A while ago we saw the HP Pavilion DV2 pop up on the market, featuring AMD's ultra-thin platform called "Congo". There are two versions of it; the first one sports the Athlon Neo 1.6GHz processor and an integrated ATI X1250 graphics processor at the heart of the RS690M chipset, whereas in the second one it is paired with a discrete HD 3410.

My everyday laptop is one of those DV2. While the Congo platform is already great in itself, in some cases it left me wanting more. I chose the integrated graphics version to get the better battery life, but in turn I got the decreased video performance which sometimes struggles to play HD content on the Internet. Additionally, the Athlon Neo clearly has some limitations. With its single core, it has some difficulties to keep up in multi-tasking. When I am doing some C++ programmation in my Ubuntu virtual machine, let's just say I must be patient compared to my colleagues who run fully-sized notebooks, despite it already being much more powerful than the Intel netbook platform.

So that's where AMD's second generation ultra-thin notebook platform comes into play. While its Athlon X2 Neo L335 processor can be had for quite some time now at the heart of the Pavilion DV2, it is still paired with either the X1250 or HD 3410. The new Vision platform puts it along the RS780M, sporting an integrated HD 3200 graphics processor; this will bring all the exciting features of the dedicated graphics to the integrated with amazing battery life.

Obviously, the video performance will be up quite a big notch. Since the HD 4200 has the same physical specifications than the HD 3200 but just it being DX10.1, UVD2 and HDMI 1.3 ready (roughly), the gaming performance is approximately the same. Therefore, HD 3200 should be able to provide a performance close to what we have seen in my article about the 785G chipset, except that it will not have a sideport memory.

Apart from that, the HD 3200 will also feature an HDMI out, which the X1250 in the DV2 did not. Another thing that was not pointed out in Pat Moorhead's blog entry is that the it will also be able to benefit from the latest AMD drivers, which unfortunately do not apply to the X1250 anymore since Catalyst version 9.3. And we're now at 9.9.

Also, the added processor core will double the power so that it will be able to churn through any task without any difficulty. It will also help in gaming where the single-core can quickly become a limitation.

However, there is no word on battery life yet. Whereas my Athlon Neo MV-40 and RS690M did almost five hours at the heart of the DV2 while being on power saving mode, 40% screen brightness and WiFi ON, I expect the new Vision platform to be at least the same. It is also great to see a third manufacturer jumping in the ultra-thin AMD-based low-cost laptop market; MSI will join Hewlett-Packard and Gateway with its X-series laptop based on Vision. This is great because it makes for many different available flavors of similar laptops. This one would be named the MSI X430, pictured here.

So who knows, maybe we will soon see an article on Neoseeker in which Vision is thoroughly tested!