I like to see this progress toward gaming ultra portables. Looks like this one missed the mark on a couple of points. Heavy and expensive. That said, hopefully more companies will realize there is a market for an 11 or 12 inch computer that can do gaming. If anything, the specs and notes on this computer makes me realize just how formidable the ION netbooks really are. Maybe not COD 4, but a game from 2008 or early 2009 suits me just fine. Unfortunately this computer is the sacrificial lamb. Try to mess with the ION + Atom punch and look what happens.

Relatively speaking, yes it is slow. However, the proof is in the pudding. Atom+ION is the best bang for the buck. I think this Dell computer proves that you can't, at this moment, have your cake and eat it too. There is no reason the Atom can't be faster, other than Intel owes it to their sugar daddies not to make the Atom too fast. Having said all this, the speed of the Atom is irrelevant. If it can play relatively new FPS games or RTS games, then I'll take the cheap, light, and longer battery life netbook over this Dell. ION basically minimizes the impact of the slow Atom processor speed.

You obviously don't have an ion or an n10j. Sure, you can overclock it, but you're still not able to get decent frame rates in anything other than l4d. It won't play Dragon Age or Mass Effect, which are both basically turn based games – the atom is severely underpowered. All the ION does (really) is enable very light 2006 games and bluray / x264 playback.

No…the HD3200 is everywhere and paired with AMD processors such as Turions and Neos with screens 12″ or smaller. It's a notch under the ION but still isn't bad for older games.

I'll admit it – I'm absolutely drooling over this. At 4 lbs, it's not too heavy considering the trade-offs you don't have to make in performance.

I think they read my mind.

Everywhere except on store shelves, sadly .

ION works fine for GPU limited games, but fails miserably at CPU limited games. I sort of agree with Intel; the 9400M is silly overpowered compared to the Atom N270.

I don't agree with Intel though, because I think they should have paired their CULV line with the ION chipset. A ~$50 12.1″ CULV with a Celeron Dual-Core SU2300 and nvidia ION/9400M would be, well, pretty damn awesome. I'd buy one, that's for damn sure.

The Neo MV-40 is considered much snappier than the Atom but you're right, it's closer to the Atom than it is to the CULV C2D. To be fair the CULV is a dual core and the MV 40 is a single core. The AMD Neo x2 L335 and L625 are dual cores and are very close to CULVS in performance but lose a lot in battery. Also in general AMDs run hotter. But for these trade offs you get the HD3200 graphics card, very much worth it for some people.

Unfortunately the L335/L625s are not abundant in the market. Try the MSI Wind u230.

So what you're saying is that this ISN'T portable? :