HP’s ION-powered Mini 311 netbook benchmarked

The HP Mini 311 is one of the first ION-powered netbooks hitting the market (along with the Samsung N510 & Lenovo Ideapad S12). The inclusion of Nvidia’s ION circuitry should propel the netbooks performance way past than one with just Intel graphics. The difference will mostly be felt in 3D graphics, HD video content and flash (GPU-accelerated flash was officially announced yesterday by Adobe).

Laptop Mag has revealed its first set of benchmarks that it has for the HP Mini 311 and compares this against traditional netbooks along with some of the latest CULV-based ultra-thins. The Mini 311 scored 1,917 on the PCMark05 test, nearly 500 points better than the current netbook average. Read more

Adobe officially announces GPU-accelerated Flash Player 10.1

Adobe has finally got round to announcing that the latest Flash player 10.1 will pretty much work on pretty much most mobile devices. On the netbook side of things, Adobe has partnered with Nvidia to enable hardware acceleration of the flash player. Adobe has said that a beta of Flash Player 10.1 is expected by the end of the year.

What this means is that HD flash content from YouTube, Hulu & BBC iPlayer should work stutter-free on Nvidia ION-powered netbooks or Tegra-powered smartbooks. Nvidia ION netbooks coming out by the year-end includes the Samsung N510, HP Mini 311 and Lenovo Ideapad S12.

Adobe has also partnered with Qualcomm to get flash working on its Snapdragon chipset. This should hopefully mean a smooth flash experience on smartbooks too. Check out a few video demos of the new flash player in action after the jump. Read more

Nvidia & Adobe’s GPU-accelerated Flash Player coming soon?

Nvidia & Adobe has long-talked of releasing a hardware-accelerated support for Flash videos. Early builds of this player has been floating around with one such example on YouTube (although it has since been taken down). The video showcased YouTube HD videos being played on an ION-powered netbook.

The Flash player is expected to work with other Nvidia chipsets too including Tegra, which is expected to power smartbooks. It is still unclear when exactly the updated Flash player will launch or whether this hardware acceleration is exclusive to Nvidia GPUs. An official announcement is expected by Nvidia on 5th October.

Via Netbooked.

NbC: Samsung N510 netbook unboxed

The Samsung N510 is one of the first Nvidia ION-powered netbooks on the market. It has just seen its retail release in the UK, where it is selling for around the £400 mark. Whilst it is towards the top-end of netbook price-points, it is worth remembering that the Samsung N120 cost around £370 on launch. Not too bad considering that the Samsung N510 offers an 11.6-inch (1366 x 768) LED-backlit display, ION chipset and 7-hour battery.

The much-anticipated Samsung N510 has landed at NbC HQ and we’ve promptly done an unboxing to show you what to expect inside the box. We would like to clarify that we have the UK SKU and it seems that Samsung has been kind to us. The UK model has a 1.66GHz N280 Atom processor and 5900mAh battery. This is an improvement over the mainland European version that is sold with the 1.6GHz N270 Atom and lower capacity 5200mAh battery. Read more

Mobinnova’s Tegra-powered élan smartbook gets priced

Mobinnova’s 8.9-inch élan smartbook was announced at Computex. One of the main highlights of the device is the fact that it sports the Nvidia Tegra platform. This means it can play HD video whilst being energy efficient too. The company claims that the élan offers 5-10 hours of 720p HD video playback in a package weighing just 836g and measuring 20.5mm in thickness.

As we gear up for a release by the end of the year in Asia, digi.163 has found out that the élan will cost $299 according to Nvidia reps. There’s no word when it will be hitting other regions like the US & Europe. If they don’t bump up the price too much for the western release, the élan could do very well for itself.

Via Shanzai.

Tegra-powered smartbooks running Google Chrome OS in development

Earlier this month, rumours surfaced that smartbooks using the Nvidia Tegra platform were in development using Google’s upcoming Chrome OS. Now JKOnTheRun has heard directly from the horse’s mouth that these devices are indeed being planned. Mike Rayfield, Nvidia’s GM of Mobile Business, has said that Nvidia is “working closely with Google,” on the Chrome OS platform. Nvidia plan to support Windows Mobile/Google Android in the smartphone segment and Windows CE/Google Chrome OS in the smartbook segment.

