Hewlett Packard’s HP Mini 210 comes in a variety of attractive colors, and features a slim new design with a removable access panel making RAM and hard drive upgrades ridiculously easy. The base mdoel is just $280, but for $330 you can get the netbook with a high definition, 1366 x 768 pixel display. And for $365 and up, you can get the netbook with a Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator to enable 1080p HD video playback on this low power netbook, making the HP Mini 210HD even cheaper than Dell’s HD-capable Inspiron Mini 10.

Engadget’s Joanna Stern has posted the first review I’ve seen of the HP Mini 210HD with a Broadcom video accelerator. The verdict? The laptop got decent, but not stellar battery life, 720p video (including Flash) played back smoothly, but 1080p Flash video wasn’t as smooth. The touchpad with integrated buttons, however, sounds like something that could take a lot of getting used to. Since the touchpad supports multitouch gestures, Joanna says it sometimes had a hard time distinguishing between actions.

Hit up Engadget for the complete review, includign a video playback demonstration.

Dell

Dell is now offering the Inspiron Mini 10 netbook with an optional Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator. The decoder gives the mini-laptop a bit of help decoding 720p and 1080p HD video, something which an Intel Atom-powered netbook would normally struggle with.

The announcement comes hot on the heels of the launch of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 beta 3, which adds support for the Braodcom accelerator. In other words, not only can you watch HD video stored on your hard drive, but you should be able to stream high quality and HD content from sites including YouTube, the BBC, and Hulu.

In order to get the Broadcom video accelerator, you’ll need to select Dell’s “Performance Plus” package, which boosts the starting price from $279 to $409. But in addition to the HD accelerator, you also get a 10.1 inch, HD 1366 x 768 pixel display, 6 cell battery, and 250GB hard drive. And at $409, the Dell Mini 10 is one of the cheapest HD-capable netbooks on the market.

Adobe has just released Flash Player 10.1 beta 3. And for netbook owners, one of the most exciting updates is that there’s hardware acceleration support for some netbooks. Basically, if you’ve got a netbook with an Intel Atom Z5xx series processor and integrated GMA 500 graphics, you should be able to watch 720p, and maybe even 1080p HD Flash video on your netbook with the latest version of Flash Player.

The update does not apply to the vast majority of netbooks released in 2008 and 2009, which have Atom N270 or N280 processors and GMA 950 graphics.

The reason for this is that GMA 500 graphics feature hardware acceleration for H.264 video, while GMA 950 graphics chips do not.

Some of the laptops that have GMA 500 graphics, and which should benefit from the Flash Player update include the Asus Eee PC T91MT, Eee PC 1101HA, Sony Vaio P, Dell Inspiron Mini 10 (original), MSI Wind U115, Viliv S10 Blade, and Fujitsu UH900.

Unfortunately, Flash acceleration won’t necessarily make these computers feel much faster. In terms of overall performance, computers with Atom Z520 and Z530 processors tend to feel slower than those with Atom N270 chips. I have, however, heard decent things about the performance of netbooks with 2GHz Atom Z550 processors and GMA 500 graphics, although I haven’t had a chance to extensively test one myself.

Update: Engadget reports that Flash Player 10.1 beta 3 also adds support for the Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator.

via Netbooked

Credit: PC Pro

Intel’s Pine Trail platform wasn’t designed to give netbooks a huge performance boost. For most day to day tasks, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between a netbook with an Atom N450 processor and GMA 3150 graphics and one with an older Atom N270 CPU and GMA 950 graphics. But there’s one thing that Pine Trail netbooks can do that older Atom powered mini-laptops can’t: handle 1080p HD video playback.

Surprised? Well, the truth of the matter is that most Pine Trail netbooks won’t do this out of the box. But it turns out that’s a software issue rather than a hardware one. The drivers that come with Windows 7 aren’t optimized for 1080p HD video playback. So while most videos with resolutions of 720p or lower will play back fine in Windows Media Player, you’re going to need to install some software if you want to be able to watch 1080p content without first transcoding it.

