Acer barely mentioned the Revo amidst its armada of cheap machines last night but after seeing what it could do, in a lot of ways, it’s the most interesting because of the performance it promises to bring to cheap computers, especially if Nvidia can get all of the software ducks in a row to take advantage of its graphics platform. Ion, BTW, is just Nvidia’s brand for its MC79 graphics chip (the GeForce 9400M at the heart of the new Macbooks) coupled with Intel’s netbook Atom CPUs. Revo is the first announced product to use Ion. Nvidia couldn’t reveal the final pricing me, only that it’s "really aggressive" and "well under" $500.

I have lost count on the number of times people asked me if they could play games on a netbook. If you are asking the same question, the answer is a resounding yes, now. That is if you have a netbook with nVidia’s latest ION platform. Essentially it is a Geforce 9400M coupled with Intel’s Atom processor. This is really game changing in the cheap computer space.

Read the rest at Gizmodo

So to summarize, Intel is planning to roll out N280 Atom with a HD capable graphics chipset GN40 besides its usual 945GSE chipset that we have already started to see in newer netbooks today. But it is interesting to note that the power consumption on the GN40 chipset is slightly more than double that of the stock version and will definitely translate to shorter battery life and hotter netbooks. Perhaps that is why Intel is also planning a lower wattage version in the later part of year. Code named Pineview/Tigerpoint, the CPU and chipset combo consumes less than existing platform. The one question here is how this newer platform compares to nVidia’s ION, coming soon to a netbook near you.

Nvidia’s public event in Akiba featured the ION Platform, which combines the Atom Z230 (1.6Ghz) with the Geforce 9400M graphics platform. Nvidia’s 3D steroscopic system was demoed during the event as well.

The machine is almost the size of a palm-top, but was more than capable of  playing a Blu-ray movie at 2560 × 1600 desktop resolution via DVI. The CPU load stayed around 32-50% throughout the demo, with hardly any drop frames.

With excellent graphics performance, coupled with low power consumption, I am sure a lot of you are waiting to see netbooks shipped with the ION platform. That will bring mobile gaming to a whole new level.

small and lovely

the specs

back of the demo unit

cpu performance