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Intel ATOM N435 CPU – specs and what to expect from it

By Andrei Girbea , updated on November 11, 2013

There’s this new Intel Atom N435 processor we’ve seen in some netbooks showcased at Computex, like the Asus EEE PC X101 and the Lenovo IdeaPad S100 and now we finally have some official info on it.

First, I thought this could be part of the new CedarTrail Atom line, however that’s not the case. The Intel Atom N435 CPU comes as a smaller brother of the now omnipresent Atom N455  and will take it’s place as Intel’s cheapest, most energy efficient and also slowest Atom processor.

You can see some of its specs below:

  • single core CPU, supports HyperThreading
  • clocked at 1.33 GHz
  • 512 KB L2 Cache
  • part of the Intel PineTrail line (45 nm build process)
  • integrated Intel GMA 3150 graphic chip
  • comes with 5W TDP

Basically, this is an under-clocked N455, as it comes with 1.33GHz speed, compared to the 1.66 GHz of that one. This also means TDP dropped from 6.5 W to 5W, and that’s a 23% improvement. Will this mean that N435 powered netbooks will get 20% extra battery life? No, but you will see slightly better autonomy on similar platforms.

However, we all know the N455 Atom is a slow CPU. It can handle your daily tasks as long as you don’t throw much at it, but multitasking between several apps or HD multimedia content will be a pain.

Intel Atom N435 - cheapest, slowest and most energy efficient ATOM CPU right now

Intel Atom N435 - cheapest, slowest and most energy efficient ATOM CPU right now

So, what’s the point of getting an even slower CPU on the market? Price of course. Currently, N455 goes for a recommended price of $64 (that’s for big shipments, etc and is the official price mentioned on Intel’s site), so the N435 could go for 10-20 bucks less, helping producers bring down prices for their devices. The $199 Asus X101 is a prove of that, even if for that kind of money you get only 8 GB SSD storage, Meego OS and a 3 Cell battery.

So, we get a CPU that could make a netbooks cost less and last for long during each charge. Are all these worth the fuss? I’d say NO if you plan to run Windows on these devices (I’d definitely go for a dual-core ATOM right now on Windows 7 netbooks, regardless of the extra price, you’ll really see big differences during everyday use).

For a mobile computer on Meego or any other light operating system though, it could be a solution. You could use these mini laptops for light browsing, checking emails, listening to some music, kind of what you can ask from a cheap netbook right now, only those will be even cheaper and offer better battery life.Their success will depend on the pool of applications you can get on, as that is a problem for Meego at least right now.

As a warp up, I’m still skeptic about the Intel Atom N435 though, but I’ll wait to get some time with one of these Meego powered netbooks in the near future before stating a final conclusion. So look for an update soon.

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Andrei Girbea, Editor-in-Chief at TLBHD.com. This project was born as part of my search for capable mini-laptops that I could easily lug around to work, and still provide the performance that I'd need on a daily basis. I'm primarily using such ultracompact devices and have been testing them since 2006.

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