Netbook Review UK

Nvidia Ion vs. Broadcom HD Accelerator

LaptopMag has an interesting comparison between Nvidia’s Ion and Broadcom’s HD Accelerator.  Both of these are solutions to the same problem – getting HD playback on your netbook.  Because while netbooks continue to evolve, and the next generation netbook platform has arrived (Pinetrail) HD video playback is still inexplicably absent on most standard netbooks.

The two solutions are quite different – Nvidia Ion is built into the motherboard of netbooks, and therefore you need to choose Ion before you even buy a netbook.  On the other hand, Broadcom’s HD Accelerator is an add-on card that can be added to many netbooks after purchase, provided they have a free PCIe slot.  Up until now, there really hadn’t been much comparison between the two, but as you can see, Ion beats the Broadcom card while playing 720 and 1080p video.  The difference isn’t huge however, and for many of you, Broadcom’s solution may be the only choice.

Source: LaptopMag