The pre-release builds of Google’s Chrome OS have recently been updated with support for NVIDIA’s Ion platform found in certain netbooks, including the Lenovo IdeaPad S12
An ambitious individual who goes by the name of Hexxeh has been compiling the open source operating system since it was released and offering additional tweaks & hardware support where he could. This latest version released by Hexxeh brings graphics acceleration support to the powerful, if not terribly common, NVIDIA Ion platform.
Only a handful of netbooks use NVIDIA Ion, although Lenovo’s 12-inch IdeaPad S12 netbook does have an Ion version available. With a Windows OS, it makes netbooks capable of playing modern 3D games and watching HD video. Adobe is also going to release a version of Flash that takes advantage of NVIDIA graphics acceleration to reduce the strain on CPU’s, making any form of NVIDIA graphics a boon for netbook owners.
Chrome OS is an operating system from Google that is designed around the web browser, with limited capabilities to run traditional applications. Instead, Chrome OS focuses on improving one’s web browsing experience and thus relies on you utilizing cloud-based services, like Google Docs or an online image editor rather than MS Office or Photoshop.
Lenovo has released a second configuration of their IdeaPad S12 netbook with NVIDIA Ion chipset, this one with a boost in specs.
Just last week we brought you news that Lenovo had finally released their IdeaPad S12 12-inch netbook with the NVIDIA Ion chipset. While that first model featured boosted specs over a standard netbook with Windows 7 Home Premium, 2GB RAM, 250GB hard drive, and Bluetooth, this new model builds on that even more.
The IdeaPad S12 model 295954U is upgraded to 3GB RAM and a 320GB hard drive over the other NVIDIA Ion model, with a $50 price bump to $649.
Unfortunately this new model isn’t eligible for a discount just yet, but you can still get the lower spec’d model for $579.
We’ve been waiting a long time for this, but Lenovo’s IdeaPad S12 is finally available for purchase with the NVIDIA Ion chipset.
The IdeaPad S12 model 29595FU is the only S12 loaded with Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit) and since its not bound by the WinXP licensing, it can be sold with 2GB RAM. You also get a larger 250GB (vs 160GB) hard drive and Bluetooth, which none of the other S12 models have.
All of these new features, along with NVIDIA’s slick Ion platform, will run you $599 and it should ship within 11 days or so. It is even on sale $20 off, see how to get the deal below.
What about you? How appealing is the NVIDIA Ion chipset to you? Do the gaming capabilities matter on a 12-inch netbook? What about the forthcoming Flash acceleration coming from Adobe next year?
How to get the deal
Choose the accessory & warranty options for your IdeaPad S12 (29595FU, column on far right)
Apply coupon in shopping cart with no spaces before/after: USP11THINLGT
Lenovo’s 12-inch netbook, the IdeaPad S12, will finally be available with the NVIDIA Ion chipset on October 22nd in Japan according to reports.
A post on PC Watch, a Japanese news site, apparently indicates the arrival of the S12 with Ion goodies as the same date of Microsoft’s official Windows 7 launch. NVIDIA Ion will add HD video playback capability to the S12, something a regular Atom or VIA Nano powered netbook couldn’t touch. It should even play a good variety of games, including the pretty recent Call of Duty 4 as indicated by the HP Mini 311.
It will also add an HDMI output, although unfortunately the Atom chip probably still won’t be able to handle HD Flash video like Hulu or YouTube. You’ll have to wait until sometime in 2010, when Adobe adds NVIDIA GPU acceleration support for Flash and every NVIDIA Ion PC gets an instant leg-up on its competitors. You may not realize it, but Flash animations eat a lot of your CPU and just having this update should give your system a decent performance boost.
Back in May when Lenovo announced the IdeaPad S12, a $499 target price was indicated for the NVIDIA Ion version, although this could go up to $550 according to current rumors. Other netbooks with the NVIDIA Ion platform are the HP Mini 311 and Samsung N510.
Problem: Flash is a CPU hog and makes watching high res video on low-end systems impossible
Solution: Flash 10.1 to receive NVIDIA GPU acceleration and run on certain smartphones
We’ve been dancing around this for a while. The Broadcom HD Accelerator originally promised Flash acceleration support sometime next year. The VIA Nano platform for netbooks helped with some more horsepower. And just a few short days ago, a netbook was demo’d playing HD video via YouTube flawlessly.
