We heard that MSI may release a touchscreen netbook with Intel's next generation Pine Trail Atom platform, and it will. According to MSI, the new Intel Atom chipset is planned to be officially launched at CES.

However, Intel tells us that it has not nailed down the launch of Pine Trail yet and maintains it will ship products to its customers before the end of the year. MSI hopes to be first to market with Pine Trail netbooks, including its 10-inch convertible U150 with Windows 7.

Either way, the sooner we get a newer Atom the better (also keep in mind the next version of the all-popular Atom also differs by blending the CPU and GPU on the same chip). According to MSI, Pine Trail is showing improved graphics performance and at least 20 percent better power consumption.

We are hoping the netvertible with its planned resistive touchscreen performs better than ASUS' Eee PC T91. However its lack of a capacitive screen and multitouch support means it won't support any of Windows 7's cool Touch Pack apps.

But before going touch, MSI will release the 12-inch Wind U210, which like the recently released Gateway LT3100, has AMD's Yukon platform rather than Intel's Atom. MSI will offer it in two different skus, including one with Windows XP, 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive for $379 and another with Vista Premium for $429. The U210 will be available in the U.S. during the first weeks of September.