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Acer may have been one of the first companies to launch laptops powered by Intel’s new Core i3-N305 Alder Lake-N processor, but the 14 inch and 15.6 inch Acer Aspire 3 laptops with that chip are only available with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
The new IPASON P3 from Chinese budget PC maker IPASON is the first laptop I’m aware of to sport a Core i3-N305 chip and up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. A model matching those specs is available now from Newegg for $600, although I wouldn’t be surprised if cheaper configurations hit the streets in the coming months.
Customers and wholesalers can already pick up models with Intel Processor N100 or N200 chips, 512GB of solid state storage, and 12GB to 16GB of RAM from Alibaba for $369 to $429 (or less when resellers order 100 or more units).
The Intel Core i3-N305 processor is a 15-watt, 8-core, 8-thread chip with Intel Gracemont CPU cores that support boost speeds up to 3.8 GHz and 1.25 GHz Intel UHD graphics with 32 execution units.
It’s the most powerful chip in the Alder Lake-N lineup and Intel says it earns the Core i3 name because it offers comparable multi-core performance to what you’d get from a 12th-gen Intel Core i3-1215U chip (although the 1215U is up to 50% faster when it comes to single-core performance, as it has 2 Performance cores and 4 Efficiency cores, while all of the N305’s CPU cores are Efficiency cores).
While $600 seems like a kind of high price to pay for a chip designed for budget devices, the IPASON P3 almost justifies the price with other features including 16GB of DDR4-3200 memory, a 512GB NVMe SSD, 1080p IPS LCD display with a 180-degree hinge, and aluminum alloy body.
The laptop measures 16.9mm (0.67 inches) thick and weighs 1.4kg (3.1 pounds) with a 38 Wh battery. It comes with a 65W USB Type-C charger and the laptop has a “full featured” USB Type-C port, a mini HDMI port, 3.5mm headset jack, USB 3.0 Type-A port, and two USB 2.0 Type-A ports.
Looks like it’s using the same shell as the nexdock 2, but with some different custom holes.
After having had one for a few years, I can warn you, that appears to be cast aluminum, not forged or CNC machined aluminum. You can expect bits to break off around the edges of the corners if you throw it in the trunk without sufficient padding.
This also probably means the laptop will be fanless.
Good info, thanks.
The price would otherwise seem tolerable but you are probably right about its hardware eventually breaking into bits. I’ve had this happen with a non-budget Fujitsu tablet back in the day, ports kept coming loose and the touchscreen broke. Hardware quality really does matter unless the laptop is kept simple, no touch screen to break. Plastic chassis. Thinking of Hp budget lineup.