With ASUS'
Eee PC 1000HE up for pre-order, it's clear that netbooks are ready to make the jump from Intel's lowly 1.6GHz Atom N270 to the suped-up 1.66GHz N280. In fact, Intel just confirmed shipments of its new Atom processor to PC makers. Now don't let us hear you bellyaching about that being a meager 0.06GHz jump -- the magic isn't in the clock but in the faster 667MHz (up from 533MHz) front-side bus and new
GN40 chipset with hardware-based 720p video decoder. That easily bests the Atom N270 pairing with the customary 945GSE chipset without any increase in power consumption. Think about that when trying to make a 10-inch netbook choice between
ASUS' Eee PC 1000HE (with new N280 proc
and GN40 chipset) and Acer's new
N270-based Aspire One. Then again, maybe you're waiting for the first netbook to ship with
NVIDIA's Atom-based Ion platform with full 1080p playback? Might as well, who knows, maybe you'll land a production version of Windows 7, a swiveling touchscreen, and a finger-optimized UI in reward for your patience.
Update: Looks like the Eee 1000HE doesn't have all the new bits -- Laptop did some digging and found that
it's still got the same old 945GSE to go with that new proc, although it is still capable of doing 720p video playback. Boring, we'll wait for the real GN40 machines to show up soon.
posted Feb 6th 2009 at 3:57AM
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
4or2wheels @ Feb 6th 2009 4:13AM
That processor upgrade sounds good but is it significant enough to justify a purchase ? I have 500$$$ US burning a hole in my pocket.
B-Mo @ Feb 6th 2009 5:17AM
I know that feeling all too well... I really want to hold out for the Eee PC T91, but so far there's just vague Details about its release. I hear anywhere from 499-700-1000 for a price point, and just March-ish for the release date (but I'm even starting to doubt that with so few details as March is getting closer). C'mon Asus, even a preorder would be nice.
Mark @ Feb 6th 2009 9:10AM
I read that as "I have 500$ burning in my asshole".
chris @ Feb 6th 2009 4:12AM
yup, i'll be waiting for all the aforementioned fun.
Estrelo @ Feb 6th 2009 6:30AM
I gave up waiting and got a Gigabyte M912 with the 1024X600 LED backlit 8.9'' touchscreen and installed Win7 beta on it.
It's not perfect. It goes for around 3.5 hours on balanced power and I'd rather have an SSD, but the LED screen is amazing even using it at the dimmest setting and the 2.5 SATA disk is super fast. It won't last long the way I'm treating it, but with daily backups from the Home Server I figure i'll just trade it for a slighly less insanely priced Intel SSD when it finally breaks after too much shaking and tilting (I'm using it for out-of-office pc support and car pc).
Engadget, try to give a 2nd look at this netbook. With 2GB ram, LED screen, and 7 instead of Vista it's a lot better than the one you messed with at launch.
MaX PL @ Feb 6th 2009 10:41AM
oh man 1080p on a 9 or 10 inch screen. cant wait... for my eyes to bleed.
markhedder @ Feb 6th 2009 4:07PM
My Samsung NC10 can ALREADY run 720p videos without stutter. Big whoop? It's in the Blueray 1080p discs that these netbooks drop framerates (but who the hell watches those anyway.) 99.99999% of movies are not 1080p and for the other .0000001, you would probably download a 1-4 gb version anyway.
Burt Reynolds @ Feb 6th 2009 4:18AM
One question: Are people really clamoring for 720p playback on a 10 inch screen?
-And if so, why?
CaramelZappa @ Feb 6th 2009 4:22AM
Well, if you're watching videos on a tiny screen, they might as well be good quality. The video is probably be fullscreen either way, so why not have it be fullscreen and not full of huge pixels?
Psychav @ Feb 6th 2009 4:28AM
Maybe to save time re-encoding? It seems more of a stopgap to 1080p playback.
Additionally, I feel the main failing so far has been the lack of HDMI which the Ion platform is capable of providing. With the ability to connect to modern TVs and monitors a netbook as a portable HD player makes more sense.
Devin @ Feb 6th 2009 4:53AM
Caramel, you can't even play DVDs on these machines. What, is someone going to take up 50% of their SSD for a movie? I agree with Burt that 720p on a netbook screen isn't important to many people.
