The Asus 1015E is a tiny notebook computer with a tiny price tag. It features a 10 inch display and sells for under $299. In fact, many stores are selling the little laptop for as little as $249.

Asus 1015E

That’s not a bad price for a 2.8 pound computer with an Intel Celeron dual-core processor, a 1366 x 768 pixel display, and Windows 8 software. While it’s not the fastest, thinnest, or lightest laptop around, it’s the only 10 inch laptop on the market that I’m aware of which offers better-than-netbook performance.

In my tests, the Asus 1015E offers about twice the performance you’d expect from a netbook with an Intel Atom processor. But it’s just as portable and at least as inexpensive.

In other words, it might be the best 10 inch laptop you can buy.

But it’s not for everyone. The keyboard is rather small. You can’t use it as a tablet. The fan is kind of noisy. And while the laptop offers reasonably good battery life, the only way to get true all-day battery life would be to invest in a second battery pack.

But did I mention that the Asus 1015E sells for as little as $249? And that’s just the price for a Windows model. Asus also offers a version with Ubuntu Linux which sells for about $200.

Asus loaned me a Windows model for the purposes of this review.

Background

Low cost portable laptops have come a long way in the past few years. If you wanted to buy a 10 inch laptop in 2006, your only options were expensive premium models which sold for $1500 or more. Asus changed all of that when the company introduced the first Eee PC netbook in 2007, featuring a 7 inch screen and sold for $400.

The idea was that most people looking for portability in a notebook don’t necessarily need bleeding edge performance. Over the next few years we saw dozens of laptops with screens between 7 and 12 inches in size, selling for as little as $250.

Nobody talks much about netbooks much anymore, but in recent years we’ve seen low-cost portable devices ranging from inexpensive Android tablets to Chromebooks which sell for as little as $199.

matte_02

We’ve also seen a number of laptops with 11.6 inch and larger displays with reasonable price tags, including the HP Pavilion DM1, Asus VivoBook X202e, and others. They’re faster than netbooks — but they’re also larger.

For years I’ve been hearing from netbook fans who have been waiting for a notebook with a 10 inch screen featuring a processor that offers more power than the Intel Atom chips that have powered most netbooks since 2008.

The Asus 1015E fits the bill.

Overview

The Asus 1015E features a 10.1 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel matte display and a 1.1 GHz Intel Celeron 847 dual-core processor.

That’s a Sandy Bridge chip with Intel HD 2000 graphics. It’s a 17W chip that was first released in 2011, but it’s still faster than any Intel Atom processor on the market. While you shouldn’t expect Intel Core i3 level performance, the Asus 1015E can handle most basic computing tasks and has no problem playing HD video.

Asus offers the notebook with a 320GB hard drive, although out of the box it’s divided into two user-accessible partitions and a hidden recovery partition.

overview

The notebook has 2GB of RAM and comes with Windows 8 64-bit, although an Ubuntu version will also be available soon. There’s no access panel on the bottom of the laptop, so you’ll have to partially disassemble the case to upgrade the storage. While the chipset can also theoretically handle memory upgrades, the RAM on this model is soldered to the motherboard, so there’s no place to put an extra stick of memory.

Asus includes 802.11b/g/n WiFi, 10/100 Ethernet. Some models may also offer Bluetooth, but the notebook featured in this review does not.

ports_02

The laptop ships with a 6 cell, 56 Whr battery, but Asus says a smaller 3 cell battery is also available.

ports_01

Around the sides of the laptop you’ll find 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 USB 3.0 port, an Ethernet jack, HDMI port, a VGA/Mini D-sub port, an SD card slot, and a combo mic/headphone jack.

camera

There’s a 720p camera above the screen, a built-in mic, and stereo speakers.

Design (Display, keyboard, touchpad)

Weighing less than 2.8 pounds, and featuring a 10.1 inch display, you might be tempted to put this little laptop in the same category as ultrabooks. But it’s actually not as thin as an ultrabook (nor does it have the solid state storage you find in most ultrabooks).