Adobe has finally officially announced that Flash 10.1 will support GPU acceleration on NVIDIA Ion, GeForce, and Tegra products. This means netbooks like the IdeaPad S12 (if it ever launches with Ion) or the HP Mini 311 (which can already play Call of Duty 4) will now be able to play HD video like on Hulu or YouTube without a problem.
I’ve talked a lot about my love of NVIDIA’s Tegra platform and this just completes that picture. The forthcoming Tegra-based, Chrome OS running Lenovo smartbook will be able to seamlessly watch high-def videos, in Flash or otherwise, and likely get similar or better overall battery life than Intel’s Atom platform which can’t handle HD at all. Also, the new Zune HD music player uses the Tegra chip and its browser may eventually benefit from Flash acceleration. YouTube on the Zune HD? Yes please. I smell an app from Microsoft.
As for smartphones, Flash 10.1 will also run on the following phone OSs: Blackberry, Google Android, Palm WebOS, Windows Mobile, and Nokia Symbian S60. James at jkOnTheRun talks a bit more about the phone implementation.
Look for Flash 10.1 to hit sometime in the first half of 2010, and the masses will rejoice.
Back in June of this year, Adobe and NVIDIA announced intentions to bring Flash video acceleration to GPUs. We are starting to see the fruits of this with a demo of GPU-accelerated 720p Flash video.
The PC in question isn’t a run of the mill netbook, but one of the new HP Mini 311 netbooks with an 11.6-inch screen and NVIDIA Ion graphics. The German folks at NotebookJournal recorded a video showing the progress made by NVIDIA and Adobe, embedded below. It looks quite good, but unfortunately it won’t be available until sometime in 2010. (Skip to about 1:20 in the video to see the accelerated playback)
Trivia: What netbook are they playing the “unaccelerated” content on?
Lenovo’s IdeaPad S12 netbook was launched back in May with plans for an NVIDIA Ion version available towards the end of Q3. Those plans have been delayed in anticipation of the Windows 7 launch in October.
While some are undoubtably waiting for the netbook with some graphics gusto to make its appearance, Lenovo has decided to maximize their customers’ experience and wait for Windows 7 to be available preloaded on the machines. While there could be other developmental or supply issues preventing an earlier release, the move to wait makes sense. Windows 7 truly will provide the best user experience for the high end netbook and also allow Lenovo to equip the S12 with more RAM than their current license with Microsoft for Windows XP allows, improving the customer experience even further.
Currently there are two versions of the IdeaPad S12 netbook available: the standard Intel Atom platform and one based on the VIA Nano. The VIA Nano platform reportedly offers a strong amount of horsepower over the Atom, even playing 720p HD video and full-screen Flash video, while losing a bit of battery life. The forthcoming NVIDIA Ion equipped netbook will replace the wimpy Intel graphics on the Atom-based machine with NVIDIA’s Ion chipset, adding a whole new level of graphics capabilities with little loss in battery life.
The folks over at PC Pro had some time with one of Lenovo’s new IdeaPad S12 netbooks, specifically one of the models powered with NVIDIA’s Ion platform. As a refresher, the Ion platform features a GeForce 9400M GPU that has pretty low power consumption to keep things mobile, but offers leaps and bounds performance over Intel’s integrated solutions.
Just how much better performance, you ask? How about full HD decoding and encoding? PC Pro reports that watching Blu-ray discs is a breeze and you can even encode a 1080p video almost 4 times faster than the standard Atom/GMA combo. They also report that the overall quality and performance of the machine was most satisfactory. Hit the link for their hands-on impressions.
From this blogger’s perspective, HD handling capabilities are very important for today’s laptops, of any type. Video playback, whether locally off a disc or over the network, is becoming an increasingly common use of computers as being glued to the TV becomes less and less advantageous. Free, high quality video of popular content, like TV showes and full movies, is becoming more and more common, as are HD streams of that content, and computers, especially laptops, need to be able to handle that. I know that if a laptop can’t stream Hulu HD full screen for me, it goes in the circular file.
