Internet performance
Email and web surfing are two of the most common tasks for netbooks, making performance in this area is of primary importance to netbook users.
The VIA Nano emerges as the better processor for internet tasks. While the Atom needs 132.8 seconds to display simple HTML pages, the Nano does it in 70.1 seconds. But compared with the desktop processor, which finishes the same task in 33.3 seconds, even the Nano looks sluggish.
The same picture emerges in the Java and JavaScript tests, where the Nano clearly performs better than the Intel Atom. These tests are not academic exercises, because more and more web pages contain JavaScript. The SunSpider test is a good indicator of performance in this area, and browser manufacturers use it to measure the JavaScript performance of their engines. Intel's Atom takes nearly twice as much time to complete this test as the VIA Nano.
Windows Vista 32-bit: seconds (shorter bars are better).
Windows Vista 32-bit: seconds (shorter bars are better).
Windows Vista 32-bit: seconds (shorter bars are better).
4%
4%
To me it seems quite incorrect to classify the Atom 230 as one of the main netbook processors. Certainly the main netbook processor is currently the Atom N270, which is a rather different processor. For one, it does not support x86-64 instructions. It would be wise not to exptrapolate from the 230's results.