The Asus 1015E measures 10.3″ x 7.0″ x 1.4″ at its thickest point (in the back where the battery sticks out from the bottom). It’s closer to 0.9 inches at the front, but the emphasis is clearly more on light weight than thinness.

angle_01

Asus also went small with the power adapter. Instead of your usual 2-piece notebook power brick, the Asus 1015E comes with a small one-piece power adapter which is easier to carry around for times you’re worried you’ll run out of battery power.

power

In order to fit a full-sized Ethernet jack, Asus had to attach a small piece of plastic which you swing down in order to lock your RJ45 cable into place.

ethernet

As you’d expect from a budget notebook, the Asus 1015E has an all-plastic case. The lid has a glossy finish, as does the bezel around the screen and the area around the keyboard.

glossy lid

But the palm rest area has a matte, textured finish which means that it doesn’t show oily smudges.

The display also has a matte finish, which means it doesn’t reflect as much glare as a glossy screen. That makes it easier to use outdoors or near a window — although you’ll still need to crank up the screen brightness if you plan to use this laptop outside on a bright sunny day.

matte

Like many matte screens, the display can look a little grainy at times, especially when you’re looking at a white background. But I still generally prefer matte to glossy.

Some users may also find that text and images look too sharp on a 10 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display. While you can adjust some DPI settings in Windows, the OS doesn’t scale graphics as well as OS X, Chrome OS, and some other operating systems.

Still, the upshot is that you can fit more content on the screen on the Asus 1015E than you could on most netbooks. That means more text on a website, more cells on a spreadsheet, and higher resolution games, pictures, and videos, among other things.

desktop_01

The screen’s viewing angles are mixed. When you tilt the display back too far, colors start to look washed out. But when you view it from the right or left, things look pretty good.

Since the Asus 1015E has a smaller screen than most notebooks, it also has a smaller keyboard — you can’ t easily squeeze a full-sized keyboard into a laptop this size. So Asus has a keyboard that’s about 90 percent full-sized instead.

keyboard

But I can’t think of many companies that have as much experience as Asus in designing keyboards for small laptops, and this one is pretty good. The keys are well arranged and it’s easy to get used to the keys that are doubled-up.

For instance, the Up, Down, Left, and Right arrows also function as PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End buttons when you hold the Fn key.

If you’re used to typing on a larger keyboard, the Asus 1015E keyboard can take a little getting used to. But after using the laptop for a few minutes, I had no problems touch-typing at over 80 words per minute.

keyboard_02

Below the keyboard is a touchpad which is a bit on the small side as well. It’s a clickpad-style model, which means that there are no phsyical buttons for left or right clicks. You can just push down on the lower left or right portions of of the touchpad.

But it also supports multi-touch gestures so that you never have to click at all. For instance, a two-finger tap is the same as a right-click. You can also put two fingers on the touchpad and slide up or down to scroll.

Windows 8 gestures are also supported, including swiping from the right edge of the touchpad to bring up the Windows 8 Charms menu.

touchpad

The touchpad works reasonably well, but since it’s a bit on the small side it can be tough to maneuver with precision. I find that I’m much more productive on this laptop when I plug in a mouse — but I tend to do that even on notebooks with the best touchpads, like the Google Chromebook Pixel.

On the bottom of the laptop there’s a solid piece of plastic with no access panel. I suspect if you remove the padded rubber feet you might find screws that you can remove to open up the laptop and get at the internal components, but since I have to send this notebook back when I’m done with it, I’ve left those feet in place.

bottom

You’ll also find two little latches which you can slide on the bottom of the laptop to release the battery. Unlike most ultrabooks (which seem to dominate the ultraportable notebook space these days), it’s easy to replace the battery on this mini-laptop.

There’s also a vent on the bottom of the laptop, and another on the left side. There’s pretty much always warm air blowing out of the left vent. The Asus 1015E may be about the same size and shape as a typical netbook, but it has a processor that uses twice as much energy, so the fan which helps keep the CPU cool is almost always blowing.

