DosPara Prime Note Cresion NA gets tested

Impress Japan has put up some early benchmark figures of the DosPara Prime Note Cresion NA, which is so far the first and only ION based netbook with an Atom 330 processor. It’s being compared to a wide range of other netbook and notebook configurations and the results are quite interesting.

In PCMark 2005 (this is a synthetic benchmarking application), the dual core Atom 330 isn’t that much faster than the single core Atom N280, as it scores 1,904 points in the CPU test, compared to 1,521 points. The AMD Neo MV-40 (which HP uses in the DV2) scores 1,845 points in the same test.

On the graphics side of things there’s sadly no direct comparison between the Intel 945GSE chipset, as it seems to have failed the test. The ION chipset scores 1,896 here. AMD’s 690G chipset found in the cheaper HP DV2 models and the new models from Acer/Gateway/Packard Bell, scores a mere 820 points in the same test. However, the DV2 models with discrete ATI Radeon HD 3410 graphics are still ahead of ION with a score of 2,018.

3DMark is another common test and here the Atom 330/ION combination scores 3,405 points at 1,024×768 resolution. The 945GSE chipset was tested at 1,024×600, but only managed 638 points at this lower setting. The AMD platform with the 690G graphics scored 1,508, while the Radeon HD 3410 graphic card brought the score up to 3,453.

Battery life is appalling, as the Atom 330/ION combination only manages 2h 34 minutes from a 6-cell 4,400mAh battery. This is only 10 minutes better than HP’s DV with discrete graphics and it’s anything but impressive. It’s unlikely that there’ll be a larger battery and the model supplied is already protruding out the back of the netbook, so if you want long battery life, then this isn’t the product for you.

Impress has also put up a few pictures of the internal workings of the Prime Note Cresion NA and it has two easily accessible memory slots and it uses a standard SATA 2.5-inch hard drive. You can find a few more benchmark figures and a lot pictures here (although the text is in Japanese)

Japan gets first ION netbook with Atom 330

The Atom 330 processor was never meant to end up in a netbook, but not is seems like Japanese DosPara has gone and done what a lot of people have wanted. Not only does the Prime Note Cresion NA as it’s known as come with the Atom 330 processor, but DosPara has teamed up the CPU with the Nvidia ION chipset which should make this the fastest netbook to date, hands down.

It’s a rather large netbook, as it has a 12.1-inch screen with 1,366×768 resolution and at 1.92kg it’s more of a notebook than a netbook. It also has 2GB of DDR2 memory, a 320GB hard drive, a built in optical drive, a memory card reader, an HDMI port, three USB 2.0 ports, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet, a 56k modem (why?) and a 1.3Megapixel webcam. It measures 305×225x37.5mm (WxDxH) and it’s available in Japan now for about €439/US$609 without an operating system. You can find the product page here (in Japanese of course)