Acer Announces First NVIDIA Ion2-Based Netbook

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."

Re:GPU on netbooks?

[PhotoBoy]

Meh. Who needs graphics on netbooks anyway. It's not like you're going to use photoshop/CAD or play games on them...

I play games on mine! :) My current netbook plays stuff like GTA Vice City and Aliens vs Predator (1999) really well.

I'm about to replace it with an Alienware M11x so I can play modern stuff like Mass Effect 2 on the go. Basically it's a portable Xbox 360 for me. It should have the horsepower for most emulators too.

Re:GPU on netbooks?

[tepples]

I still dont get why it is needed to have a dedicated GPU

Because name-brand PCs with Intel CPUs tend to come with Intel GMA. This includes netbooks. And as you pointed out, GMA in practice stands for Graphics My Ass.

Re:What HD?

[aeiah]

HD x264 decoding support is as strong if not stronger under linux than windows right now with nvidias newer graphics card. look up VDPAU. people report very very little CPU usage running 1080p videos under linux on acer revos and the like.