You can reduce the clock speed on this laptop which will help improve battery life and keep the CPU cooler, but I don’t recommend it.

Performance

The Intel Celeron 847 chip in this laptop is a few years old, but it’s a good option for a low-priced laptop since it offers a decent mix of performance, price, and power consumption.

It’s a 1.1 GHz dual-core processor which does a decent job with most day-to-day tasks. I had no problems streaming HD video from Netflix or Hulu. I was able to open and edit documents, surf the web with a dozen browser tabs open, and listen to music without running into any problems.

mindy

And in terms of raw processing power, I ran a series of benchmarks which suggest that this laptop isn’t as fast as a model with a Core i3 or Core i5 CPU, but it’s much faster than a notebook with an Intel Atom chip. It also has a more powerful CPU than a machine with an AMD Brazos chip, although AMD still has the edge in graphics performance.

But there’s a caveat – Asus includes a tool called the Power4Gear Hybrid Engine which lets you underclock the CPU in order to get longer battery life. Don’t use it.

hybrid engine

Virtually every time I switched from Performance mode to Battery Saving mode, the Asus 1015E slowed to a crawl. I didn’t even bother running most  benchmarks again in Battery Saving mode, because I had a hard enough time even launching programs or switching between running apps.

If you absolutely need to squeeze every minute of battery life out of the notebook and you’re only running one simple app at a time, I suppose it’s nice to have this option. But even in performance mode, I’ve found that the Asus 1015E gets between 4.5 and 6 hours of run time with a 6 cell battery.

battery

To test overall CPU performance, I ran my usual set of benchmarks which involve transcoding audio and video files and creating a large ZIP archive.

lilbench

This chart shows how long it takes in seconds to complete each task — so the lower the score the better. Here are the challengers in this test:

  • HP Envy X2 – 11.6 inch Hybird tablet with Intel Atom Z2760 dual-core CPU (2013)
  • Asus Eee PC 1015PN – 10 inch netbook with an Intel Atom N550 dual-core CPU and NVIDIA ION graphics (2010)
  • Asus VivoBook X202E – 11.6 inch touchscreen notebook with Intel Core i3 Ivy Bridge (2013)
  • HP Pavilion DM1 – 11.6 inch notebook with AMD E2-1800 (2012)

In these CPU-intensive tests the Asus 1015E came out way ahead of any machine with an Intel Atom processor, and ahead of the AMD Brazos chip in most tests. But it’s clearly not as powerful as an Intel Core i3 Ivy Bridge processor.

In other words, while this computer has enough oomph to handle document editing, web surfing, and other general-purpose tasks, if you need to perform activities that really need a heavy-duty processor (like editing video), you might want to opt for a more expensive model with a more powerful CPU.

But good luck finding a computer with one of those chips and a 10 inch screen.

windex

Incidentally, I did run one benchmark in Battery Saving mode. While it took 199 seconds to transcode the sample video file in Performance Mode, it took 284 seconds in Battery Saving. So switching to the low-power mode basically gives you the performance you’d expect from an Intel Atom processor.

I also ran a few web-based benchmarks to see how the Asus 1015E fares against other low-cost, light-weight laptops including the Samsung Chromebook and Acer C7 Chromebook. Since those computers run Chrome OS, I can’t run my usual benchmarks on them, but these web benchmarks help give an idea of how each computer handles HTML5, JavaScript, and other web technologies.

webbench

This time I also threw in an Acer Aspire V5 notebook with a Core i5 processor, because I happened to have scores for that model handy. Clearly, that machine is in a different performance class — but it also costs nearly twice as much as the Asus 1015E.

  • Acer C7 Chromebook – 11.6 inch Chrome OS notebook with Intel Celeron 847 (2012)
  • Samsung Chromebook – 11.6 inch Chrome OS notebook with Samsung Exynos 5210 ARM Cortex-A15 dual-core (2012)
  • Acer Aspire V5 – 11.6 inch Windows 7 notebook with Intel Core i5 Ivy Bridge (2012)

Unsurprisingly, the Asus 1015E and Acer C7 achieved similar scores in these tests. They have similar hardware, so that’s about what you’d expect — although the tests were taken about 6 months apart, so Chrome browser improvements and updated drivers may help explain why the Asus 1015E comes out a little ahead.

