We dare say NVIDIA's ION platform hasn't been the quickest to go from
announcement to
market availability, but at long last we're seeing
a number of
pretty decent options cropping up. The Samsung
N510 is a great test case for the prowess of the chipset, as it boasts the otherwise entirely unremarkable Atom N280, 1GB RAM and 160GB HDD spec, meaning that whatever performance gains it exhibits will be down to the ION infrastructure. Unsurprisingly, the 11.6-inch machine showed marked improvements over standard netbooks in the graphics department, with hardware-accelerated 1080p video decoding and mildly graphically-intensive games made possible. With six and a half hours of battery life and a matte 1366 x 768 screen, the N510 was well received by the
PC Pro team, who could only bemoan the uncompetitive pricing of £382 (about $613). Hit the read link for their full impressions.