2busy @ Feb 6th 2009 8:41AM
Why?
To stream your 720p movie though the VGA out to a larger monitor or tv!
Devin @ Feb 6th 2009 9:06AM
Because, 2busy, most people who buy a netbook won't ever need to do that.
Nick @ Feb 6th 2009 9:19AM
Simply because I don't want to have to re-encode all of my HD movie files...and I'd imagine it would aid in streaming of movies online...
waterwagen @ Feb 6th 2009 11:14AM
Devin,
There are plenty of people that have netbooks with 100GB+ hard drives.
chris @ Feb 7th 2009 1:57AM
i'm waiting for better displays because i'd like to use it while out shooting photos on my dslr, especially if i want to post-process my images with it as some programs wont start unless you have a proper resolution. plus if i happen to have a high-def file on my netbook then i could always do playback with it plugged into a tv. hdmi support would be cool?!? :s
jon @ Feb 6th 2009 4:18AM
amazon has the new 280 eee's pre-order for $375, black or blue. hopefully if the new chipset can really play hd video we'll see more 1280X800 screens on netbooks.
Cass @ May 4th 2009 12:38PM
You can grab this for $340 at J&R...unless you live in NY. Stupid taxes.
http://todaysepicdeal.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/asus-eee-pc-1000he-10-netbook-36499/
CaramelZappa @ Feb 6th 2009 4:30AM
I still remember asus saying the point of the EEE line was to have a CHEAP, portable laptop, and it claimed the 701 would launch at $200. Instead of lowering the price of the 701 as they came out with higher end models, or trying to make it cheaper, they've just been beefing them up and making them more expensive and more powerful. What happened to a simple, CHEAP laptop for browsing the web and typing notes? Don't get me wrong, I love the new netbooks and the 1000HE is really tempting, but I feel like we're lost the point in this netbook craze. I mean, the Viao P is $900 just because it can be!
ilh @ Feb 6th 2009 8:23AM
There's me thinking they still made the 701 and had in fact made it cheaper. They can go both directions at the same time, doesn't have to be just higher and higher end.
Joshua Ochs @ Feb 6th 2009 10:21AM
Trolling, just a little? This gets trotted out every time - get over it already.
Raymond Luc @ Feb 6th 2009 4:34AM
waiting for ION equipped netbook with windows 7 pre-installed. til then i really shouldn't be blowing money on a netbook that will be pretty darn behind the times sometime later this year.
Keith @ Feb 6th 2009 4:57AM
How about an N280-based netbook with SSD storage? I personally have no need for an HDD-based notebook, as I can just grab or swap data if needed at home from my more spacious desktop, and I'd imagine this would be the same situation several others are in as well. Having a netbook with only an HDD available kind of defeats the purpose. Drop an SSD-based netbook, and at very worst, you'll have a cracked case. Drop an HDD-based netbook, and you could very well end up waving goodbye to all the data on there. Portability and durability seem to be the netbook's strengths, not massive storage or intense computing power.
720p (or above) playback is only important if you have the appropriate output port on the thing. Seeing as standard netbook res runs 1024x600, you're still not quite at 720p resolution. 1080p? That'd only make sense if you had output to an HDTV. Perhaps someone could have use for a portable video storage and playback device, but wouldn't it be cheaper to build an HTPC instead?
siriusalive @ Feb 6th 2009 4:57AM
Anyway Acer will equipe aspire one with N280
I still think Eee PC is indeed ugly.
TheLostSwede @ Feb 6th 2009 5:09AM
Ok, two things here. First the Acer Aspire One with the N280 still has the old 945GSE chipset and it seems like some of the 10in models will use the N270 for now, at least from what has been detailed in Japan and Taiwan.
Secondly, the GN40 chipset combined with either Atom CPU has a TDP of 16.5W, that's more than twice that of the 945GSE and either of the Atom processors. This in other words means shorter battery life, hence I doubt we'll see any GN40 models will less than a 6-cell battery.
sockatume @ Feb 6th 2009 6:52AM
Actually the current chipset has a TDP of 12W, so the new chipset only uses about 33% more power.