Both models perform better than the Samsung Chromebook with an Exynos processor, but the Acer Aspire V5 still runs circles around the bunch.

SunSpider

While the computer’s integrated Intel HD 2000 graphics offer enough power for HD video playback and some basic gaming, this isn’t by any means a gaming laptop. Like most portable notebooks I’ve tested, it comes pretty close to failing the Street Fighter IV graphics benchmark, with a letter grade of “E.”

streetfight

Verdict

Overall, while the Asus 1015E is hardly a powerhouse, it offers a fair amount of power for a laptop with a 10 inch screen and a price tag of $300 or less. There’s really nothing else quite like it on the market at the moment.

That’s not to say that the Asus 1015E offers a no-compromise experience. The keyboard and touchpad are on the small side, which can take some getting used to. The constantly-blowing fan is a bit noisy. And the screen can look a little grainy.

But the Asus 1015E offers decent performance, reasonably long battery life, and a compact package. And it comes at a great price.

browser

While ultrabooks like the Asus Zenbook and Samsung Series 9 don’t weigh much more than the Asus 1015E and offer better performance and larger screens and keyboards, they also cost 3 times as much.

The Asus 1015E picks up where netbooks left off a few years ago, offering a decent compromise between price, performance, and portability — and offering a user experience that’s “good enough” for most of the things you’d expect to do with a $300 laptop.

I wouldn’t recommend buying one unless you know that you’re comfortable with notebooks featuring 10 inch displays and smaller-than-normal keyboards. But if you’ve been waiting to upgrade your aging netbook until something truly better came along, the Asus 1015E is truly something better.

It’s a cheap mini-notebook that acts like a larger, more expensive model in many ways. It doesn’t have a touchscreen. You can’t use it as a tablet. It won’t run for days on end. But it’s good enough that I could see some folks using it as a primary computer, not just a low-cost traveling companion.

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,543 other subscribers

58 replies on “Asus 1015E review: 10 inch notebook with a Celeron 847 CPU”

  1. Hey, you guys from the Asus marketing department, isn’t it time to give this cute little machine an update with a quad core bay trail processor and Windows/Bing??? It would have stellar battery life!!!

  2. I bought new asus notebook pc but it does not start it show three option whenrvrer I start it so tell me how can I stsrt it

  3. I bought a ASUS F200CA notebook pc, to use as an extra pc. It is 64 bit, and has Windows 8 on it. I like to play Pogo games, and I don’t know what Java I should install. Can anyone help me?

  4. In my experience the noisy fan and hot spot in that area is the biggest problem with these things. I’d be willing to pay more if I could buy one with a better CPU that runs cooler and faster.

  5. Thanks for the detailed review. The notebook caught my eye both for the price tag and the fact that it shipped with Ubuntu out of the box but the difficulty of upgrades (I was particularly hoping to add more RAM) coupled with fan noise issues means this probably isn’t the machine for me. The quest continues for a cheap machine to run Linux for me

  6. Why every time a move a mouse picture change from IE or someother page to , for example , skype or emails . THis is really somthing I would like to change and make it to stay still. As well , how to ave icon of skype somewhere at the bottom on the page so I can do something else as well not just skype …

  7. Updated to SSD. The sata port is SATA 3. My Atto benchmark hit up to 510 MB/s in reads and writes.
    The build of the notebook looks exactly the same as the 1015PED version netbook. It also opens exactly the same way.

  8. better specs than my toshiba nb205, but my netbook has a better trackpad

  9. Wait a second; if this lil’ guy has a Celeron 847, doesnt that mean it has Intel HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge)? Meaning it can play LoL, SC2, World of Tanks… Other lower-spec games?

    Or is 2 GB the big bottleneck here?

