Nvidia officials on Tuesday reiterated the company’s interest in the mini-laptop space but said it would wait for the market to mature before jumping in.
Earlier this year, the company made a deal with Via Technologies to make graphics chipsets to work with Via’s Nano processors, which are designed for laptops and mini-laptops. Mini-laptops, also called netbooks by Intel, are inexpensive laptops with screens of 10 inches or less.
The netbook market is growing, and it could branch out into product categories such as smartphones and multimedia netbooks that can handle graphics effectively, said Marv Burkett, the company’s chief financial officer, on a webcast from the Credit Suisse annual technology conference being held in Scottsdale, Arizona.
“We’re not saying we’re not interested; it’s a matter of how the market will evolve,” Burkett said.
Most netbooks today contain Intel’s Atom processor and are not capable of handling video games or multimedia effectively, said Michael Hara, vice president of investor relations at Nvidia. Netbooks offer good battery life and are good for basic programs like Web applications, but they don’t have the graphics capabilities to effectively play video games or video files, he said.
