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ASUS Eee PC 1201PN with NVIDIA Ion now available at an Amazon.com near you
Well, what do you know? Just a few hours after hearing the Acer Aspire One 532g with NVIDIA Ion 2 has been canceled, the Ion 2-equipped 12.1-inch ASUS Eee PC 1201PN that we've also been waiting on pops up for sale on Amazon.com. While we had heard this Eee wouldn't be shipping in the US, that's clearly not the case, and for $484.00 it's not a bad deal either -- especially considering the Eee PC 1201N started at $499. The spec rundown is exactly the same as we've been hearing for months -- it's got a Intel Atom N450 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive and NVIDIA GeForce 201M graphics. But don't forget while this is technically dubbed as having "Ion 2," it doesn't use NVIDIA's Optimus technology, which means the GPU is always on, and thus probably going to chew away at the battery life. The whole last part is quite a bummer, but we're still betting some will hit the source link below and pull out the plastic. Will you? Updated: If you're waiting to read a review before pulling the trigger LAPTOP Mag has one up right now. Stay tuned for the official Engadget review soon.
Zotac ZBOX HD-ID11 and its Ion 2 innards reviewed
Small form factor? Check. Low power consumption married to 1080p video playback capabilities? Of course. Quiet cooling? Naturally. Those are the basic requirements for, and their fulfillment is the means by which we judge, a good home theater pc. They're also the highlights of Zotac's Ion 2-powered ZBOX HD-ID11 barebone (you have to add your own RAM, storage and OS) nettop, which recently visited AnandTech's labs for some old fashioned review action. It's a highly illuminating read, particularly for those interested in the differences between NVIDIA's Ion generations, which throws up a mixed bag of results. While you'll be quite alright watching Full HD Blu-rays on the ZBOX, Flash hardware acceleration -- yeah, that old nugget again -- is not yet implemented well enough, resulting in a maximum of 480p resolution before Hulu streams started glitching out on the reviewer. A June driver update from NVIDIA should rectify this issue, and we're encouraged to wait it out and see what we might see then. In the mean time, you can just delve into the complete analysis which awaits at the link below. [Thanks, Wowzers]
NVIDIA Ion 2 Acer and ASUS netbooks won't ship until late May
NVIDIA's next generation Ion platform was announced back in early March, so naturally we've been wondering where all the souped-up netbooks based on the tech have been hiding. We wish we had better news, but it looks like the wait will have to go on a little while longer. While NVIDIA claims no delay on its end, ASUS and Acer have confirmed that their respective Ion 2 netbooks will not arrive until the end of May or even as late as the beginning of June in the US. The 12-inch ASUS 1201PN, which packs a dual-core Atom processor and a 16-core Ion chip, is set to hit Europe and Asia in mid to late May and will make its US debut in June. Similarly, Acer's 10-inch Aspire One 532G is planned to be released around Computex in early June. We just have a feeling there will be some more joining the Ion 2 netbook brigade in the interim, but it's looking like we'll just have to kick off the summer with another Ion showdown.
Zotac's ZBOX HD-ID11 has NVIDIA Ion 2 and Atom D510 to thank for excellent media playback (updated)
Like gaming? Move right along to the iBuyPower booth, please. Want an unobtrusive PC that will feed your Hulu and YouTube HD streaming addiction? Say hello to the ZBOX HD-ID11. It's basically a desktop version of the same Ion 2 setups you saw announced on the mobile front yesterday, and as such should provide flawless Flash 10.1 playback while occupying an extremely lean footprint on your desktop. Zotac has matched MSI's Wind Box DE220 with its inclusion of a dual-core 1.66GHz Atom D510 CPU, though it obviously differs with its NVIDIA Ion 2 graphics subsystem that includes 512MB of dedicated DDR3 memory. HDMI 1.3a and standard VESA wall-mounting are expected extras, with six USB ports, integrated 802.11n WiFi, dual-link DVI, and a 6-in-1 media card reader covering the rest of your bases. Check out some 1080p playback on a similarly specced system right here while you wait for pricing and availability to be revealed. Update: We've heard directly from Zotac on the matter of pricing and we're told that the American MSRP will be $209.99 ($239) for the barebones edition, which will require you to add your own hard drive, memory and OS. Update 2: Zotac seem to have been a little too ambitious with the initial price they quoted and have asked us to correct that number upwards by 30 bucks -- MSRP is now expected to land at $239.
NVIDIA Ion 2 now official; Acer, ASUS and Lenovo at the ready
NVIDIA's Ion 2 chipset -- or "the next generation of Ion" as the company clunkily calls it -- hasn't exactly been a secret, but NVIDIA is finally signing on the dotted line and giving up the deets on the new Intel Atom-compatible graphics chipset. It hasn't been a secret that Ion 2 uses NVIDIA's new Optimus GPU switching tech to automatically toggle between the Pineview chipset's integrated GMA 3150 and a discrete NVIDIA Ion GPU, but we can now confirm that both the 16-core Ion chip for desktops and eight-core unit for netbooks are based on the GeForce G210 GPU. That means Ion 2 should support HDMI out, 1080p Blu-ray and Flash playback, Windows 7 Home Premium, and mainstream gaming out of the box. (Take that, Broadcom Crystal HD.) And unlike Ion numero uno, NVIDIA's also promising up to 10 hours of battery life on netbooks -- thanks to Optimus the system knows when to shut off the discrete GPU when not in use to save power. How about some actual systems? While the Acer Aspire 532G netbook already popped up at MWC, NVIDIA is promising 30 more Ion netbooks, nettops and all-in-ones before the summer. To kick it off, NVIDIA confirmed that ASUS will update its Eee PC 1201PN netbook, Eee Top 2010P, and Eee Box with the new graphics solution, while Lenovo's C200 and Acer's Aspire Revo will also get in on the action. We got to see the Revo strut some Blu-ray playback, so hit the break for some video footage and the full PR. %Gallery-86770% %Gallery-86776%
