nVidia Ion netbooks

[TSE]

Well, looks like nVidia Ion is hitting netbooks as early as this month with the HP Mini 311 being released on the 28th for a baseprice of $399. It has an 11 inch screen too. I think I might just pick one up.

With that said, it seems like netbooks and the notebook markets are combining, it is seeming like most people aren't completely satisfied with the slowness and really small form factor of a 8.9 or 10 inch screen, they want something around the 11 inch/12 inch form factor, but it seems like they want a cheap computer that also has some speed and the nVidia Ion is promising this. I want some opinions, is this giving even more signals that the optical drive is dying? Are the netbook/laptop markets going to merge?

 

[gkarris]

I'm waiting until they are bundled with Windows 7, but I hear that Windows 7 for Netbooks won't be ready until next year.

Anyone know?

 

[ravenvii]

I'm waiting until they are bundled with Windows 7, but I hear that Windows 7 for Netbooks won't be ready until next year.

Anyone know?

From what I've read, they won't be making a version of Windows 7 for netbooks specifically. Apparently they want OEMs to use Windows 7 Starter on netbooks.

 

[clevin]

do we have a benchmark on ion somewhere? compare to atom?

 

[redking31591]

do we have a benchmark on ion somewhere? compare to atom?

ion is an atom processor, its just paired with an optimized GeForce 9400M chipset like the ones in the imac, mac mini, macbook, and macbook pro instead of a crappy intel GMA chipset.

 

[clevin]

ion is an atom processor, its just paired with an optimized GeForce 9400M chipset like the ones in the imac, mac mini, macbook, and macbook pro instead of a crappy intel GMA chipset.

mmmm... I don't know if that translate into some speed improvement on most day to day activity. We will have to wait and see.

 

[redking31591]

mmmm... I don't know if that translate into some speed improvement on most day to day activity. We will have to wait and see.

According to nvidia it allows you to use netbooks for hd content since the atom chokes on regular content, and the 9400M has a built in HD decoder, but other than that I don't think there are that many improvements. Now if there was a netbook running snow leopard on the ion platform than viable speed improvements would be quite possible with OpenCL but.....

 

[gkarris]

From what I've read, they won't be making a version of Windows 7 for netbooks specifically. Apparently they want OEMs to use Windows 7 Starter on netbooks.

I heard that but the ETA for it is not until Summer 2010?

 

[localoid]

I heard that but the ETA for it is not until Summer 2010?

In regards to Windows 7 availability on the HP 311, this article states:

"HP Mini 311 will be offered for price starting at $399 (Rs. 19,200 approx.) that will be available pre-loaded with Windows XP on Sept. 23 and Windows 7 Premium on Oct 18".


PS: The Mini 311 features the Ion LE chipset, which is slightly different from the Ion chipset specs.

"The difference is that ION LE will support, at best, the DirectX 9 graphics technology in Windows XP, not Vista's DirectX 10 nor Windows 7's DirectX 11, which will be able to spread processing work better to multiple CPU cores for better multimedia performance."

HP has posted the specs of the Mini 311 here.