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ION powered products galore

by on01 June 2009

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Computex 09: Nvidia shows of partner models


During a press conference the day before Computex officially started, Nvidia announced a couple of new ION based netbooks and a wide range of ION based nettops and even an all-in-one system from ECS. Although the Lenovo S12 netbook was revealed last week, it was still the netbook that got the most attention from the press. The other two models were actually the same netbook, just branded by two different companies, neither being brands we’ve heard of prior to them partnering up with Nvidia.

The build quality of what we can only describe as budget ION netbooks wasn’t quite up to the standards we’ve come to expect from the current crop of netbooks and we doubt that we’ll see either model enter the retail market outside of Asia. On the other hand, the nettops consisted of several interesting models, although strangely enough, most of those came from unexpected companies.

For those wanting a slim-line system without an optical drive both Foxconn and Pegatron had some very slim and interesting models on display. Another unknown player in the PC market so far, but a maker of portable media players in the local Taiwanese market called FunTwist also had a rather interesting looking nettop on display, but again, availability outside of Asia might be a problem. MSI disappointed with a rather ugly design and some other manufacturers displaying devices seemed to need some more time to finish them off.

The ECS all-in-one system was interesting by the simple fact that it could easily be wall mountable and the display could be folded to work with the system either wall mounted or on a desk. This was also the only desktop system that was actually demoed running during the event, which could possibly be something of a problem, as we really expected to see more working ION based systems on display.

Finally there were a couple of new mini-ITX ION motherboards from Pegatron on display, but it’s unlikely that these will ever appear in the retail market, but interestingly, both boards featured a PCI Express x16 slot which would allow for a wide range of upgrade options for those that feel that the graphics of the ION chipset isn’t quite up to scratch for whatever reason.

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Last modified on 03 June 2009
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