The Tegra platform is different to ION in that it pairs an ARM-based processor with an Nvidia GeForce GPU (ION pairs an Intel Atom CPU with the Nvidia 9400M graphics). The benefits of Tegra includes the ability to handle 1080p video, HD Flash, GPS, Wi-Fi, 3G and a huge battery life. All of this while being very energy efficient.

Asus Eee PC 1201HA: 12” ION-powered netbook gets closer

We had already heard that Asus is planning to launch its own ION-based netbook, following a leaked roadmap. It looks like this launch may be getting close as the Eee PC 1201HA has popped up on the company’s support pages.

The roadmap suggests that this 12.1-inch (1366 x 768) model will be powered by a 1.6GHz N270 Atom processor, 2GB RAM and a 250GB HDD. It will come with Windows 7 Home Premium, 6-cell battery, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi (Draft-N). These specifications appear to have some ground as a Chinese retailer, PCPop, listed the ‘Eee PC 1201N’ last week that has the same specs. Further details include that it will run on a 5200mAh battery that should be good for 11 hours of battery life.

The roadmap suggests that the 1201HA will join the Seashell family of Eee PC netbooks and ultimately replace the 11.6-inch 1101HA. It is expected to launch for around the $499 mark during Q4 2009.

Samsung N510 product page now live

The Samsung N510 is already on sale in a few places including Italy, Germany and Hong Kong. It is expected to go on sale in the UK very shortly, with a number of UK e-tailers opening up pre-orders but no one actually shipping right now.

To gear up for the launch, Samsung has unveiled the official product page for the N510 netbook, which includes an official spec list. The interesting part is that it does look like the UK will get slightly beefier specs compared to mainland Europe. The N510 UK SKU will get the N280 Atom (Europe gets N270) and we believe that the 6-cell battery will be rated at 5900mAH, compared to 5200mAh for Europe.

Also, now that the N510 is already out in Europe, some users have been busy putting the ION-powered netbook through its paces. One such person is Fungus-T, who has ran a number of video tests (including gaming & HD video) to show off what it can do. Check out a selection of videos after the break. Read more

DosPara adds Blu-ray drive to dual-core ION netbook

We already heard of DosPara’s Prime Note Cresion NA 12.1-inch netbook back in June. Well if the specs weren’t enticing then, they’re even better now. The Cresion NA includes a dual core Atom 330 CPU, ION platform, 12.1-inch high resolution (1366 x 768) display, Wi-Fi (Draft-N), Bluetooth 2.1, HDMI out, 2GB RAM and 320 GB HDD.

However, the company has now also managed to add a Blu-ray drive to the overall proposition. This version will cost 70,000 Yen (£465, $752, €528), compared to the previous version that cost 59,980 Yen (£373, $611, €441). This new model ships on September 5th.

Via Akihabara News.

Acer & Lenovo planning Tegra devices with Chrome OS?

Google’s Chrome OS isn’t expected to hit netbooks until the second half of 2010, however Shanzai is reporting that it may be used in upcoming smartbooks. According to their sources, both Acer & Lenovo are working on Nvidia Tegra-based devices that will use Google’s new OS. They are also reporting that these devices could launch as early as next month.

It all sounded so plausible up until that last sentence. Given everything that Google has officially said about its Chrome OS regarding release dates, I’d be very surprised if they were at the stage of even launching Chrome OS as a beta product right now.

Asus 12” ION Eee PC on horizon according to leaked roadmap; other SKU revisions

Following on from the lead of Lenovo and Samsung with their upcoming ION netbooks, it is no surprise to learn that Asus is also planning an Nvidia ION-powered netbook according to a leaked Eee PC roadmap. The roadmap was disclosed by EeeUser Forum member, JazzDoc, who claims to be an industry insider.

