Intel Cedar Trail netbooks to miss holiday season

Intel's Cedar Trail processors for netbooks were originally aiming for a September launch that was pushed back to November, and now it looks like the platform will be delayed once again. Intel has revealed that Cedar Trail netbooks are still en route for 2011 but won't be available in time for the holiday season, which means the new launch date is now in December.

The last delay had to do with issues regarding the graphics driver on the Cedar Trail processor. The architecture is built on a 32nm process and has the GPU residing on the same die as the CPU. At the time, the platform failed to attain Windows 7 certification, likely due to media encoding problems.

Now that issue should be fixed, but the platform has also added some new features. Cedar Trail will now support Intel Smart Connect Technology and Fast Boot & Standby, which uses Intel's Rapid Start technology.

The Intel Smart Connect feature lets your computer periodically check on web apps such as Facebook and Twitter while in sleep mode. This way, your computer is always connected and updating even while you're away.

Rapid Start lets devices resume from hibernation in less than 7 seconds. These boot times should become standard on all Ultrabooks and will be exclusive to Ultrabooks until Cedar Trail netbooks launch.

[via NetbookNews]