Comments on: Intel N400-series Technical Docs Now Available.

By: sid

sid — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:52:42 +0000

When is AMD/ATI gonna wake up?

By: ToeCutter

ToeCutter — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 03:03:30 +0000

Same here. What most of these “You-don’t-need-HD-on-a-netbook” types miss is that anything above 480i (640/720 x 480) is considered HD!

If you’re gonna watch a YouTube flick at full screen resolution (very likely, considering most netbooks have 10 inch displays), you’re going to be above the HD resolution “watermark”.

Considering that GMA500 decoded h.264 perfectly fine, the Atom N400, with it’s fancy die-integrated, but sissy-weak GPU benefits only Intel, as the it keeps manufacturing costs down and profits up.

I don’t have an issue with Intel making a buck, but their chips are used almost exclusively in this space. They’ve been making it very hard for other vendors to provide solutions that we consumers want with their licensing/bundling practices that have already piqued the interest of both American and European fair trade watchdogs.

How long do we have to put up with crap graphics on low-end PCs? It seems like each time a solution appears, Intel releases yet another junk GPU to package with their cheap CPUs.

Anyone who calls this progress is insane. It’s just more of the same from Intel.

By: doe

doe — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:30:28 +0000

I see too many of these unimaginative or not smart people always asking why do you want your netbook to play HD videos or netbooks don’t need to play HD videos.

By: 720p

720p — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 07:45:51 +0000

If only they used the GMA 500 so we could get H.264 video acceleration. I hate having to transcode my HD videos so that my netbook could play it. It’s nice to just transfer videos to my netbook and play them on the go. It’s also nice to play them on a TV from the netbook. So ION or any piece of hardware that offers video acceleration is relevant to NETBOOKS and pretty much any mobile device that people plan on watching any kind of video on.

By: DavidC1

DavidC1 — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 23:28:38 +0000

Ok, I understand what you are saying and its relevant to LAPTOPS, but in Netbooks where the screen isn’t big enough to do 720P, or high enough quality to matter, not enough will care. Nvidia will probably carve a niche for people who absolutely want Atom Netbooks that cost near what the laptops will cost, but it’ll be fairly small in proportion to the whole market.

If you want some portable device which appeal because of its ridiculously cheap pricing, the extra $50 or so will discourage a lot of buyers. Originally, the Netbook wasn’t meant to be, but their initial goals of making really cheap platform for OLPC-type of computers turned out to be popular with the general public.

The profit margin is low in Netbooks for them to really bother anyway. If they had what they want, the MID/UMPC market should have been flourishing.

By: Chippy

Chippy — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 11:51:48 +0000

Sorry. That should have been Z500.
Corrected.

By: Chance Stevens

Chance Stevens — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 04:24:05 +0000

This is exactly why Nvidia is coming out with ION 2 to work with these new Pine Trail processors. People are going to want to pay the premium in order to play HD online video and if Intel is going to let the market share go to someone else, people are going to pay attention.

By: Hyd

Hyd — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:45:02 +0000

Just waiting for some low-power ION for future UMPC’s :] .

By: Hyd

Hyd — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:44:10 +0000

GMA3100 is a graphic core of the new n400 series . Performance is not better that gma950 and lacks ofcourse h264 decoding capabilities . Maybe gma500 suck in video games and 3d graphics but the dxva feature is really a good thing.

By: comment

comment — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 04:44:04 +0000

Are Z200 CPUs something new?

By: Brazley

Brazley — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 04:30:36 +0000

i’m guessing the N410 & N510 will still support high resolution monitors, since they will come in Nettops & all-in-1 PC’s

By: anon

anon — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 01:32:24 +0000

Ugh, what hardware DO they (Intel) have on offer that has a low power draw and can support video decoding and external monitors? Why would they want to kill Pineview for video applications if not to segment the market and push a (hitherto non-existent) solution instead?

Ion works if you need lots of graphics performance, but H.264 decoding and digital video out are not high-end features; those are *requirements* for basic tasks of today and basic connectivity! That HD-capable (720p) resolution support doesn’t help much if there’s little in the way of using it – at least as far as video is concerned.

By: animatio

animatio — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 17:58:05 +0000

after “Intels Netbook Marketing-Chef Anil Nanduri said – ion in netbooks is overkill …..” nothing to add to this. for me intel definitely has become an anarchistic / anachronist company. working against the market will not help for long, but strongly backfire sooner or later. consumers are ot such foolish.

By: Plaxtor

Plaxtor — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 14:35:27 +0000

wow, they really crippled external monitor support. i wonder if it was necessary for power consumption reasons or if they dont want people using it as a primary machine & docking at home.

By: Bugsy Bowe

Bugsy Bowe — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 12:10:36 +0000

Intel N400-series Technical Docs Now Available. http://bit.ly/6jrwj4