DuelCore Atom/ION or AMD/ATI Congo netbook?

[CaneyJ]

Hi, I'm looking for a small laptop/netbook on a budget of around 400 quid. I want to play HD movies over a hdmi port onto a plasma at 1080p as well as media and the occasional game whilst i am round the family or friends on visits.

The Asus 1201n looks to be interesting as it will have a Duel core Atom which might help in reducing the bottleneck the ION graphics have with the current older single core atoms.

The other option is to look at the new AMD Congo platform such as on the msi u230, acer ferrari one or 1201T. I believe it uses a duel core 1.6GHz MV40 CPU as well as a ATI 3210 chip. This looks to be better at games but slightly less capable at HD encoding.

What would you guys choose?

 

[The Running Man]

im in exactly the same position...

dual core AMD is better than dual core atom, but ION is better than HD3200...?

which to choose and there are no proper benchmark comparisons between them eother:/

 

[02ferreiravilar]

i got a acer 5738zg from ebay for £350 with devilery and brand new. 15.6 inch laptop with hdmi port, ati 4570 and dua core 2.13. lookt at it if ur interested

 

[Datamonkey]

Take a look at the tosh t130 series.

Pentium ULV based, dual core. Intel GMA based graphics, but no issues with Hi-Def playback. If you looking to game then forget any of them really i would have thought.

I can say the T130 has 9 hours on the battery though and is far more responsive than either of the above. Have had a sammy nc10 and also a hp dv2 which was AMD mv40 based.

T130 is expensive though, but good on the specs. 4gb ram, 320gb hdd and wireless n.

You would be looking at £500 though, may be possible to find deals shopping around.