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Asus has officially launched the Eee PC 1015PN netbook. You know, the one with a dual core 1.5GHz Intel Atom N550 processor and NVIDIA ION graphics? It’s shipping. Now.
Amazon is selling the netbook for $425 plus free shipping, which is a pretty good price for this model.
I’ve got a review unit sitting on my desk, but I haven’t had much time to play with it yet. If you’re not going to wait for my review before pulling the trigger, here are a few caveats though:
- The Eee PC 1015PN ships with Windows 7 Starter, which doesn’t support NVIDIA Optimus graphics switching. That means you have to manually switch from ION to GMA 3150 graphics if you want to save battery life when you’re not watching HD video or playing games.
- There are two different versions of the next-gen NVIDIA ION chip, one with 16 cores and another with 8 graphics cores. The Eee PC 1015PN, and most other 10 inch netbooks that will ship with ION graphics the lower power version. That should be enough to watch 1080p HD video, but don’t expect the same kind of performance we’ve seen from the latest ION chips in nettops and larger notebooks.
That said, for about $50 to $100 more than a typical netbook, the Eee PC 1015PN has a dual core processor and HD video capabilities. I’ll be interested to see how it fares in the battery life department.
FINALLY, a keyboard layout I can use!
But oh wait, low resolution monitor…lame…at least it’s a matte display. About time.
Here’s hoping a 12″ model or thereabouts comes around with a nice screen and similar keyboard layout.
The ion2 in this laptop is way too slow to be useful for anything.
No offense, but what? The HP 311 had useless ION? I don’t get it. This ION is as powerful as the first gen. The first gen ION netbooks were very highly praised by those who bought them. The only quibble I see is in the screen resolution, but big whoop. To each his own I guess.
If they could just make this as a slate or convertible tablet I’d buy it in a second. Otherwise itis time for me to play the waiting game for a 1215 with N550 (1216??).
same here, i’m also waiting for a 12 inch with N550.
So one pays an extra $50 or so for the ability to view video better, sacrificing battery life (the battery is smaller than the 63wh battery on the PED). Is it a worthwhile trade-off? Do people watch much 1080p video on a 10″ netbook ?
Finally something to compete with the Acer Aspire One 521. I’d be interested to know how this compares.
Indeed, why so little love for matte screens? And cases, for that matter. But at least some of the Eees have non-OMIGAWDSHINYANDFINGERPRINTY cases now.
Anyway. It’s worth noting that the 1015PN is shipping with a 1024×600 screen, not the 1366×768 as indicated before. Otherwise I might have jumped for this one.
Before asking “How do you read the tiny text?”, you make it not-tiny. Brilliant, eh? It’s pretty simple to do in Windows 7, and I would assume for other versions and OSes. I use KDE on Linux myself, and it’s just as easy in that too.
The Glossy craze is mainly a US one, and it’s nice to see Asus switching back to Matte screen and finishes with these new models.
Though for resizing text, yes you can customize but defaults don’t come properly optimized out of box and even after you customize there will still be instances where it won’t help.
Like when browsing a web site and a pop comes up set to be a certain size by your screen resolution and you can’t over ride it and zoom isn’t enabled for the pop up window. Just to name one scenario.
Though if you don’t mind voiding warranty and like to mod you can try swapping the HD screen from the 1005PR into this model… or wait and see if they eventually release a HD screen version for this model in a couple of months from now.
The most powerful 10.1″ netbook ever and it’s still collecting dust on your table. Shame Brad. Shame. 😉
I’m hoping for detailed battery life analysis. Please, pretty please.
gemaster
aka gman
If they made this with a 8.9″ matte screen I’d be first in line. Nearly everything I want in a netbook.