As promised, we’ve been keeping an ear to the ground on Intel‘s new mobile, dual-core Atom processor, and as luck would have it a number of netbooks are popping up with the new CPU baked in…well, at least in the land down under. Australian e-tailer Pena.au has 10.1-inch netbooks from both Gigabyte and Lenovo listed on its site with the fresh 1.5GHz Atom N550 processor. The Gigabyte T1005M convertible — or netvertible, as we like to call it — is much like the T1000, and still has a 1,366×768 pixel capacitive touch display, USB 3.0 ports, and an eSATA jack. It sounds like a pretty impressive little system, but it’s listed for 905 Australia dollars, which translates to about $ 800 US. That’s a bit steep, but Aussies looking for something more affordable have the N550-powered Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3 to choose from as well — although that too is listed for a pricey $ 699 Australian (about $ 617 US). We’re assuming the dual-core CPU adds about $ 50 to $ 75 to the average single-core netbook selling price, but here’s hoping that the prices are a bit lower once they hit this side of the hemisphere.

4zb.net Sources