Digital Home Thoughts: Acer First To Offer ION 2 Goodness

"Not withstanding the addition of the HDMI port and HD display, the Pine Trail netbook has the same chassis as the previously reviewed 532h, but inside it's a whole different story -- its 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, GMA 3150 GPU graphics, 2GB of RAM and 320GB hard drive will be joined by a discrete NVIDIA GPU."

Now I am sure that some people will raise the usual objection, why load a netbook down with a power hungry discrete GPU when all that is needed is a cheap HD accelerator from Broadcom? I am still in the "more is better" camp, and the ION 2 actually addresses some complaints. First off, it will reportedly use NVIDIA's Optimus software, which allows for dynamic switching between GPUs. This means that the change from the integrated GPU to the discrete GPU will be seamless and on demand. You do not even have to tell the laptop to switch anymore. It will do so based on what programs are running. The switch is also sub-second, so no more waiting. You get all the benefits of integrated graphics, with a competent GPU accelerator when needed. I still hope that this kind of setup, meaning a more capable GPU becomes standard. I see it i nthe same vein as why would I want a 500GB data transfer cap when I currently only use 200GB? Or a 5Mbit connection (I live in Canada) is just fine for me. What use would I have for something faster? More capabilities allows for more innovation.