Nvidia ION 2

[Rob]

If you don't know or care about the chipsets in netbooks then let me enlighten you. I own a Asus 1000he netbook with an integrated gpu that I found out doesn't do half the things I need in a netbook. With Nvidia's new Ion2 some very important bullets have been added to the netbooks arsenal.

* 1080P Bluray playback
* HDMI output
* HD Flash playback
* Improved battery life (think 10 hours of light usage)
* Video editing
Also you no longer have to worry about switching the graphics to optimize battery life thanks to Nvidia's new optimus tech. It's how Nvidia improves battery life by letting their system switch graphics from integrated to dedicated gpu depending on how much power you need for the task at hand.

Is there anything more that a netbook needs to be able to do? I don't think so and I will be selling my netbook within the week and sitting on the cash until another 10-12" model with this new tech pops up. I like the idea of having a small and light netbook that can plug into my HDTV and playback HD footage from the net or via a portable Bluray drive. Now when I edit and burn footage from my HD camera I can easily get it onto my friends TVs for home movies :)

[Rob]

The Ion2 will use the GeForce G210 GPU which should allow for medium settings for games like World of Warcraft and similiar titles. I hope the price for Ion2 isn't as high as the current gen Ion hardware which sells for around usd $400-$600. For that price you could get a full sized laptop that can do all the same things with the exception of battery life and physical size. I think a lot of my fascination with netbooks is just how much technology has advanced and how they can fit it into such a small frame.