ThisGuy @ Feb 6th 2009 5:19AM
"Secondly, the GN40 chipset combined with either Atom CPU has a TDP of 16.5W"
Ahh crap, does this mean the damn fan is going to be dronng (whining) away all the time?
More power, more heat.. and having a "northbridge" that didn't run at 60c was why I was getting away from the 945GSE northbridge.
CRAP!?
Felix Fdot @ Feb 6th 2009 5:51AM
why is no one mentioning the z-series cpus anymore? weren't they supposed to be the "next genereation"? maybe their price is a bit higher, but with battery life a mayor selling point in the netbook market, please give meee a z!
sockatume @ Feb 6th 2009 6:42AM
No, they're not "next-generation". They were the first Atom chips to be launched. They're Intel's UMPC/MID offering, in the original sense of UMPC as a small tablet PC. The media misunderstood "UMPC" as being in the modern sense (netbook, whatever) and confused the issue greatly. The difference between the Z series and N series is that Z goes down to much lower speeds (to allow for small, low-power devices) and has a chipset which trades off some 3D performance for hardware video decoding.
The "next-generation" atoms are Lincroft, which combines various Z-series components into the CPU, and N280, which is described above.
Neoprimal @ Feb 6th 2009 6:26AM
For all the patient ones out there - there's a point at which you'll have to break and say "now's the time". Netbooks are pretty 'new' to the game and there are sooooo many different directions that companies can take with them. We'll soon see ones that are more specialized - multimedia based with higher end graphics for people that want to play movies, more connection friendly with n wireless, a sim slot, etc. for getting connected in every way possible, more oomph for the user that wants to run lots of apps without slowing down, etc. I think this is what Asus has been trying to do with the Eee, but it got way out of hand.
I have to admit, I've been patient as well. I don't need a netbook and initially I didn't want one...I have a laptop that works perfectly fine. I also can promise that I won't ever buy one for more than 300 dollars because of the principle, it feels like a waste (even though this is a purchase based purely on convenience and so, somewhat of a toy) buying what is essentially a very low power, feature lacking laptop for the same price as a laptop. But alas, I've already succumb to the idea of having a tiny 2lb computer to do things at a whim.
I'm waiting on dual core atoms to come around. That and 720 or 1080p, and an actual hard drive...not the SSD crap and I'll be happy.
Peter R. @ Feb 6th 2009 8:29PM
I gotta admit, I'm also one of the "patient ones." I've come to the realization that I don't need a netbook right now, although I do want one, but none of the current offerings has the necessary wow factor to warrant the purchase. I mean if I'm gonna drop $500 on one of these, I at least want more performance wise than the N270 can muster(its not like I'll upgrade it in a year anyway). Although the N280 provides what seems to be a marginal improvement( well according to specs, still waiting on benchmarks), I won't even consider it, well not as a standalone in my future netbook. Cause well, Nvidia's Ion platform is lurking about just waiting to hit mass production goodness, and news has been floating around the net about Intel's supposed successor to the Atom, Pineview, that's due out in Q3. So like you, I too am waiting for better performance from these sub-notebooks. So I really won't start sweating the buy button until an Ion netbook hits the market, hopefully by then more info on Pineview comes( it would be a better pairing with the 9400M in Ion). If I can't get Ion, I'll take Pineview( or whatever they choose to call the next gen Atom), either that or I'll buy the first netbook with an active digitizer. ...Am I asking for too much?
LondonConsultant @ Feb 6th 2009 4:26PM
It all made sense until "an actual hard drive...not the SSD crap"...
Ekam @ Feb 6th 2009 6:44AM
hmnmmmmm
seems this month is very hot for netbooks. As ATOM jumps to next iteration , and samsung in coming with his NC20 (via processor) .
lets see who will win .
markhedder @ Feb 6th 2009 6:50PM
The Samsung NC20 can play 1080p videos. This netbook is no different than every other Atom netbook as they all can play 720p videos.
absinthe party @ Feb 6th 2009 7:31AM
Uh-oh, Thomas. You accidentally the line breaks after the picture!
