Google's operating system. Intel will launch the Atom Z670 as the first processor for the platform in the first quarter of 2011 and will launch upgraded versions in the second quarter.

As for the netbook industry, Intel is set to launch upgrade versions of is Pine Trail-M platform in the first quarter of 2011, and will launch the Cedar Trail-M platform in the fourth quarter of 2011 with a latest Atom series processor codenamed Cedarview, using a 32nm process.

In additional news, AMD has also started mass production of its Ontario processor for netbooks, using Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC's) 40nm process and related products are expected to appear in retail channels in January 2011.