Nvidia Optimus is switchable graphics for the mobile platform (Notebooks). It is basically switching between Discreet Graphics card (when doing more Graphic Intensive work) and onboard graphics card (during idling or light load). What is the advantage ? Well, it saves a lot of power and hence longer battery life and the system run cool too.

A few days ago, Nvidia had unveiled the gen 2 version of this technology which basically fixes all the flaws in the last generation of this technology.

In the first gen, the user was manually suppose to switch between the GPUs and that required a reboot. I know,thats stupid and hence in Gen 2, it happens automatically and does not require a reboot. Another flaw with the old versiopn was a small delay (5-10sec) while using applications, well that seems to have been fixed now too.

The gen 2 has both hardware and software changes from the first generation but i will not get into any of those details.

This is out only on a few laptops with ULV (ultra low voltage) processors and should be more avaliable soon. So now, you can actually go for a laptop with a CULV processor with a 15.6" screen and a discreet GPU without losing out much on battery life.