I’ve already told you that the latest version of the Jolicloud Linux-based operating system brings support for 1080p video in a variety of formats including MPEG4, DivX, and Xvid. And you don’t have to wipe Windows off of your hard drive in order to install Jolicloud. The operating system makes dual-boot setups pretty easy. But if you’d rather not have to reboot your netbook to watch a video, there is apparently another way.

The folks at PC Pro discovered that you can purchase CoreCodec’s CoreAVC codec for Windows for $9.95 in order to add support for 1080p AVC or H.264 video playback to a Windows netbook with a Pine Trail processor. The CoreAVC codec won’t work with every media player, but a safe bet is the free Media Player Classic Home Cinema.

Of course, while some netbooks have 720p, 1366 x 768 pixel displays, I don’t think we’re going to be seeing any 10 inch netbooks with native 1080p screens anytime soon. But if you have a large collection of 1080p videos that you’d like to be able to watch on the go without first transcoding them to a lower resolution format, Jolicloud and/or the CoreAVC codec may be the way to go.

via Slashdot

The Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator enables high definition video playback on netbooks with Intel Atom processors that wouldn’t ordinarily have enough power in the graphics or CPU departments to handle 1080p HD video. It’s not a complete graphics card, but rather a media coprocessor that can be added to an internal PCIe slot in some netbooks. A handful of netbooks from Dell and HP are available with an optional Broadcom HD card. But some netbook users have been picking up cheap cards on eBay and installing them in other 10 inch mini-laptops for a while.

One thing I hadn’t seen before though, was a Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator on a 9 inch netbook. But that’s exactly what EeeUser Forum Member horakus managed to create by adding a PCIe connector onto the mainboard of an Eee PC 901 netbook to make room for the video accelerator card.

It’s not the easiest hack on earth. But if you find yourself with a 9 inch netbook like the Eee PC 901 and you want to be able to play 1080p HD video on a non-HD screen, it loks like it is possible, at least on some models.

The Broadcom Crystal HD is available on eBay for as little as $19.

via Netbooked

Just when I’d gotten used to telling people that new Pine Trail netbooks were pretty much the on  par performance-wise with models with Atom N270/N280 processors, the folks at Jolicloud have gone and proven me wrong. Within the next week or so, they plan to push out a new version of the Jolicloud operating system that will add support for 1080p HD video playback on netbooks with the Intel Atom Pine Trail chipset.

The same update will bring improved support for notebooks with NVIDIA ION graphics, GMA 500 graphics, and VIA C7-M processors. But as far as the Pine Trail netbooks go, here’s the cheat sheet:

• 1080p HD video: DivX, Xvid, and most other MPEG4-based codecs should work… except for H.264
• 720p HD video: H.264 should play smoothly
• In order to play, you’ll need a netbook with an Atom N450 or N470 processor and integrated GMA 3150 graphics
• No external processor such as the Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator is needed

Unfortunately the new kernel will not be able to bring 1080p video support to netbooks with GMA 950 graphics. They’re just not up to the task.

Jolicloud founder Tariq Krim says the update will be available to Jolicloud users later this week or early next week. In the meantime, you can check out a video of the Samsung N220 netbook playing 1080p HD video after the break.

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Credit: Laptop Magazine

Intel Atom powered netbooks typically have more than enough processing power to handle day to day tasks such as surfing the web, editing documents, or watching standard definition YouTube videos. But the integrated graphics solutions that come with these netbooks typically aren’t powerful enough to handle 1080p HD video, high definition Flash video, or hard core video gaming.

Of course, the simplest way to make sure you have a laptop powerful enough to do those things is to either shell out the big bucks for a high end ultraportable or buy a larger laptop that has a netbook-like price, but higher performance graphics and CPU options.

But there’s another approach that some netbook makers have been taking. NVIDIA and Broadcom both offer products that can enable higher performance graphics in one way or another on netbooks with Intel Atom processors. The NVIDIA ION solution replaces the integrated graphics with an NVIDIA graphics processor which adds support for HD video playback as well as the ability to play some video games and perform other tasks that take advantage of the more powerful GPU.

The Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator is a cheaper option which adds 1080p HD video playback capabilities, but which isn’t a full fledged GPU in its own right. Computers with this card still use Intel’s integrated graphics, but have the ability to tap the coprocessor when it’s time to display HD video.

So how do the two stack up against one another? The best way to test would be to take two machines that are identical in all ways except that one has the Broadcom card while the other has NVIDIA ION. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of any PC maker that offers those two options on the same machine. But the folks at Laptop Magazine did the next best thing and benchmarked a Dell Inspiron Mini 10 with a Broadcom HD card against an HP Mini 311 with NVIDIA ION graphics. For good measure, they threw in a version of the Inspiron Mini 10 without the Broadcom card.

The results, as you can see in the graph above are pretty stunning. While the NVIDIA ION card outperformed the other two options in every test, the Broadcom card enabled 1080p HD video performance on the Dell laptop that would have been impossible without the card. And the difference between 59 frames per second and 48 frames per second is actually pretty insignificant, since your eye won’t notice the difference.

Of course, the Broadcom card doesn’t support video gaming. And the latest version of Adobe Flash Player doesn’t work with the Broadcom HD Video Accelerator yet, which means that HD Flash video isn’t support. But it should be soon.

The Asus Eee Box EB1501 was already one of the most powerful nettops in the Asus family thanks to a dual core Atom 330 processor, NVIDIA ION graphics, and a built-in DVD drive. But now it looks like there’s a Blu-Ray option as well, at least for European customers. Swiss retailer web site Toppreise.ch has listings for a Blu-Ray version of the nettop with Windows 7 Home Premium and 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive for about 426 Euros or $617 US.

Of course, for that kind of money you could get a much more powerful machine if you don’t care so much about size and low power consumption. But the EB1501 is one of the smallest Blu-Ray players you’re likely to find. The nettop is roughly the same size as a Nintendo Wii, which is to say, it’s not that much larger than the Blu-Ray discs it can read.

Toppreise.ch says the EB1501 with Blu-Ray will begin shipping on January 19th.

via Netbook Italia

There are a growing number of solutions for improving the graphics performance of low power netbooks. NVIDIA and Broadcom have the two most popular solutions at the moment, with NVIDIA’s ION platform replacing the Intel Atom’s integrated graphics with the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M chipset, and Broadcom’s Crystal HD Accelerator working alongside the integrated graphics to accelerate HD video playback. Now it looks like there may be a third player: Quartics.

The company’s Qvu platform works sort of like Broadcom’s solution. It doesn’t replace the integrated graphics, but rather comes into play when you’re running an application that needs the extra boost. The Qvu chip can handle 1080p HD video playback. But that’s just the start. It can also do real-time conversion of 2D video to 3D. And even with 2D content the Quartics card doesn’t just play the video. It actually enhances the video as it plays, enhancing the contrast and tweaking a few other things to generally make even low quality YouTube videos look better.

Read the rest of this entry »

They’re not actually available for purchase yet, but bargain-hunting web site LogicBuy has apparently spilled the beans on a couple of previously unannounced HP mini-laptops. This comes on the heels of HP uploading support documents for the unannounced HP Mini 210.

Here’s what’s new:

• HP Mini 210HD – This model will have the same basic specs as the Mini 210, including a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 CPU and GMA 3150 graphics. But it will also pack the Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator for handling HD video with resolutions up to 1080p. LogicBuy says it will retail for about $329.99.
• Compaq Mini CQ10 – This low-end model will sell for just $259.99. It also has the new 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 CPU, GMA 3150 graphics, and a 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display. It comes with a 3 or 6 cell battery, 802.11b/g WiFi, and up to 250GB hard drive (which would seem to imply that Windows 7 Starter is at least an option. No word on Windows XP availability).

LogicBuy also suggests that the base price for the HP Mini 210 will be $279.99.

Engadget has a roundup of other previously unannounced laptops and desktops from HP.