NVIDIA's ION slips from the market

Windows 7 gives NVIDIA headaches.

The only makers of netbooks that use Nvidia's GeForce 9400M core-logic Ion chips have decided to put the brakes on the project.

Lenovo and Samsung have decided to delay releasing products that are based on Intel's Atom CPU and Nvidia's Ion GPU until late October.

The reason given was that the pair do not think it is worth releasing their new netbooks until the Vole lets them bung Windows 7 into the mini-lappies.

According to the companies, they want to enable a better user experience with Microsoft's new operating system.

While a few weeks makes no odds, the fact that Lenovo and Samsung only want their IdeaPad S12 and N510 netbooks to run Windows 7 is bad news for Nvidia.

Windows 7 will jack up the prices of the S12 and N510 and mean that Nvidia's chips will be in products in a higher price band than other netbooks.

It gets worse. The Vole has made it clear that it does not want netbook makers to use entry-level Windows 7 on machines with screens bigger than 10.1 inches. Since Lenovo's IdeaPad S12 and Samsung's N510 will have 12.1" and 11" displays, respectively, then Lenovo and Samsung will have to install the more expensive Windows 7 Home version.

Lenovo's little box was set to be a more expensive netbook anyway and would cost about $599, but with a more expensive operating system that price is likely to get higher.

This will tend to limit the acceptance of Nvidia's Ion graphics chips even further.