    1. Technically, it’s not a netbook… Netbooks are just a class of mini-laptops and this isn’t using netbook class hardware.

      Rather, it’s running on a little better class of Sandy Bridge based 1.1GHz Celeron 847… Still well below a full Core processor but it’s basically just a stripped down and lower clocked version of the Core processor.

      The HD GMA is just not much better than what the Clover Trail ATOM provides for 3D graphics…

      But you could easily replace a old netbook with this model, considering the price is in the same range and it’s basically using the same casing design as the Asus Eee PC 1015…

      So think of it more as a good alternative until something even better comes along (hopefully Bay Trail)…

      Besides, Asus netbooks went under the Eee PC branding and that has definitely been discontinued…

  10. Hmm can this be upgraded with an SSD and if so what are the requirements I should look at? Is it worth it to upgrade to SSD or are there other new netbooks out there similar to this model with an SSD inside? I’ve been searching for a couple days and nothing’s coming up :/.

    1. I can’t think of any reason you couldn’t upgrade the storage to an SSD — but you’ll need to open up the whole case since there’s no access panel. There’s a SATA connector inside, but I don’t know if it’s SATA II or SATA III. If it’s the former you might not get the full benefit of switching to a newer SSD, but even then you’d probably get a bit of a boost in read/write speeds.

      1. I believe it should be SATA III, since it comes with NM70 platform. Also, even if SATA II. I did an upgrade using SATA III ssd on my hp netbook with sata II controller and the performance was way higher in startup and overall netbook performance. WEI for HDD hit 7.9 in win8. I used corsair force 3 ssd.

      2. Dear Mr Linder,
        please let me know that i m intrested in purchasing this 1015E mininlaptop and this will be for my official use which will be used for running some software for travel agency like AMADEUS etc….and also it will be used for using MS OFFICE…is ok or shall i go for laptop with screen size more than 12 inches…

        i will use it for official purpose and also for home purpose do not intrested in playing high games …just for full office work

  11. Very nice review. I have been looking for a netbook with usb 3.0 and this model was the best choice. It is very hard to look for a netbook with a 64-bit support and usb 3.0.

  12. I bought my ASUS eee pc 1000HE about 4 years ago. It still runs great. Of course I swapped out memory for 4 GB and swapped hard drives for a 250 GB 7,200 rpm one.
    At one time I had installed and working Windows XP Pro, Windows 7, OSX Leopard 10.5.5, and could run eeebuntu from a memory card. I just don’t see why someone would want to hold a tablet in their hands to use it for hours.
    ASUS, best netbooks ever.

  13. I never really comment on much of anything but thanks for this review. It’s great, detailed, and overall top notch. It’s hard to find good information about some of these smaller cheaper laptops.

    1. Thanks! I knew that this little laptop wouldn’t get a lot of attention elsewhere, but it’s exactly what many Liliputing readers have been seeking for years.

      Glad y’all appreciate the effort.

  14. I’m using a Panasonic J10 with i7, 256GB SSD, USB3.0, Expresscard slot, and about six hours of use under heavy load with brightness at max – all in essentially the same size with a 10″ screen. It is nearly ideal for my needs. Unfortunately, it cost over 3K!

  15. Great review, Brad. You’ve outdistanced other gadget reviewers by a wide margin in the last year. Thanks for the useful information.

    Looks like ASUS made a nice little notebook with this. Did you get a chance to try booting from a USB flash? I’ve had very good results with a Biostar NM70I-847 itx booting live USB linux distros such as Slacko-5.5 (puppy linux) and Slax-7.08. Both run using a 1080p display for web browsing, playing movies, etc. The fan noise is an issue. On mine, it’s silent and the fan isn’t even rotating unless I’m doing something CPU-intensive, then it starts buzzing until the crunch is done and it’s cooled off enough to stop the fan again. intel lists a newer Ivy Bridge Celeron 1019Y that runs at 1.0 Ghz with max TDP of 10W and a suggested price about $15 higher than the 17W Celeron 847 according to the specs at their ARK. Hopefully someone will use that in a fanless netbook/laptop config.

