So that's what pure awesome looks like...

Cool spy shots of the new Mac Mini you got there.

NVidia's Ion is what you get when you take an atom and boost its charge.
Graphics are over nine thousand as well. Superb.

I think the big draw to a system like this is in the corporate world. Small, decent performing computers that use very little energy. Plus, I'd imagine they would be very cheap.

how about NV enter in competition with the PSP. This tech should prove worthy.

Nvidia is really kicking ass with their 'ONE CHIP TO RULE THEM ALL' approach. It really saves a lot of space and allows them to pull off neat stuff like this in such a small form factor. Zotac's 9300-ITX is another great example.

So can Nvidia succeed in persuading PC makers to adopt the Ion platform over any potential objections—and competition—from Intel?

That will depend on what an Ion platform will cost at retail, I would think. The allure of the "netbook" is its rock-bottom pricing. Price it too high and it's no longer a netbook, and its competitors in terms of price may run rings around it. For this story it seems like pricing is possibly the most important consideration of the 9400M concept and yet I find no indication of what nVidia proposes to charge OEMs for the 9400M. Was this an oversight in the article, or was nV just mum on that issue, as I find it incredible that no one at this demonstration would have asked that question.

As well, I'm wondering how this:

GeForce DirectX 10-class graphics

...corresponds with this:

Nvidia had turned down the graphical detail options...

I mean, "DX10" is all about "graphics detail," isn't it? I'm also wondering if marketing "DirectX 10-class graphics" to the netbook audience is actually a smart move since it could be that most netbook shoppers just aren't looking for that sort of thing in the first place, and if its inclusion (marketing or otherwise) means a higher price then that alone might cause them to look elsewhere.

Swap out the Atom and put in a C2Duo and I think we have the next Mac Mini.

Why in the world is Intel still saddling the 330 with a relatively ancient chipset?

I really hope there will be a netbook that can do 1080p + have good battery life. This possibly gives hope.

"The push for Ion dovetails nicely with Nvidia's larger corporate message of late, which has focused on the importance of the GPU as a citizen equal in stature to the CPU in a PC's overall selection of components."

Only Intel wants people to think that the CPU matters and nothing else. The Intel integrated GPU is the crappiest hardware on the market except maybe for SIS chipsets and even then I'm not sure. A good GPU should be in every PC for snappy video, photo browsing and entry level gaming. ONLY and I stress only again, nVidia and AMD (ATI) have GPUs that meet this criteria.

Hardly a fair comparison. The Acer Aspire One was a single core Atom 270 while the Ion unit was a dual core 330. Also, the Acer had half the ram of the Ion.

The Acer was also using the old 945G chipset - Poulsbo should be able to offload HD playback just like the 9400M.

I'm not denying that the Ion is a much more powerful chipset than the 945G or even Poulsbo, but nv really went out of their way to stack the deck in their favor there. Sneaky so-and-sos.

Man, I need to get my hands on one of these...

This is so awesome! When will it be available? I want to order it right now!

any info on chipset power usage?

All it needs is a super-small bluetooh

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833242001

eSATA HDD enclosure

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817145167

for a nice large HDD and maybe another for a Blu-Ray/HD DVD ROM/DVD+-RW

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106270

Or maybe splurge on a Blue-Ray burner

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136155

And a USB HD tuner

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116034

And you have a HD-TV DVR setup...which is way smaller than the peripherals that you attach to it. ;)

Of course, if you spend on this 500GB 2.5" drive, then you can skip the external HDD and you don't -- strictly speaking -- need the Blu-ray drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136314

All in all, many neat possibilities.

i'm so very glad to see that other people are beginning to understand that low power CPUs, paired with reasonable GPUs, can give great results! this CES makes me feel so vindicated!

Mmm...yummy pico-ITX with a decent chipset when heavyier lifting is required. I could really go for one of these in a tiny form factor rather than a mini-ITX system or a netbook-at-home type of deal.

Cram one of those under the dash of my Jeep.

dammm that NV chip is 4 times the size of the atom! wow!

Wow, I'm impressed. This could make a pretty damn "powerful" netbook, as netbooks go.