New Netbook Reviews » Nvidia Ion 2

Asus Eee PC 1201PN won’t have Optimus, 1215N will

M@ — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 19:09:51 +0000

It looks like the Asus Eee PC 12.1″ 1201PN netbook coming soon won’t support Nvidia’s Optimus switching technology, but it will have the next generation of ION graphics. Notebook italia reports that there is another new model coming though, the 1215N, and it will have both a dual core Atom N500 processor as well as Optimus switching graphics.

The 1201PN will go on sale in May, while the 1215N will hit the shelves in June 2010, barring any unforeseen delays.

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Nvidia ION 2 benchmarked

M@ — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:12:07 +0000

The much anticipated Nvidia ION 2 graphics chip has been benchmarked by netbooknews on an Acer Aspire One 532g. The 3DMark03 test resulted in a 3049, while a Samsung N150 with the original ION LE scored a 3513. Some of the differences in scoring could be due to the different netbooks used and a few other factors, but bottom line is it looks like the ION 2 will be slower than the ION 1.

Of course the big deal about the ION 2 is not the speed but the battery life. The ION 2 will have switchable Optimus graphics technology which uses the integrated Intel GMA 3150 graphics until it needs a boost at which point it will switch over to a discrete GPU.

It looks like they went with the “Pinetrail” upgrade method of battery life over performance, but even a 3DMark03 score of “only” 3049 isn’t too bad compared to other netbooks average scores of around 100 or so.

Here is the test:

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Acer Aspire One 532g with Nvidia Ion 2 coming

M@ — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:24:44 +0000

It looks like Acer is planning a major upgrade to the good old 532h netbook. According to a press release the 532g will feature the next generation Nvidia Ion 2 graphics technology along with the new Optimus switching software. This means that the netbook will use the integrated Intel GMA 3150 graphics until it needs an extra boost for HD video when it will automatically switch over to the Ion 2.

This is a huge development because it will give us the best of both worlds, HD video performance along with great battery life. They state 10 hours or so for the battery. Here are the full specs:

Display: 10.1″ 1024 x 600
Processor: Intel GMA 450
Graphics: Intel GMA 3150 graphics + Nvidia ION graphics (switchable)
Memory: 2GB RAM
HD: 320GB
HDMI out
802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
optional 3G
10 hour battery life
1-inch thin
2.2lbs weight

As you can see this thing is decked out with every option available, including a larger hd and 2GB of RAM. You can also see that even with all of this technology it’s still around half a pound lighter than comparable netbooks, not sure how they did this.

This beast will likely be announced at the Mobile World Conference being held this week. It comes in blue, red and silver and appears to have the exact same case as the 532h.

No word on price but we can assume it will be on the higher end of netbook prices because of all the technology they packed in. We’ll keep you updated as more details emerge.

Here’s a hands on video at the MWC by an italian netbook site:

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Nvidia Ion 2 delayed a few months

M@ — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:16:52 +0000

We were all awaiting the launch of Nvidia’s next-gen Ion platform at CES on Jan 15th. Well it will still be showcased but the official launch has been moved back until sometime in the first quarter 2010. The big vendors (Asus, MSI, Lenovo and HP) are said to be responsible for the delay due to strong sales of the current Ion models.

As we all know the N450 and N470 Pinetrail processors coming in Jan will be much faster than the current setup of the N280 + GMA graphics. Well the next generation Ion platform will be 5 to 10 times faster than the Pinetrail. This will lead to netbooks with the abilities of full laptops, and with only slightly shorter battery lives.

Just like the HP Mini 311 blew all other netbooks out of the water with its Ion graphics and DDR3 RAM, we’ll look forward to the first netbooks featuring the next-generation Ion platform to do the same to the Pinetrail platform, and there should be plenty of previews at CES 2010 in January.

via Fudzilla

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