Rsaeire @ Feb 6th 2009 11:24AM
I like the idea of a netbook having the capability to play 720p and 1080p content, as this then enables your netbook to be used as a portable media player. With the advent of HDMI, this would be the perfect choice for people looking to have a media player that can handle all the codecs and resolutions up to 1080p imaginable and use it connected to their living room, bedroom etc.
I bought a Samsung NC10 and with CoreAVC, 720p playback is possible with between 65 -80% CPU usage. It still only has a VGA output, but it at least enables me to connect it to my LCD TV at home or computer monitor in work.
htd @ Feb 6th 2009 7:47AM
N270 plays back 720p just fine, it's only 1080p it cant handle, but, still no upgrade to 1280x720 from 1024x600?
PCIV @ Feb 6th 2009 7:49AM
Personally, I'm waiting for a cheaper Neo or an Ion, hopefully with HDMI output, or DVI output (I have a cable). Atom by itself seems too weak.
Mik Ishmael @ Feb 6th 2009 7:55AM
I want 1366 x 768 LED display w/ nVidia chip.
Lee Osenton @ Feb 6th 2009 8:25AM
I won't dispute the tech advantages of the new processors; but I don't get what the excitement about HD video is. I have a Dell Mini 9 with a 1024x600 screen and I rent movies from CinemaNow for cross-country flights. Even though the downloaded movies are compressed and as far from HD as possible, they look fantastic on my 9" screen (full screen or windowed). My point is that I don't think HD is all that important on a small screen.
I can hear the protests already: the screen is bigger, I would know the difference if I ever saw it, etc. I don't plan to upgrade over this and for new buyers I strongly recommend that they consider how important this is and maybe use the opportunity to pick up a discontinued N270 system on the cheap. On the other hand, I do find the CPU weak when faced with heavy processor loads and the extra power would be nice as well as the power savings.
Monolith-C @ Feb 6th 2009 9:03AM
The Nvidia ION chipset (according to Anandtech) adds 50$-100$ to the cost of the netbook, so I think it is Intel that is the one that is pointing and laughing at Nvidia trying to sell such a costly chipset in a market were margins are razor thin.
Winston @ Feb 6th 2009 11:14AM
"The target price for Ion-enabled machines is around $399."
From this informative interview with the Nvidia CEO:
http://blog.laptopmag.com/nvidia-ceo-sounds-off-on-netbooks-ion-platform-tegra-and-mids
Winston @ Feb 6th 2009 11:15AM
More:
"It’s hard to guesstimate, but our [Ion] GPUs have a price range from $30 to $40. It replaces two other chips, the Northbridge and Southbridge, and will certainly be less than that."
mypup @ Feb 6th 2009 9:05AM
When or if Dell starts shipping them like this for the mini9 and when they run Leopard as well as they do now. Maybe then I will think about an upgrade. Thats alot of if's
Zdm321 @ Feb 6th 2009 9:28AM
My EEE Box, which is based off of the EEE 1000HA (80gb hdd, 1gb ram, N270 1.6ghz atom), can play 1080p video fine with the help of CoreAVC.
Cory @ Feb 6th 2009 9:30AM
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can tell ASUS has not officially confirmed GN40, and ASUS nor Intel have confirmed any HD acceleration on the GN40. I'm especially skeptical because if it could do this, you'd think they would be *heavily* advertising a major improvement like HD acceleration.
I'm also curious to see if this new stuff supports more than 2GiB of RAM - that would be really cool!
sikahr @ Feb 6th 2009 9:56AM
"the GN40 chipset combined with either Atom CPU has a TDP of 16.5W"
Please, give source of this info.
Thanks
sam @ Feb 6th 2009 10:59AM
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11884&Itemid=1
has a report of the 16.5W (combined N280 w/ GN40). I just got this from Google, don't know anything about it.
personally I think low-power, rather than HD graphics, should be the next focus for netbooks (well for one end of the netbook line). Fanless ought to be a requirement, and then you get the battery life that comes with.
sikahr @ Feb 6th 2009 10:02AM
Any links for GN40 specification, official or leaked, anyone?
evan @ Feb 6th 2009 10:21AM
You keep waiting...and saving. I put my $374 down for my 1000he and I am excited about actually getting it and using it before 2010.