As we promised, we are continuing the story about nVIDIA but we will also show you what ASUS prepared for this year's CeBIT. Asus has, with no doubt, one of the biggest booths and most products of their huge product lineup were available to visitors. Their assortment was so huge that we will have to present it from two parts. By this occasion you will see mobile devices from Asus. The second part will be published tomorrow.
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ION platform was all that NVIDIA employees at CeBIT were talking about and when we took a closer look it was obvious why. As you can see from the pictures this platform has miniature dimension with lot of connectors and great possibilities. Power consumption of this system should be around 20W which is low if you take into account what it can deliver. This platform is powered by Intel Atom CPU so platform application is very wide. Till now combination of 945 chipset with higher power consumption didn’t have similar possibilities especially when it comes to HD video reproduction and gaming. Main difference is in support for HD video reproduction since NVIDIA chipset has support for hardware video reproduction acceleration. For connecting to HD TV HDMI 1.3 and optical SPDIF connectors are present. Monitor can be connected thanks to DVI and VGA connector while external storage can be connected thanks to 6 USB ports that are also present.
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We saw presentation of gaming possibilities of this platform. Call of Duty 4 was runnig and under minimal settings was playable but this platform isn’t gaming oriented. 3D acceleration is included as support for operating system functions. As it is the case with most new product from NVIDIA, ION platform also has support for CUDA so it is possible to transcode video files on this platform. With Badaboom software speed of video transcoding from 1080p HD to Bold format (480x320) was between 24 and 30fps while on the same configuration without CUDA is has below 1fps. One of the best news is that all this shouldn’t cost more than 300€. Although we didn’t get information from NVIDIA when we can expect these to appear on the market, Acer announced that we could expect first samples signed by Acer in April.
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Second important focus point in “greens” camp was GeForce 3D Vision: effect of depth when 3D is displayed on 2D display. If you are interested in this you will need NVIDIA IR receiver, wireless glasses, monitor with 120Hz refresh rate and of course software that supports all this. Effect is similar to effect of watching 3D movies in movie theatres but without those funny blue/red spectacles. We tried this new technology few times and all that has a lot of potential. Nevertheless we didn’t like that resulting depth is not smooth but rather gradual (stepwise), so is looks like background of the picture has several layers. We had problem with price of all this because it should be around 450€ but then again monitor is included in price. Also we would like to test this system on more than one game and see effects of prolonged usage.
Obviously there is big battle in the notebook arena so it is no surprise that NVIDIA presented two new graphics cards in mobile segment: 280M that should replace 9800GTS and 260M that should replace 6800GS. These graphics cards should be faster than ATIs counterparts in range up to 30% but this was official NVIDIA data and we cannot confirm these numbers until we test those products in our test lab.
Mobile devices
nüvifone M20
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nüvifone G60
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Since ASUS and Garmin joined forces in a project of making new product that should be fusion of navigational device and mobile phone, CeBIT 09 was the perfect place for presentation of this new device to wider public audience. Nüvifone M20 and G60 are first two models that are based on this concept and displayed on CeBIT 09. Both devices are monoblock touchscreen devices with GPS navigation and all features of modern mobile phones. Model M20 has 2.8 inch TFT display and it is based on Windows Mobile 6.1 OS while G60 is slightly bigger with larger display and it’s based on Linux OS. Although M20 has smaller display it has VGA resolution of 640x480 while 3.5 inch display on G60 has smaller WQVGA resolution of 480x272. Because of better optimization for smaller resolution picture on G60 look as good as one displayed on M20. Both devices have intuitive Garmin navigational software but we are under impression that Garmin software under Linux works noticeable faster. Both models should appear in shops in next few months with appropriate maps for Garmin software.
Eee PC 1003HGO
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Asus S121
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Eee PCs were presented in few categories suited for different user groups. Models with 10 inch displays of 1000 series with suffix HG and HGO are configurations suited for users that need to be connected to the Internet all the time no matter where they are. New keyboard design and small dimensions still belong to same design line as previous Eee PCs but SIM card slot and support for 3G data transfers help these models to stand out from the crowd. Integrated LAN, Bluetooth and wireless are, as expected from model like these, also included. Both models are based on Atom platform. Suffix HA marks the models that are focused on style and design. Slightly faster Atom CPU in combination with LED backlighted display, very thin chassis and top-class built quality make these models interesting for users that pay special attention to their style and appearance.
