Pushing netbooks even further into the laptop space (no-one can really deny that netbooks are the new consumer notebooks now) is the Nvidia Ion chipset.

It replaces the existing 945 chipset with a smaller chip and provides a big boosts to the graphics (10x is quoted) along with hardware decoding of video formats up to HD rates and digital TV out.

This is excelent news for gamers, CAD artists and people looking for Vista / Compiz eye candy.

Does this open the doors for a slew of SD-card-based games releases and re-releases. We think that there’s gold games for the new netbook crowd. TV-out is exactly whats needed too.

Don’t forget that the platform should also be usable in the bigger (7″ and above UMPCs and tablets.)

More details in an article over at Laptop Magzine.

Nvidia Goes Netbooks: Releases Ion Graphics Platform for Intel Atom.

Something is up here. Something exciting perhaps. Either someone had a bit too much love for OQO’s ID when they hashed together a design for Nvidia’s computex webpage or OQO are indeed going to use their industrial design skills to release an ARM-based MID. Oh the mind boggles. Android? Windows Mobile 7?

Click to enlarge. That’s definitely an OQO with an Nvidia logo on it!

Source

The OQO ultra mobile PC design is one of the best there is. Beautiful engineering. Near perfect keyboard. I’d be extremely happy to see OQO screw up all definitions of a ultra mobile PC and release this as a MID.

I’ll be trying to confirm a yay or neh in the next 30 minutes.

Update: Nvidia seem to be showcasing quite a lot of other peoples designs!

Update2: ARM issued a press release saying that Nvidia Tegra is ARM11MPCore (up to 4 cores.) Could be interesting in a handheld for browsing, audio and telephony.

In an article over at CNet, Mike Rayfield, general manager of NVidia’s mobile business reveals that the company will show its new Tegra platform and a MID reference design (left) this week.

Tegra comes in 600 and 600Mhz flavours and will be formerly revealed tomorrow if earlier news is correct. It will be interesting to see if this is a Cortex A8 based device with enough processing power to give the Atom Z-Series a run for it’s money.

The reference design looks like an oversize Nokia N96 to me which certainly isn’t a bad thing as it’s likely to have a bigger 4.8″ screen at Internet-friendly resolutions. You could also fit a nice big battery in there for all-day life.

One really interesting aspect of the ‘leak’ details is that the design is being built exclusively to work with Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile 7 is mentioned too. The article also hints that the MID-range extends from 4-inch minitablets (with keyboards hopefully) up to subnotebooks for NVidia. Stick that in your diagram Steve!

Update: Engadget published a few more details:

• The first Tegra systems will be handhelds or small laptops with screens ranging in size from 4-inches to 12-inches.
• Starting prices for the initial devices will range from $199 to $249
• More at Engadget

Update: Gizmodo have an image that seems to suggest that Tegra uses an ARM11 core but its not 100% clear where the image comes from.

I’ll be keeping an eye on new Nvidia Computex website over the next 24 hours. Also note that there’s a MID section on the ARM website that shows the N95 and iPhone as new products.

Update. ARM issued a press release. Tegra will use the ARM11 MPCore (up to four cores) technology.