It may be hard for the casual consumer to discern between Intel’s new Pineview-based netbooks and NVIDIA’s graphic packed Ion, but ask either company and it’s clear they both believe they have the upper hand.
Intel has certainly been pushing Pineview-based netbooks as the next step up from ye-basic-old-graphically-challenged-Atom, but there has already been some doubt cast as to whether users will really see a major difference.
Last month, even the Wall Street Journal wrote that its sources at Intel expected “only a slight performance improvement by adding graphics to the new Pineview version of Atom.”
And NVIDIA, of course, is quite happy to concur with this lackluster prediction, adding to it an entire shopping list of things ION is purportedly better at.
NVIDIA’s Ken Brown told us that even the current-generation of ION-based netbooks, which is due for a refresh within the next couple of months, “will continue to deliver a markedly better experience than Intel’s next-generation Pine Trail architecture in terms of video, games, and rich media performance — all with the long battery life that consumers expect.”
Indeed, at this year’s CES in Las Vegas, a number of vendors had ION PCs on display, including HP, Asus and Lenovo to name but a few.
“NVIDIA ION-based netbooks can do a number of things that far outshine Pine Trail systems,” Brown told us.
“Let’s start with video. NVIDIA ION delivers flawless 720p and 1080p HD video, including Blu-ray support,” he said, adding that “Pine Trail-based PCs will not be able to support true 1080p video without a 3rd party chip (from Broadcom).”
“This is because current and future Atom CPUs do not have hardware video decoding capabilities,” he continued.
Brown went on to say that ION could also support full-screen streaming video, including HD video, over the Internet with Flash 10.1. “While Intel has promised that Pine Trail-based solutions with a Broadcom chip will deliver this capability, we have not seen confirmation from reviewers yet,” he told us.
To rub salt into Intel’s wounds, Brown went on to say Pine Trail-based systems would “continue to provide a disappointing gaming experience,” although, to be fair, a netbook is not typically – if ever – purchased to be a lean, mean gaming machine.
But if one did want to play a spot of World of Warcraft, Torchlight, The Sims 3, Battlefield Heroes or more, then, yes, one could do that with pretty decent results on an ION-based netbook.
More realistic and perhaps more significant to most netbook users is ION’s capabilities when it comes to photo and video editing.
As readers (and viewers) of Netbook News, you’ll likely be aware of how important video is becoming these days, thanks to affordable little video cameras like the Flip and sites like Facebook and YouTube.
But in order to store and post a plethora of videos, one often has to convert the file to scale it down to a smaller, more manageable size.
Brown reckons ION netbooks like the HP Mini can do that conversion about five times faster than Atom-based netbooks, especially if using media conversion apps like Badaboom which take advantage of the GPU.
“More and more applications are harnessing the power of GPUs, including Google Earth, vReveal, TotalMedia Theatre, Muvee Reveal, CyberLink MediaShow 5, CyberLink Power Director 7, and more,” Brown told us.
ION-based systems, he added, would also make for “smoother HD video,” and would be able to run Windows 7 Home Premium support whilst Pine Trail allegedly only uses Win 7 starter.
“Pine Trail is simply not up to the task,” Brown told Netbook News, advising potential netbook customers, “if you want a premium, media-rich experience on a netbook, go get an ION netbook like the ASUS 1201N.”
According to Brown, the top four reasons consumers should buy an ION netbook and not Pine Trail are as follows:
1) ION netbooks support full HD video and HDMI.
2) ION netbooks enable you to play a large variety of popular games including The Sims 3, Torchlight, World of Warcraft, Battlefield Heroes, and more.
3) Don’t accept limitations. ION netbooks have a real graphics processor, which means they will accelerate demanding visual applications like Google Earth, Badaboom, vReveal, and TotalMedia Theatre.
4) Because you want Windows 7 Home Premium, not Windows 7 Starter. Windows 7 Premium provides customization options, automatic backups, Windows Media Center, and Windows Aero effects.
Meanwhile, Intel, which told Netbook News it would not compare or comment on other company’s products, seems to believe that people buying a netbook wouldn’t be buying an Atom based machine for its performance, nor to perform high end tasks.
Also, because Intel’s Pinetrail integrates graphics straight onto the chip rather than having a separate chipset, consumers may find a Pineview-based netbook to be marginally cheaper – but considering all of the above, $50 here or there is unlikely to be the deciding factor.
Also, with ION 2 set to launch in just over a month, with purportedly new and improved features, perhaps Intel’s Pine-View will be left not seeing the forest for the trees.