    1. For 10″ and smaller they usually have to push the max TDP rating to 5W or less… So a 10W isn’t likely to be fan-less but that’s different from whether the fan will make a lot of noise or not and 10W does put it into what was previously only ATOM territory…

      The IB Celeron 1007U seems to be out, along with most of the higher end models, but the others low end models probably won’t be seen until sometime in Q3…

      1. I often wonder why vendors haven’t come up with better heatsink and fan combo to handle noise issues. For my DIY rigs I have no problem finding good parts that keep the system cool and nearly silent for only a few dollars. It’s as if they go out of the way to avoid a straight-forward solution to a ubiquitous problem.

        BTW, intel also says the “SDP” (Scenario Design Power) for the 1019Y is 7 watts. A new “figure of merit” to garner more design wins? To be fair, intel does seem to lump products into TDP groups, such as the 17W Celerons that vary from 1.1 to 1.8 Ghz in speed.

        https://ark.intel.com/products/75102/Intel-Celeron-Processor-1019Y-2M-Cache-1_00-GHz

        1. Uh, no, a rig is a lot easier to keep cool than a laptop.

          Air cooling is inherently inefficient and the smaller and thinner they make these devices, the less surface area is left to effectively cool at a fast enough rate…

          1. Yup that’s precisely why I’m that grumpy old neighbor at this ongoing “thinner and lighter” trend. Look anyone myself included can easily appreciate lighter systems but not at the expense of cooling efficiencies.

          2. It’s why they’re pushing lower powered systems so hard now… Haswell will push mobility more than traditional desktop for example… emphasizing lower power states and more minimum max TDP ratings, even to the point that Haswell will have some overlap with the upcoming Bay Trail ATOM.

            Even in terms of performance, like the Iris Pro GMA will only be available to the BGA version… though you’re more likely to use a discrete card with a desktop anyway.

  16. Other than someone wanting to run Windows, I don’t see any compelling reason to choose this over the Acer C7 Chromebook.

    1. It’s smaller at 10.1″, which is anti-glare… The C7 isn’t thin or light, so the smaller size does make the Asus model a bit more portable… The same resolution on a smaller screen also means higher PPI…

      The Asus model also has a USB 3.0 port, while all three on the Acer C7 is USB 2.0 only…

      The 6 cell doesn’t stick out as much as it does on the Acer C7…

      Easier to find the Asus model with 6 cell battery, while the Acer C7 jumps about $80 for the 6 cell model… though, it also ups the RAM to 4GB…

      It’s easier to put on multiple OS on the Asus model than the Acer, which you’d have to put into developer mode and make work around solutions to get everything working.

      The Acer C7 also by default under clocks the Celeron 847 to 800MHz, while the Asus model doesn’t seem to do that unless you turn on the power saving mode that Brad mentions in the review…

      So, depends on what the potential user may consider selling points…

    2. It depends on what you want it for. I chose the Asus 1015e-ds03 (the Ubuntu version) over a Chromebook because a) it’s slightly less expensive, and b) I wanted a system I could run MySQL, Apache, and PHP on. You’re not going to be able to do that with a Chromebook out of the box.

      If your needs are modest, and you can do all of your tasks with a Web app (a la Google Drive), then yes, a Chromebook may be a better solution (if you can find one for the same price or better). But for those times when you need a more robust app, a Chromebook isn’t going to work out.

    3. In my experience all modern Acer are not reliable (I’ve seen 3-4 completely different models have the same power fault and multiple PC repairmen say Acer is terrible for this)

  17. Perhaps you’re right that this is the best 10-inch Windows machine for $250, but it doesn’t capture me, because there’s no lightness. 2.8lbs is still heavy enough to make me consider all the other options, especially the Envy X2. And $299 buys a 15-inch laptop from Walmart.

