First Ion-based netbooks reportedly on track for June debut
By Donald Melanson 
posted April 24th 2009 4:22PM
posted April 24th 2009 4:22PM
Nothing is completely official just yet, but Pocket-lint is reporting that its inside source at NVIDIA has "confirmed" that the initial batch of Ion-based netbooks will be announced at the big Computex trade show at the beginning of June, and that the first few netbooks could start shipping "as early as July." Of course, there's no word on any specific companies involved just yet, with the source only going so far as to say that the announcements will come from some "key players." Acer would seem to be about as close to a sure thing as there is, however, considering that it just recently launched the first Ion-based nettop, the AspireRevo, and that it's never passed up an opportunity to roll out yet another new nettbook in the past.
First..Ion-based netbooks? wow.
It was clever the *real* first time... this is just annoying
my bad. :) ...but i couldn't resist.
... but it's an acer
lol that was hilarious
I was extremely interested in the Ion netbooks/nettop but once i heard Hulu chokes on it since flash is cpu intensive, i really lost interest :(
I was planning for the perfect, cheap, ultra small media center
flash is an atrocity anyway
Just grab an original Xbox and load XBMC on it. They're about 40 bucks on eBay. Problem solved :)
Hulus working fine on an msi wind on ubuntu 9
Rumor is that an accelerated version in in the works.
@m2h
Nobody gives a shit about Linux.
Play a HD MKV and the original xbox will choke.
Its also big, bad to the eyes and is not very green on the electricity. And lacks USB ports unless you hack together some shite or buy extra cables.
Oh and to add.
Its USB ports are slow, can read only USB flash drives and can only read 4gb of a fat formatted drive.
@AVG apparently you didn't notice that your antivirus of choice runs on Linux even though it doesn't get viruses
@AVG - I think your comment is hilarious given that your icon/user name advertises anti-virus. I'm so glad I don't have to bother with with it anymore. And in case you haven't noticed, there are a lot of people running Linux, particularly on netbooks. Ubuntu runs much faster than XP on mine.
or you could get an N10J 6 months ago
Ah! the suspense is killing me -_-
I know flash is an atrocity, but hulu uses flash. No way around it. I personally tried hulu onmy netbook and even with the small rez it was still stuttering let alone 480p rez.
Please please please let them have a resolution greater than 1024x600. That's the only thing stopping me from buying a netbook.
Dell mini 10 has HD screen
Mmm, too much suspence...
http://www.domadestupide.com
I thought the editors would have at least put up a picture of the Ion Canon..
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/starcraft/images/0/00/IonCannon_SC1_Game1.jpg
what the hell is an "Ion Cannon"?
(see the reason the editors might've skipped on your purportedly hilarious idea?)
ASUS "never passed up an opportunity to roll out yet another new nettbook in the past". Not Acer. Acer is the company who got to number one on the strength of a single CHEAP netbook. Yes they now have more models than that, but you're still thinking about ASUS, not Acer.
Agreed. That post could have been way more clever if he'd said Acer. You can't count the number of Eees out there on 2 hands.
So...names names...Acer Two!? Hmm...no...not catchy enough. Acer Revo One!? No...too much like the nettop.
Acer Prime! ... yes, yes, yesss that's it!
Sigh. I mean Asus. Maybe he made a mistake too, lol.
Is this an Atom or a celeron?
Atom.
It probably could. Not sure about a good fps though
I don't get all the performance for a netbook. That's not what it's meant to do. It's for simple browsing/email. If you need more power, get a laptop. I can only use my Dell Mini 9 for short periods. Checking email/browsing the web is fine. Typing for long hours? i would have to be crazy. That keyboard is cramped. I haven't tried Hulu yet on it, I have Ubuntu.
@MP2H, thanks for the tip on speeding up Hulu, I'll use that on my laptop (it has discrete graphics... the Dell Mini doesn't)
It will be nice for short clips, dunno if i could go 30 mins looking at that 8.9" screen for a video.
