Why Asus Kept HDMI Off The 1005PR Netbook

Why Asus Kept HDMI Off The 1005PR Netbook

Chance Stevens 8 March 2010 3,280 views View Comments

I’ve been asking myself for a while now, why isn’t HDMI standard on netbooks. It seems as though by the end of this year that many more netbooks will feature this option but when new models get released it seems silly that they wouldn’t have HDMI. The 1005PR is a perfect example of a great netbook. It keeps the 10 inch screen size of traditional netbooks, but adds a 1366 x 768 screen, and a Broadcom HD encoder.

It looks like there are at least 4 reason why Asus decided to not add HDMI to the 1005PR.

- Price: The $400 price point is a psychological barrier for 10 inch netbooks. Many of the current N450 based netbooks are price at $379. You don’t cross the $400 price until the screen size exceed 10 inches. Acer is going to keep the pressure on Asus with their 532g which means that the 1005PR has to be competitively priced.

- Intel: Intel usually has the last word when it comes to what goes in and what stays out of netbooks. Intel likely told manufacturers that N450 netbooks shouldn’t be paired with HDMI even if they can stream video without any problems. Since Asus gets almost all of their netbook processors from Intel doing anything to jeopardize the relationship would be detrimental to their business.

- ION2: While Intel may be working hard to keep HDMI from N450 netbooks, Nvidia doesn’t have any problem bringing HDMI to netbooks. Once there are netbooks with ION2 the number of netbooks with HDMI will increase sharply.

- Cannibalization: Even if Asus were to find a way to sidestep Intel and was allowed to put HDMI in the 1005PR they’d have to deal with a drop in sales to their current line of netbooks. HDMI is used as a way to help differentiate more advanced and expensive netbooks.

Despite these reasons, the 1005PR may still end up selling better than the 1005PE. Integrating the additional features and long battery life will combine to make a compelling product.

You can find the specs for the Asus 1005PR netbook here.

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Mike

Do you realize that the chipset does not support HDMI or DVI ? Its not any other reason than there is no hardware support for it by the modified ancient i945 chipset.
Richie

interesting guesses, but the real reason that no N450 models include it is that the pinetrail chipset (NM10 / GMA 3150) simply doesn't support it. GMA 3150 also doesn't support full HD resolutions so its not really suitable as a media center even with a broadcom HD chip inside.
Chance_Stevens

The fact is that the 1005PR will include a Broadcom HD encoder which has been proven to be able to handle 720p and 1080p video without any issue. It would have cost Asus $2 - $5 to add it to their motherboard but the risk to their business and relationship with Intel made it not worth the investment. If it didn't come with a Broadcom card, I'd agree with you completely.