The new $499 model will have a model number Eee PC 1201 and sport a 12-inch display and be powered by a 1.6GHz N270 Atom, 250GB HDD, 2GB RAM, 6-cell battery, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (Draft-N) and Windows 7 Home Premium. Interestingly, the roadmap suggests that the 11.6-inch 1101HA will reach EOL in October in anticipation of this new model. Read more

Samsung N510: 3D graphics tested with Doom 3 [Video]

Samsung’s ION-powered N510 netbook should bring a new level of 3D graphics performance compared to current netbooks. For those wondering just how well it fares with games then it may be worth checking out the video below. It showcases how playable Doom 3 is on the N510.

The Doom3 timedemo was first played at a 640×480 resolution where a FPS of 18 was achieved. Cranking the resolution up to 1024×768 lowered the FPS to 16. Whilst this may seem disappointing, it is worth pointing out that Doom 3 was one of the most graphical intensive games back in 2004. Yes, it may be 5 years old but it can still be relatively demanding on low-end desktop PCs.

HD YouTube performance was also tested and played fine apart from in full-screen mode (hardly surprising). However, the content played fine when downloading the file and playing it through VLC. Check out the Doom 3 video after the jump. Read more

Shenzhen Weibu N10A ION-powered netbook

The Shenzhen Weibu N10A is one of the latest netbooks to be powered by Nvidia’s ION-platform. Interestingly, it also sports an Intel Atom 230 (1.6Ghz) processor that’s normally found in nettops. This particular netbook created waves over the weekend when the listing over at Akiba Hotline said the the model had a dual-core 330 Atom CPU. That has since been corrected to the Atom 230 processor.

The Weibu N10A also comes with 1GB RAM, 150GB SATA HDD, HDMI-out, webcam, two USB ports and Wi-Fi (b/g). Apparently it will ship without an operating system. If you are interested and are in Japan, then the Weibu N10A will go on sale shortly for 49,800 Yen ($527, €368, £321).

Via Cnet.

Samsung N510 now shipping in Europe; first unboxing pics appear

Samsung’s ION-powered N510 netbook is now shipping in parts of mainland Europe. This concurs with the news we received yesterday that Samsung will be shipping the 11.6-inch N510 with Windows XP and won’t be waiting for Windows 7, unlike the US. Italian retailer MediaWorld has the Samsung N510 in stock right now for €499. It is also shipping in Germany.

We don’t know whether different SKUS are planned for the mainland European and UK market, but all of the ones appearing in mainland Europe come with the 1.6GHz N270 Atom CPU. This contrasts to the UK SKU (NP-N510-KA02UK) being listed with the 1.66GHz N280 Atom. The UK SKU is also meant to have a 5900mAh 6-cell battery compared to the 5200mAh battery found in the European SKUs. This could be a mistake but we’ll only find out for sure when it releases here in a few weeks time.

NetbookNews.de managed to get hold of the first N510 unboxing pictures via reader, Joerg Ingenbrand. There are a number of pictures of the device itself and also compared against the company’s best-selling 10-inch NC10 netbook. It is nice to see the N510 sporting a matte display and it’s nice to see a bigger touchpad too. Sometimes, despite having a bigger chassis, manufacturers don’t actually increase keyboard/touchpad sizes that much. Check out some of the unboxing pictures after the break. Read more

Samsung delaying ION-powered N510 until Windows 7 launch?

We heard yesterday that Lenovo will not be launching its ION-powered Lenovo Ideapad S12 until after Windows 7 has been released. This left a clear road for Samsung to be first on the market with their N510 ION-powered netbook. However, according to Laptop Mag, the 11.6-inch N510 may also be delayed so that Samsung can ship it with Windows 7.

I’m not sure if the release will be delayed worldwide or just in the United States. But from our sources, a number of retailers are still looking to launch the N510 at the beginning of next month. It will be a shame if the launch were delayed, especially as a wait for Windows 7 may mean a higher price point.

Samsung is planning on shipping the N510 with the ION LE platform and Windows XP. They may have decided that they will deliver a better experience by shipping it with Windows 7 instead and using the full ION platform that is DX10 compatible. Hopefully, all will be revealed shortly.

Update: We have heard from a reliable source that the Samsung N510 will indeed be shipping in Europe with Windows XP. However, this model will be stopped when Windows 7 is released. Whether that means it will then simply ship with Windows 7 or a change of specs is not known right now.

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