    But it’s also disappointing to see how poorly the Envy X2 benchmarks with its Atom Z2760, and yet…maybe not. If you go into a store and play with an Atom-based Windows 8 tablet, it feels snappy, perhaps a little slow to launch desktop programs, but still responsive, and it shows the real problem with Netbooks.

    The real problem with Netbooks was Windows 7.

    Windows 7 could never really use the GPU to produce snappy interface transitions. Windows 8 corrects the problem.

    It’s a really ironic thing, because, to my understanding, back when the iPad came out (and killed the Netbook), some people were saying that the Intel Atom was actually faster than the iPad’s ARM CPU, under certain conditions. But our experience of a computer has nothing to do with Java benchmarks. It’s all about whether the machine responds when we ask it to. Windows 8 comes close to redeeming poor hardware. Personally, I put Windows 8 on my old Iconia W500t, and it made all the difference.

    All that being said, I just don’t think Windows 8 redeems the $299, non-touch Netbook, when $599 buys a touch-enabled laptop and $649 buys a tablet-keyboard combo.

    Most of all, Windows 8 for all its flaws, finally admits to the world that Netbooks should have been iPad-like to begin with: not necessarily expensive, but fast, convenient, premium, and responsive to use.

  18. The Acer C7 Chromebook may have the same Celeron 847 processor but it’s clocked slower at 800MHz instead of the normal 1.1GHz… though, the battery saving mode may reduce the difference…

    1. I’m no expert so clearly I have to ask; Isn’t batt saving mode kinda works the same way via downclocking the mins further or turning a core off?

      1. Maybe, there are more than one way to reduce power consumption but like I said, it may reduce the difference but the point is for the C7 that’s the default and what it’ll operate at all the time and for the 1015E you’ll have to activate the power saving mode and can easily go back to full performance.

  19. Thanks for an interesting review of an interesting product. Intel and MS are at last allowing their counter to Chromebooks and tablets to evolve. I’m guessing there’s a huge potential market for netbook updates, with a basic selling proposition of “same (small cheap slow), but better (less bad performance, less bad screen, less bad I/O… and stuff)”. Lots of “less bad” ends up being quite good !

    Are the RAM and HD upgradeable ? I use my x86 netbook mostly as a portable server for my Android gizmos these days, and sometimes as my Office PC of last resort. I squeezed a 1 TB HD in my current (Atom) netbook… would I be able to do the same in the 1015E ? While we’re at it, more RAM can’t hurt either.

    1. Ram is soldered on. Its possible to upgrade the hard drive. Because of Windows 8 uefi or bios replacement or whatever it is called, installing some Linux distribution s are impossible / incredibly hard.

      Perhaps the Ubuntu version will be more upgrade friendly.

      1. Are you sure about the RAM? Asus tends to state that it is but more often then not it’s still slotted… they just don’t want users messing with the internals… So have to ask if you actually confirmed or were just reading from the Asus product page?

        1. I have one. You can check reviews on Amazon that say the same thing. ASUS also commented on one review;

          ASUS Support says:

          Dear Johnnydz,

          Thank you for taking the time to write up a review for our 1015E laptop. We definitely appreciate your feedback and input. I do apologize for the misinformation pertaining to the laptop’s RAM. The RAM is, indeed, on-board and is soldered onto the unit; so upgrading the RAM would not be possible. However, the hard drive can be replaced. There is no service door for easy access, but it is possible with a little work. You can swap out the HDD with an SSD if you so wish, just make sure you have the correct size (7mm). Again, it is not an easy task, but it is possible.

          I’m sorry to see that you ended up returning the unit. Hopefully, you were able to find one that suited your needs a little bit better. If you ever have any questions, or if you have any more comments, please feel free to e-mail me at [email protected]. I’ll be happy to answer any questions that you might have.

          1. Sorry, but I still have to ask if anyone actually opened it up and looked?

            Asus has lied about the RAM being soldered before… The Cedar Trail 1025 Eee PC series for example, clearly stated it was soldered but it wasn’t and people actually managed to upgrade them…

            Even for those models that Asus did solder, it wasn’t always consistent as some regions still got a slot instead of soldered RAM.

