Intel shows new Classmate 3 educational notebook

At the Intel Developer Forum late on Wednesday, Intel showed off its newest Classmate PC, which is due to complement and not necessarily replace the company's current educational notebook. Unlike the current offering, the new Atom-powered notebook will feature a touch-screen that allows it to be used as a tablet. The PC will compete with the upcoming dual touch screen educational notebook from OLPC, though it will beat it to market by at least one year.

The 8.9-inch notebook will feature an Atom CPU running at 1.6GHz along with 1GB of RAM and operate on the Windows XP Home OS. Wireless Internet access will be thanks to the built-in 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi module and powering it all will be a 4-cell battery. A built-in accelerometer will change the orientation of the screen when it is stood up on its side in tablet mode. Users can then use the included stylus or their fingers to draw in Paint, type via a virtual keyboard or navigate programs.

The Classmate 3 is also said to run new software that will make connecting to networks easier in addition to making it easier to access the most-often used programs via a Quick Launcher interface.

Intel announced its new classmate PC will ship to OEMs by the end of this year and whie prices were not officially announced, they should start at north of $400.