Intel Atom N280: More Juice?

Gizmodo reports that the next generation of the Intel Atom N will sport a boost in performance and price, but not proportionately. The N280 will be 1.66GHz with a 667Mhz front side bus and bundled Intel GN40 graphics hardware. Compare that to the N270 which had a speed of 1.6GHz, front side bus of 533MHz, and the 945GSE graphics chipset.

The price for the N280 is projected to be 29 – 39% more than the N270, but the new chip doesn’t have 29 – 39% more/better functionality. If consumers are hoping that netbook prices will start going down, will Intel’s new chip slow the slide, or even halt it?