Most netbooks on the market today have VGA ports, but very few support HDMI output for HD video. That makes sense, since most netbooks struggle with anything higher resolution than 720p. The exception are netbooks with NVIDIA ION graphics processors or Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerators — but those are still the exception, not the rule.
That could all change in a little over a year. Fudzilla reports that when Intel brings its Cedar Trail-M Atom platform to market in the second half of 2011, it will have full support for 1080p HD video and better media and graphics functionality all around. The platform will also reportedly support HDMI output, which will make it as easy to plug a netbook into an HDTV as it is to plug in a monitor today.
Of course, a lot can change in a year. So let’s take this report with a grain of salt. But it does sound like a promising… if somewhat overdue development.
The second half of 2011… Oh my, Intel don’t strain yourself while crawling down the sidewalk like a stumbling bum who has wet himself.
You have to wonder if they merely love toying with consumers and OEMs because they think AMD and VIA are not really ever going to crack Atom’s markey…which is sadly possible. Or, maybe, infighting and fiefdoms within Intel make their cluster-f way of doing business teh only way they know how.
It is either incompetence that is intentional or incompetence that is unavoidable…either way the whole company needs to burn it hell.
This is indeed long overdue if you consider that most ARM based solutions have been including HD video supports for some time. This means that currently if you wish to provide an x86 tablet that will compete with ARM based offerings from a multimedia point of view you pretty much have to include an ION or broadcom chipset, which increase costs and reduce battery life.
IMHO this means that x86 based tablets will pretty much be non starters until 2011.