If its made, people will come
*** LARGE COMMENT ***
i think MS and friends should try to develop for the netbook like it's own's platform of sorts (like xbox360/iphone/etc..) in its way recognizing the limitations or abilities of the hardware like ION + ATOM and develop games/SW etc only for that processing and netbook resolution
i hear a lot of raving developers for iphone/xbox etc, but not really for the PC infrastructure.
this hardware is better than iphone/touch and they have much cooler "pocketable" games for the go, vs what you could play on a netbook (2003/2002 "PC" games)
maybe i should start developing lol
I assume that's the idea behind the "netbooks" that seem to be coming down the pike with ARM cores. Just get a browser in your face and hide the OS. Or use Android to take a cellphone OS with an App store and put it on a netbook. There will clearly be attempts to do this.
The potential advantage? Lower power consumption, longer battery life, cheaper.
Enough to justify the fact that it doesn't run Windows? We'll see... I don't think an ARM-based netbook at $199 will undercut an Atom netbook at $249. Now at $149 or $99... that's another thing.
I'd like to see somebody go as cheap as possible, e.g. a touch-screen tablet with no keyboard, few ports, ARM core, and an Android OS. Use it as a browser tablet in front of the TV or watch movies on it. Maybe a 9" 1024x768 screen.
@Fanfoot:
"touch-screen tablet with no keyboard, few ports, ARM core, and an Android OS. Use it as a browser tablet in front of the TV or watch movies on it. Maybe a 9" 1024x768 screen."
JFG "CruchPad"..
/rudeness
This is what I have been waiting for. Unfortunately June appears to be the release month for the Pre, as well, so the Pre purchase will take precedence over an Ion based Netbook :(
Why does everyone keep asking this question, "Can it play Crysis?" To be honest, it's just one fps out of many great PC fps out there. Plus, do you really play the game for fun or just like to enjoy super realistic grahpics. Any FPS out there like CoD4 or CoD: WaW or Left 4 dead is more fun than that game called Crysis. The game's true purpose is to benchmark your PC. As for me, I need a portable 10 inch to play CoD, WOW and to watch hulu. Until they starting to bring out those NEW batteries with extremely extended battery life, you are not going to find a on to go gaming PC that last more than 2 hours.
The full 9400M can but this is an ion... so it might be under clocked or something for Low power
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-9400M-G.11949.0.html
Looks like it might be considerably slower than a stock 9400m should still be fast enough to run doom 3 at 30+ FSP though
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html
I was really sold on the Aspire Revo. Now that they’re going to release an Ion netbook within a few months of the Revo’s release (supposedly), is there really any benefit to having the Revo? The netbooks will probably have a similar form factor, ability to upgrade (memory), and enough ports with the added benefit of a keyboard, trackpad, screen, and battery. I don’t really care about the quality of the netbook elements as long as they’re not terrible. So my question is, why would I buy the Revo if an Ion netbook is probably the exact same product plus netbook capabilities? (Assuming that the price difference won’t be over 50-100 dollars American, if there is any.)
For the love of god, somebody please release an Ion netbook with a 1280x800 (or any 1280-wide) resolution MATTE screen on it. MATTE! It doesn't matter how good the 3D acceleration or video playback is if all you see when you look at it is your own face.
√ Nvidia Ion in netbooks
- Windows 7
- Dual Core Atom in netbooks
The master plan is slowly falling into place...
Also, isn't 7 supposed to come out sometime in the summer?
That is a 9300M GS most likely .... ion is a 9400 something... probably underclocked so it might not even be as fast as the 9300M GS
In the meantime, there are gajillion more netbooks with the ancient GMA950 that never dies.
Amazing no one mentioned this as well, the other main restriction will be listed since Intel intentionally put limits on this processor such as allowing it to work single channel mode, 2 GB memory restrictions, no pci-express x 16 slot, and many other restrictions when it's used with Intel chipsets (limiting it's green factor). I would love to see the N330 with the Ion gpu or better yet I would like to see one designed for home servers with 2gb limit ram slots, more than 2 sata slots so I can run a raid 5, more efficient chipsets, and then a second one setup for those who want to build a media center PC out of it so they can choose the gpu of their choice. If I was Nvidia I would serious consider getting into the cpu market and not depend on Intel, Amd, or Via if they can maybe even have a gpu handle some of the x86 instruction set and use it as an all purpose processor. I know Intel is intentionally limiting the Atoms potential so it doesn't cannibalize the rest of it's cpu lineup, Amd won't compete in the this market due to the low profit margins, and Via had and gave away this market. It's a race to the bottom and I think a company will figure out how to make it work, it might actually be Arm if they're smart enough to work with the correct linux vendor instead of brandishing a crappy version to go with it.