Fancy model of Eee PC netbook suited for users with deep pockets got new representative in form of S121 model which besides its striking design has slightly faster platform and it is made out of precious materials. Palm rest is covered in leather, cover has piano finish, Swarovski crystals and frame made of chromed metal are obvious clues that these models don’t belong to mainstream. Price should be somewhere in between 700€ and 800€.
One more interesting series of Eee PCs is “U” series. These models (U80V and U80A) has keyboard and touchpad with backlight, Core2Duo CPUs, integrated or discreet graphics (Radeon HD 4570) cards and 14 inch LED backlighted display. Keyboard keys are lighted so markings are visible even in pitch dark and touch pad is lighted when touched in form of horizontal line at the point where you touched it. Thanks to Hybrid Engine technology that is used in these models battery can provide up to 6 hours of autonomy. U20 model has smaller display 12.1 inch, it is powered by Intel ULV platform with Core2Solo CPU. For now these models are just concepts but our contacts from ASUS confirmed that because of good public reactions these models can be expected in shops in very short time period.
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Eee PC T91
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Display that has swivel feature is property of TabletPCs and Eee PC T91 model. This model is primarily suited for fun. It is power by Atom Z series CPU that has low power consumption, 8.9 inch display and special software that is suited for touch navigation: TouchSuite.
ASUS couldn’t ignore All-in-one trends so they have made its representative in that category in form of Eee PC Top. This is configuration that is packed behind touch sensitive screen suited for home users. On CeBIT was presented one model: Eee PC Top ET1602. This model has 15.6 inch display and is based on Intel 945GSE chipset and powered by Atom N27 CPU, has 160GB HDD, 1GB of RAM and all connectors that can be found on any standard PC. All this weighs 4.3kg and with it you get keyboard and mouse and all this is made in transparent-white design style that obviously has its roots in Apple products. These configurations will be available in white and black color, wireless or wired peripherals and screen sizes from 20 inch to 22 inch.
Eee Top PC ET1602
If you think that that is all from Eee PC series let us assure you that you are terribly wrong.
Eee Box B206 is model that will very soon appear in the retail stores and this is desktop configuration that is packed into small chassis with dimensions: 222x178x26.9mm. This is not just another small factor PC because it can broadcast HD video material through wireless network. Because it has low power consumption, small dimensions and HD support it can be mounted on, or beside TV and be used as HTPC. Although it has single core Atom CPU thanks to Radeon 3450 graphics card, it is possible to play HD video without any problems. This video can be then broadcasted to TV receiver true wireless network but only up to 720p resolution because of limitations of 802.11n wireless standard.
Eee PC Keyboard
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For end of the story about ASUS Eee PC on CeBIT 09 we have left, by our opinion, the best: Eee Keyboard PC. This is concept that users who remember the time when computers like Commodore 32/64 were pinnacle of home computing. Eee Keyboard is media center integrated into elegant aluminum keyboard. It has 800x480 5 inch display with WiFi, Bluetooth, stereo speakers with microphone, SSD disk (16/32GB), weighs less than 1kg and it is powered by single core Atom CPU so HD video reproduction shouldn’t be a problem. With this device you get also receiver that can be connected with TV. Eee Keyboard is powered by battery that has estimated autonomy of 2 hours.
Asus K7010
After we saw NVIDIA presentation of new GPUs suited for portable devices, we saw “K” series of ASUS notebooks with model K7010 that has NVIDIA MCP79d chipset and GT120M graphics card. This combination has ultralow power consumption and great performances. In this series is implemented IceCool cooling technology that provides lower temperatures of palm rest surface so there will be no unpleasant warming up of palm rest area after prolonged usage.
Asus VX5
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Asus VX3
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VX5 notebook model is made in collaboration with Lamborghini and presents series that is characterized by luxury and performances. It has quad core CPU, 4GB RAM, 16 inch display, NVIDIA GT130M graphics card and HDD of 1TB, while the rest of configuration is consisted of best components and packed into compact chassis. All this weighs no more than 3.3kg. Chassis is covered in leather and in manufacturing process ASUS used top-class materials. This model also has backlighted keyboard, Lamborghini logo and similar details that separate this model from the rest on the market.
E-Book concept is something that we will see in the future and this is model that is shrouded in cloud of mystery because no one could tell us more about it. We managed to find out that it will be suited for book reading because it will have two touch screens and possibility to create personal virtual space but nothing more about this product we didn’t manage to find out this time.
