Momma always said you had to pay to play, and it looks like
those Europeans won't be the only ones coughing up dearly for the pleasure of having NVIDIA's
Ion platform shoved within Samsung's forthcoming
N510 netbook. According to the fine folks over at
Liliputing, a Samsung rep has confirmed to them that said machine will begin shipping to US soil starting in September (far later than the "July" date
we heard earlier in the year), bringing with it a sizable 11.6-inch display, HDMI output, GeForce 9400M GPU, Atom processor and the ability to handle high-def and Blu-ray content. Trouble is, all that multimedia prowess will demand a stiff premium, and by "stiff," we mean "$599." So, is anyone actually planning on laying down six bills for a netbook, or did you just convince yourself that a
thin-and-light is the way to go?
posted Aug 11th 2009 8:21AM
What a witty article. BTW FIRST
That laptop makes me jizz in my pants, its so hot.
You must jizz very easily. You can use that $599 to see a doctor or buy a much better equipped laptop. just saying.
You sure that's not your wallet vibrating?
Put me down for one. Kthx
9400M in a Netbook?
........
That's what the ION is.
yes and it's called ION
performance good, then invest it!
If she has Blu-ray like you say it is not a netbook
It never says it has a Blu-Ray Drive, it says that it will be able to handle blu-ray content which is probably referring to the file.
"and the ability to handle high-def and Blu-ray content" - I take
that to mean an external Blu-ray drive paired with the Nvidia card, and since it has HDMI output you
can hook up to a nice TV.
$450 would be a steal. For $599 I expect a 12 inch screen and ANYTHING other than an atom cpu. Hell, I would take a Pentium M cpu but i doubt Intel would allow that.
Considering I paid $450 for my Samsung NC10 netbook a while ago, the extra $150, which kind of steep, is not totally out of the question, I may consider pawning the NC10 on my wife and getting one of these.
What does price have to do with screen size? You don't expect a $3000 laptop to come with an 40" display don't you?
I'm really disapointed in what the ION has produced. Atom + 950 GMA = unbalanced system with gimpy GPU. Atom + nVidia 9400 = unbalanced system with gimpy processor. I was hoping beyond hope that the ION would be paired with at least the dual core Atom. (I liked the specs of the upcoming multibook g22 but its not out yet and is thick as my old 15")
On a side note, if you are getting a system that is 11.6", why on earth would you not up to a 12.1" thin and light?!? with way better proccessing power 64x capabilities and a BALANCED system! (I'm working off the HP dv2z which KILLS my ASUS EEE 901!)
Battery Life.....
If they start making Laptops with a 9 hour battery life , no one would ever buy a netbook (well at least i wont)
A Day in the life of my Dv2z:
Fully charged Dv2z and Fully charged MiFi off to a beach with the wife and kids.
Played Lord of the Rings Online for a full 3 hrs 30 min before lunch and being forced to join the land of the living.
Try to play an online game that long on a normal laptop, or play an online game like that on a netbook period.
I'm just saying, how often do you need THAT much battery life at the expense of performance? I'm rarely away from an outlet for more than 3 hours at one shot. I guess it depends on the lifestyle.
A dual-core Atom would NOT have a heavy effect on battery life. This dude is right. Atom 330 + Ion is when it's time to buy.
@Rob
Wow, your wife and kids must be so proud.
@Rob
Playing Lord of the Rings Online for nearly 4 hours on a trip to the beach and rarely being away from a charging location for more than 3 consecutive hours?
"I guess it depends on the lifestyle."
If that lifestyle is "loser" I guess it's just right.
actually, yes, my wife and kids were proud of me! I spent 3 hrs packing and planning the trip ahead of time. made lunch for everyone, cleaned up and spent the next 9 hrs on the beach and playing in the water with my kids. finally drove them all home after a large bonfire that I made. so if you wish to call me a loser because I played online instead of reading a book like other people on the beach, fine.
Thin & lite baby. Just got my Dell Studio 14z....best I ever had
Hecks Yeah thin & lite. Just got my Acer Timeline 14in....best I ever had!
I'd say the max something should be called a netbook is 11" screen. Anything larger defeats the purpose of true lightweight portability. I think the 10.1" 16:9 screen is just about the right size personally, 11" might be nice to have the extra room for a real keyboard without compromising the overall shape and size.
I just don't have any interest in a 13.3" or larger screen to carry around everyday. 11.1" is the biggest I'll go. The whole point of this netbook craze was to actually give people something they wanted to carry around at an affordable price. And it's not so much about the weight as it's about the overall size of the device.
First person to make a Ron Jeremy joke gets an apple. The article did call it "stiff"
I will wait for Intel's Calpella platform (series 5 chipsets, nehalem microarchitecture, 32nm Arrandale CPUs). Nvidia 9400 seem old at this point -- didnt Macbooks debut with the 9400 last year??
Yeah, everyone rags on Intel integrated graphics, its fine for how I use a laptop. Having 32nm CPU and Nehalem will do far more to futureproof my purchase than the dated nvidia 9400.
Apparently you do nothing graphic-related, as the integrated graphics in netbooks is so poor you cannot even run Aero, let alone any sort of accelerated graphic work. Visual Studio, CS, hell even playing multimedia is a chore.
