Unrelated to the earlier story about a possible MID platform from NVidia is this story that first surfaced about a month ago through Digitimes. They reported on an agreement between VIA and NVidia to co-operate on a low-cost notebook platform and according to research presented by EeePCNews last month, the VN platform would combine a ‘C8′ Isaiah and an Nvidia chipset to form a low-cost notebook platform. According to an Nvidia-sourced slide it looks like the initial aim is a Vista-capable netbook. While a screemer of an XP machine would be my preference, as we move forward and past XP end-of-life dates and towards a Windows 7 product, higher-powered netbooks will become more important. A higher processing power is also going to enable lower-cost primary notebook PCs for many and not just a ring-fenced class of Ultra Low Cost PC (ULCPC) devices. Low cost 1st-tier notebooks could impact the notebook market in a far more serious way than the 2nd-tier Eee PC did.
Image from a ComputerBase article. 12th April
CNet report that an announcement will come from VIA just before Computex which starts on the 3rd June. I could be wrong but its seems obvious to me that the April news and this announcement are one and the same thing.
Via will provide the central processing unit and motherboard, plus the core logic (chipset) solution, while Nvidia will provide the graphics processing unit, said Drew Henry, general manager of Nvidia’s platform products division. Nvidia will offer standalone “discrete” graphics for both notebook and desktop platforms using the Isaiah chip, Henry said.
Note that this is a ‘discrete’ GeForce graphics solution so the size of the motherboard and the power drain will be relatively high (compared to UMPC and MID platforms.) ‘Cheap’ ‘Vista’ ‘Notebook’ seem to be the keywords here and while this might not be that interesting for the UMPC market at the moment, the Isaiah technology is an important one and will filter into the UMPC market as it is refined. These early products will give us a good idea of performance.
May 26th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
I agree this isn’t UMPC news as such, once you start touting Bluray capable as a feature UMPCs are far off. But I am still interested in seeing what this Notebook will be able to do and how cheap cheap will be.
May 26th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
” the Isaiah technology is an important one and will filter into the UMPC market as it is refined.”
From the past experience with Via and its cpus (and chipsets), I certainly would not bet on this! On the contrary…
May 26th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
and somehow i am sure, that the Isaiah will get a new name, too
This years Computex will be definately exciting
May 26th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
VIA has no booth at Computex this year…
May 26th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
@inkaholic
but they have rooms in the International Convention Center!
Which is way better cause its not so crowded over there and i have all the time to play around with the new platforms :p
May 26th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
This is great news however VIA is known in the industry by our partners to be very much a PR company oppose to delivery company.
They talk about great advancements but rarely do chipsets come available or they come in very hard to get quantities.
VIA needs to start announcing things closer to when they come available.
Where is Nano ITX? Where is Mobile ITX? They are out there but *very* hard to get.
Nano ITX (if I recall) is nearly 2+ years old and difficult to find in quantities.
VIA is known for announcements but not known for shipping.
I really hope this trend starts to change because for a long time their small form factors did not have much applications but now with all these mobile devices they have an opportunity to become a big player if they can just begin announcing/shipping in a timely fashion before Atom becomes too far ahead (2 years from now).
May 26th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Yeah, Via is pretty terrible at releasing things in a timely fashion. But they do usually get out eventually. And in fairness, Pico ITX wasn’t all *that* late (as far as I know), and seems to be easy enough to find.
May 27th, 2008 at 12:42 am
I’m waiting until late 2008/early 2009 to shop for a bigger screen replacement for my EeePC, hopefully things with regard to new processors will have solidified with real product.
May 27th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
@Sascha
But don’t be an electron and don’t spin only around the Atom. Have a fun there.
Keep eyes wide open at Computex:) I’m waiting for some info about UMPC especially received under the counter