Speaking in a conference call on Tuesday, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said that netbooks were not a priority for Intel, and that growth in the regular notebook market actually exceeded the growth rate of Atom-based products.

"While Atom and Netbooks are important growth drivers for us, our traditional notebook business remains one of the primary drivers of revenue growth and we expect that to continue in the future," added Otellini. He's still optimistic on netbooks, but Intel obviously has other priorities. "The notebook market is alive and well and Netbooks are market-additive for Intel and the industry."

Otellini also mentioned new thin-and-light notebooks, based on CULV chips, pointing out that most of the units shipped so far were powered by single core CPUs, we're guessing the ultra popular SU3500. Things are about to change, as Intel shifts its focus on dual-core parts and offers a bit more performance in the same, attractive form factor.

"Late last quarter, we introduced the dual-core version of those products. You'll see a number of laptops show up in retail with the dual-core versions for the holiday season...more ergonomically designed, thinner, lighter," said Otellini.

It is obvious ultrathins will benefit greatly from the extra horsepower, as affordable dual-core parts such as the SU4100 and SU7300 start to appear in more models. However, that's not all. There's rampant speculation that we will see the first ultrathins with ION graphics by the holiday season. With more graphics muscle and affordable dual-cores, they should become quite a bit more appealing to consumers looking for primary devices, as they'll be able to cope with a much more serious workload.