Asus and Acer Nvidia ION 2 Netbooks Not Shipping Until Late May and Beyond

This is some relatively sad news. I wrote a while back about the value that Nvidia’s ION graphics system brings to netbooks and showed you how it can handle Blu-ray playback. Naturally, I’m pretty excited about for next generation of said graphics system, ION 2, to reach consumers. Unfortunately it looks like we’ll have to wait a little while longer.

Engadget is reporting that the upcoming 12” Asus Eee 1201PN, which is the companies first ION 2 netbook, will not be shipping in Europe or Asia until mid-may and won’t reach the US until June. The 10” Acer Aspire One 532G (also ION 2 equipped) netbook also won’t be out until early June, according to Engadget. The Eee 1201PN has me especially excited. Asus makes perhaps some of the nicest looking netbooks on the market, and if they can price it decently, an ION equipped Eee 1201 would be a great value for people who want the ability to play HD content but don’t want to spend the money on a high powered computer. Quite a shame that’ll we have to wait longer, but I guess we’ll see them in due time. Check out a video below to see how ION 2 handles HD playback with CPU usage only hovering around 8-10%!