Intel Atom? Netbooks?

[Cavallino]

Im sorry if this has been asked already but any summarised clarification on this topic from you learned ladies and gentlemen would be greatly received.

What is the significance of the Intel Atom? Whats so special about it? Size? Power consumption? Which leads me onto...

Whats with the new influx of these so called "netbooks" which the majority of use the Intel Atom? And more importantly how are they able to achieve 8 hours battery life that most claim!

The Samsung NC10 does look sexeh actually! But do any of these come with Vista or is only Linux or XP?

TIA

 

[Cavallino]

atom is pure powersaving
it is downclocked on most netbooks to avoid needing a fan to cool [saving power]
some netbooks have a larger battery
8 hours is very optimistic on most models - although a few eee models do have larger batteries so it is possible

i have seen vista running on an acer one but it takes ages to boot/load/do anything
i have xp pro on mine and keep it as clean as possible by only having bare essentials on it
that makes it quite speedy

but the linux that came on it booted up in seconds and was also very easy to use

Are they practical? I mean do they literally chug in XP? But fly in Linux?