Acer Announces First NVIDIA Ion2-Based Netbook 94
MojoKid writes "Acer has just taken the wraps off the new Acer Aspire One 532G netbook at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The machine is the first netbook with dedicated next-generation NVIDIA ION 2 graphics acceleration. The new Aspire One is also enabled with NVIDIA's recently announced Optimus technology to balance multimedia performance when needed, along with battery life savings, seamlessly switching to integrated Intel Atom/Pinetrail graphics when it's not required. Word is Ion 2 is going to be outfitted with twice the number of shaders for even more graphics horsepower as well."
Pricing still unknown :( (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Maybe I'll finally be able to buy a small lapto (Score:3, Insightful)
I also like to play "advanced" games. I just recently completed Dragon Age: Origins. The problems is, that if I want a decent gaming performance I don't usually have a choice of a small laptop. I'm currently lugging around a 17" HP which works great, but is a bit heavy and eats batteries like candy :-)
Not to piss on your chips, but you can't have battery life AND powerful graphics, not yet at least. Decent GPU is a power hog. If you find a netbook that runs DA:O, for example, the battery isn't going to last 9 hours like the high battery-life ones do now. Can't have it both ways - sorry.
Re:She just love my big 10 inch (Score:4, Insightful)
Some ION systems have struggled slightly with 1080p decoding. If ION 2 is all it's billed to be (harder, better, faster, stronger) while keeping smaller energy footprint with seamless switching between integrated and discrete graphics (as Anand seems to think it does well: http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3737 [anandtech.com]), then I'm all for it.
Of course, the ION 2 platform isn't going to be limited to netbooks. The market for small HTPCs (Zotac MAG or Acer Revo and their ilk, I think they're called "nettops" or something) seems to be slowly but steadily gaining steam. Those platforms need to be able to smoothly drive 1920x1080 displays, and ION 2 seems to be something of a match made in heaven for this sort of purpose.
Re:What HD? (Score:3, Insightful)
Does any netbook screen support 1920*1080 resolution?
No, but atom + ion = HTPC. The 1920*1080 is on your 42"+/- TV set.
Re:She just love my big 10 inch (Score:3, Insightful)
You just did, Kid.
Re:What HD? (Score:4, Insightful)
> I'm still a bit iffy on how video card hardware support for HD decoding is
> so dependent on driver/codec issues.
> For example, you can't do a lot of it on linux (osx?).
Utter nonsense.
The ION gear is quite well supported on Linux and has been since before any
corresponding gear had made it out onto the market. Nvidia is VERY GOOD about
Linux support in this area. They always seem to be the example that ATI doesn't
follow. Even Intel chips are better than ATI in this respect. The level of partial
acceleration from Intel gear might even be enough to make (non-ION) Atom feasable
for lightweight HD.
The fact that Linux applications can be treated like your own private Frankenstein
is of considerable value here. If the Linux equivalent of Microsoft with MCE is
dragging their feet, you don't have to be trapped with the single source solution.
Although that isn't even strictly true with Windows either if you aren't a total
Lemming.
Re:She just love my big 10 inch (Score:2, Insightful)