Ion is what netbooks need to run Win7 and future apps. successfully.
And there's a pretty sizable disparity between a macbook and a netbook. i.e. about $600 or so. The 9400m is a remarkably capable gpu for its market, and there's really nothing else like it. It can run aero, play a lot of games decently, do hi-def, etc. and that's a lot more you can say for the x3100 or 4500
@Justin That's not entirely true. I can't speak for Vista but I've seen Win 7 with Aero run just fine on a Lenovo S10.
nvidia's 9400m easily outperforms intel's 4500mhd, which seems like the default integrated gpu for laptops these days. look at the 3dmark scores on notebookcheck.net
@Justin
You can also turn it arround: vista and aero are to heavy/bloated for a netbook. I've ran the full desktop version of ubuntu with all fancy compiz effects (yes, that fancy 3D cube, wobbly windows and so on) on a Asus eee701 back in the days.
As for Visual Studio and CS: A netbook is NOT the right tool for those kind of jobs. Get a desktop or laptop with a large screen, large resolution and comfortable keyboard for that.
Multimedia was a pain indeed but ION should solve that. But then again it's only usefull if you can hook it up to a decent display (through HDMI, not VGA) and a decent pair of speakers. Don't know about you but I don't like to watch a movie on the small screen (with small resolution) of a netbook and crap underpowered built-in stereo speakers.
@Justin Uh check your facts. I have run Vista with Aero on Intel GM945 chipsets & Intel GM965 chipsets using integrated graphics NO issues. I am currently running Win7 Ultimate RC on GM965 (X3100 graphics), full featured, and it super smooth. Also have Win7 running on Dell mini 10v (945GSE chipset) and Vista on a Dell mini 12 (yeah no Aero, but its Vista Basic). I don't assert that Intel integrated graphics are top performing, but the 9400 is just an IGP derived from dated nvidia tech.
Sure, graphic intensive applications demand discrete solutions, but IGPs are ideal for how 70% of buyers use their notebooks.
Intel x4500 graphics (GM45) were better than the x3100 and the coming Series 5 / Calpella chipsets will be better than the x4500 (also the integrated Calpella IGP will be built using a 45nm process and 32nm for the Core i3/i5 CPUs -- and the Nehalem microarchitecture means losing the performance lag of the Northbridge and its FSB -- all offering improved performance.
Perhaps its better to say that, as is often the case with technology, new IGP platforms/generations will reduce the performance advantage of discrete graphics solutions -- especially when built on bleeding edge semiconductor processes.
To be honest, I'm disappointed. The price point of $599 is just too high for a netbook. As the poor college student I am, I had my hopes up that I could get my hands on a cheap netbook that can do some mild gaming for less than $400 (eyes $399 price). If its like this, I should've hopped on the IBM thinkpad tablet deals awhile back (arent that great for gaming but is more useful in school). Heck looking at the recent HP deals, I might as well pitch in an extra $150 and get something with a bigger hard drive, C2D processor, and geforce 9600 and a 5" upgrade to the screen or just $100 and have a 13" screen
Being in a similar position as you (poor college student), I was considering this or the Lenovo S12 with Ion (where IS that, anyway), but ultimately decided to go for that $550 13" Acer Aspire Timeline. In fact, I ordered it two days ago, making me one of those people who "just convince[d my]self that a thin-and-light is the way to go". I wanted the "large netbook" form factor (with a full-sized keyboard and something better than 1024x600), but just couldn't bring myself to accept all the compromises.
I'm looking forward to putting the Timeline through it's paces as soon as it gets here, though it might not suit your needs with the Intel chipset (don't know how "light" you were planning to game). The thing that finally sold me on it over any netbook or even the HP dv2 was the eight-hour battery life... even now there are few netbooks that manage that. Plus, it's 2/3rds the weight of my beloved old Powerbook G4, which is great.
I too am a "poor college student" and was seriously considering buying a netbook because of the form factor and batterie life until i actually saw an acer timeline. its very slim and portable, 8+ hours of batterie life, HD screen(i will accept no less!), I don't have to buy and external dvd drive, and does't have a under powered atom possessor.
@old_fogie_late_bloomer 550! you just got jacked 50 bucks! I got my Timeline for 499 maybe because i have th 14in model and you can play games on it i play halo w/no problem as long as you have nothing running in the background.
The only way for the netbook segment to survive is if they get products like this in the $300 range. Othewise netbooks will become worthless. (For $600 you can get a much better equiped TimeLine or the like.)
If I do see something like this in the $300s, I might be interested.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834149054
12.1",dual core 2.16ghz chip, intel 4500mhd, 4 gigs of ram. all for $50 more. Just sayin. Thanks, but i'll keep my EeePC 900HA if it's all the same to you.
its too expensive for a netbook. just pay the extra hundred an get one of the new acer timelines or msi x-slims with the ati 4330 cards.
just to clarify, i'm referring to the timelines and x-slims that are over in europe right now but won't come here for a few months
Seriously, $599 for an Atom N280 processor inside?
I mean, not even a dual-core Atom 330 inside?
Is someone trying to play a prank?