VIA are promoting the VN896 Direct-X9 capable chipset for the C7-M as a solution for ‘Ultra Mobility’ on their website at the moment. Interesting.
I’m not aware of any devices using this chipset yet but I get the feeling we’ll see something soon. Vista drivers are already available (and recently updated here.)
It will be important to keep a sharp eye out for devices at CeBit and to try and find out what sort of power envelope the part has. Unfortunately, despite the Direct-X 9 support, the chipset doesn’t enable Aero (as far as is known) but because of the Vista drivers, it gives hope that the Video experience is going to be improved through the use of the on-board Mpeg2/4/WMV9 hardware decoders. The other minus-point for the chip is that its not an integrated north/southbridge like the VX700 integrated chipset. Board designs using this would be bigger than with the VX700.
