With ASUS' Eee PC 1000HE up for pre-order, it's clear that netbooks are ready to make the jump from Intel's lowly 1.6GHz Atom N270 to the suped-up 1.66GHz N280. In fact, Intel just confirmed shipments of its new Atom processor to PC makers. Now don't let us hear you bellyaching about that being a meager 0.06GHz jump -- the magic isn't in the clock but in the faster 667MHz (up from 533MHz) front-side bus and new GN40 chipset with hardware-based 720p video decoder. That easily bests the Atom N270 pairing with the customary 945GSE chipset without any increase in power consumption. Think about that when trying to make a 10-inch netbook choice between ASUS' Eee PC 1
