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Video: Ion-Powered Lenovo S12 Looks Great, But Not Coming Until Fall
June 25th, 2009 by Mark Spoonauer
Why would anyone want souped up graphics on a netbook? Good question. And we got our answer during a brief video demo with Nvidia today, who showed us its Ion platform (which combines 9400M graphics with an Atom processor) running on the eagearly anticipated Lenovo IdeaPad S12 ($488.99) (though it’s not this Ion-packing model, we’ve got a full review of the Lenovo S12). The good news is that the performance looks pretty stellar.
The bad news is that you’ll now have to wait til the fall to scoop up this version of the S12, which will sell for $495. Lenovo had originally said “later this summer” in its May 25th press release. We’re guessing that this could be a launch netbook for Windows 7 ($74.99). Based on our brief hands-on time, we think the Ion-powered S12 will be worth the wait.
The S12 we saw played a 1080p trailer of the Dark Knight (most netbooks can handle 720p but choke on 1080p), while the CUDA-enabled BodaBoom software transcoded another video clip in the background. We didn’t notice many dropped frames, and the S12 finished processing a 2-minute clip in about 2 minutes, whereas the typical Atom-only netbook takes 30 minutes to transcode a 5-minute clip.
We still have high hopes for Ion, but we’re curious to if and when other big names jump on the bandwagon.
Our Related Content
- Poll: How Much Is Too Much For A Netbook?
- Lenovo Holds Off On Ion Until Windows 7... And So Does Samsung
- Lenovo IdeaPad S12: Full Review
From Other Sites
- Lenovo IdeaPad S12 wth NVIDIA ION now shipping (Liliputing)
- Lenovo IdeaPad S12 with NVIDIA ION launching Thursday in Japan (Liliputing)
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5 Responses to “Video: Ion-Powered Lenovo S12 Looks Great, But Not Coming Until Fall”
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June 25th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Was that demo running Windows 7 or Windows CE? Other articles have mentioned Nvidia considering Windows CE or Android, but I’m hoping for an OS that was designed for desktop applications. Is this demo an indication that they’ve decided on an OS?
June 26th, 2009 at 12:09 am
30 seconds before seeing the gadget! More product less dude!! And I’m a girl. . . ha ha ha
June 29th, 2009 at 8:42 am
@anonymous:
nVidia is considering Windows CE / Android fot their Tegra platform. Tegra is completely different from Ion. Ion is for x86(_64) computers, Tegra is for ARM computers (i.e. Phones).
July 7th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
@anonymous
judging from the taskbar in the video, it looks to be windows 7 with the icon based taskbar units rather than title…
can’t be for sure, as it seems laptopmag.com disabled the aero function from it if it is so
July 7th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
nevermind, as you can see from the windows animations @ 1:44, it definitely is either the windows 7 beta or RC