          2. Well, they just lied about the disk drive size. It supports a standard thickness drive perfectly fine.

      2. UEFI is a standard developed by several companies as a replacement for BIOS, not just Microsoft(Fun fact, Intel started the whole UEFI thing). Also, Microsoft mandates that on non-ARM systems you must be able to Disable Secure boot through the BIOS/Firmware as part of their “Windows Hardware Certification Requirements for Client and Server Systems”.

        Please, quit spreading the FUD.

        1. Please explain the ‘FUD’ of my comment. You give a definition of UEFI, yet you did not explain how you can install an alternate operating system such as many Linux distros that do not support UEFI.

          Please, explain to me how I can install such operating systems in a manner that is not ‘incredibly hard or impossible’.

          Thanks!

          1. I would say simply turn off UEFI. You don’t need it unless you’re running Windows 8.

          2. I can tell u more: u don’t need it even u’r running Windows 8, ’cause Windows 8 works great even on old motherboards.

            So, this some kind of crapware, usefullness and limiting owner to easy install any OS, which owner like.

          3. The kernel and GRUB supports UEFI, and the kernel supports being DIRECTLY loaded by EFI. I’m efi-stub booting my kernel on my Lenovo laptop. Short of the the kernel+initrd load sequence, the system doesn’t care how it is loaded. Hell, the only way userspace knows is if it looks at a log or if /sys/firmware/efi/ exists.

  20. It’s still just 10 inches, which is below the size of being able to be comfortable. 11 inch is about the minimum. For that reason alone I couldn’t use it!

    My 11 inch Acer chromebook has effectively the same setup: Celeron, full set of ports, usable keyboard. But this Asus will run Windows, which is desirable for a lot of people, and at $250 nearly everything else out there with Windows is unusable; the Celeron will be fine. The battery life will suffer, but you know, you can’t have everything. This is excellent because it expands the options within the 10-inch set; in fact, there’s nothing else competitive that I know of!

    You could easily plug this into a monitor at the office and use it as a great productivity machine with superb travel capability.

  21. I hate glossy and want to buy one with a matte body. Which retailer actually sells this version?

    It’s frustrating because there are two different black versions:
    – A glossy black
    – A matte black

    Yet, most of the retailers selling this just say they are selling the “black” without indicating which one it is 🙁

    1. It’s so annoying because I want the exact same thing. I purchased one from an online retailer and it was actually listed in the description as having a matte black finish. Of course when I received it it was anything but matte. I’ve even contacted Asus and still can’t get an answer. Many people would say that it’s pretty silly to want a matte versus a glossy but I beg to differ. If I’m going to spend $300 on something you better believe I’m going to get exactly what I want.

  22. I have a 1015PED netbook (Atom) that I use for data logging etc. It’s a nice size and works well for simple tasks but it can’t even play HD video. So something a bit faster, with a higher-resolution screen, is definitely welcome. Pity about that fan noise though, that would really annoy me.

  23. Well, not bad, but not quite. Glossy finish, noisy fan, but good effort from Asus. I am still waiting for a decent small size laptop/netbook, long battery life and at the moment I would rather go for that exynos fanless chromebook. Still very portable, decent performance and battery life with possibility to run linux distro on it.
    Maybe bay trail, temash or ulv haswell combined with igzo (mirasol,liquavista?) display in a small form factor would do the trick. Can we expect that or is it a dream? I suspect it would be too usable for not so much profit therefore not easy…

    1. Bay Trail, IGZO, and Mirasol? Those are all the unicorns of the future of compact computing. Personally, the one I most wish for is Mirasol–color e-ink has the potential to replace all screens, if they could ever make it good enough to play video. Think about it–it’s visible in direct sunlight. At night, they’d only have to front-light it like a Kindle Paperwhite.

    2. I don’t really understand the noisy fan comment. I’ve had one for over a week and I don’t think I’ve ever heard the fan unless I held it up to my ear.

Comments are closed.