nVidia CEO on Netbooks: Ion, Atom, Nano
So in a pretty interesting interview, nVidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang gave us a pretty damn good idea of where he, and nVidia, is headed in the the small form factor market in the near future. Of course, what might interest most is what he has to say about nVidia’s Ion platform, which is what has caused Intel to somewhat panic and come up with the Intel Atom 280 and Intel GN40. Ok, panic is probably being a bit harsh, but it’s safe to say that nVidia has the enthusiast crowd pretty fired up about the possibilities the Ion platform will bring to netbooks.Anyhow, Huang, when asked about the timing of the Ion platform, is pretty evasive. He doesn’t point to any specific time you can expect to see a netbook powered by Ion, but says that many manufacturers have already jumped on board. He goes on to say that the current platform of just an Atom and a crappy Intel integrated graphics solution in a netbook (he’s far more diplomatic than I am) is going to hurt the industry. In a way, he almost seems to agree with Apple in that he feels the current solution is a limiting factor.
Of course, Ion ought to help change that. In another particularly candid moment, he was asked what he thought of the Atom’s rivals and most likely processors to see in a netbook, namely the Nano (I’m eager to try one) and AMD’s Neo platform. He only has praise for all of them, though of course he’s quick to really talk up the Atom and how great it is…and did he mention that Ion is coming out soon and it’ll really be awesome?
(An aside, I know it’s apples to oranges, but I’m wondering how an Ion powered netbook would fare against an AMD Athlon 2650e powered notebook, especially in OS X with Open CL, which Huang briefly mentions. I imagine we’ll find out later some time in May or August.)
Joking aside, there’s some good information in there, including future plans for nVidia to roll out Ion on a variety of platforms aside from the Atom (even the Nano!). So, if you want to see where netbooks may be going in the next few months, give it a read. It’s worth your time.
LaptopMag has the interview and all of the gory details.
