Conclusion
The ASUS Eee PC 1215N is a great laptop. Although it fits into the netbook category, it’s at the high-end of that market, both in terms of performance and price. In most cases, netbooks feel like netbooks; they’re sluggish, have cheap materials, and cramped keyboards. The Eee PC 1215N doesn’t feel like a netbook at all. It’s spacious, reasonably quick, and fun to use. The hardware has its limitations, but you’re not as likely to run into them.
Should you buy the Eee PC 1215N? That depends on your priorities. There are much quicker laptops of similar size priced between $100 and $200 more, and in terms of bang-for-your-buck, they make more sense. The 11.6” Acer Timeline X with the Core i3 processor is one great example. However, the ASUS Eee PC 1215N has advantages over many such competitors. It may only have a dual-core Atom, but its keyboard and touchpad are both outstanding, and the ASUS has more graphics punch as well.
The only question that hangs in the air comes courtesy of the AMD E-350. Although the Atom+Ion combination offers similar performance to the AMD E-350 APU, the Fusion option does offer better performance overall.
ASUS itself offers the Eee PC 1215B, which is the same laptop as this 1215N model, but with an AMD E-350 processor inside. That would be an attractive option even if priced the same, but the Fusion powered 1215B is actually about $30 cheaper than the Atom+Ion powered 1215N. It’s possible there may be some difference in battery life, but the battery size appears to be the same on the Fusion model, so the endurance is likely similar.
The Atom+Ion combination is not bad, but computer hardware is an all-or-nothing market. If your competitor is just slightly quicker, and just slightly less expensive, you lose. That’s the issue here. If the Eee PC 1215B was not available I would be tempted to award the 1215N the Editor’s Choice, but this excellent netbook is overshadowed by the apperance of its new baby brother.
Really stayin’ a head of the
Really stayin’ a head of the curve on this one. Good job beatin’ the competition to it.
Hah, you card!
Yes, this
Hah, you card!
Yes, this model has been on the market for awhile. It’s still relevant, however, and I think it is interesting to look at in light of our recent AMD Fusion coverage.
I’m happy to see the E-350
I’m happy to see the E-350 doing well out there. I built a windows home server off of one of the ASUS boards and am very happy with it. I know they aren’t meant for things like video encoding but I have been queueing up videos in handbrake for it to encode so I can turn my main computer off. The really sad part (for me) is that the E-350 is actually faster at video encoding than my main computer (an Athlon 64 3000+). I’ve done some comparisons and the E-350 is about 30% faster than my current main computer – how far we have come. As soon as Z68 drops though I will be upgrading. Can’t wait.
That is pretty good praise
That is pretty good praise for the E-350 indeed!
Bought this netbook for my
Bought this netbook for my wife. It’s a pretty good netbook. It runs all of her apps easily, including some internet java and flash games. Some games are too intensive for it, but that’s somewhat expected on a netbook. One of the biggest advantages is the HDMI port. HDMI is very hard to find on a netbook right now, and this is one of the few that have it. We hook it up to our TV and play movies a lot, and it plays them just fine. I love the size and portability. The battery life isn’t as great as advertised, but it’s still tons more than I’m used to on my regular laptop. It usually lasts about 5-6 hours.
The big downside to this netbook is the trackpad. It’s HORRIBLE! It works sometimes, other times it registers that im trying to zoom in or out of a screen and brings up a arrow diamond thing that is really unhelpful. Tried playing with the control panel functions, but it only helped slightly. It still bugs out real bad at times. Expect to buy a seperate mouse for this thing. I bought a small wireless mouse and it works well.
Pros:
Small size
Battery life
Powerful enough to do most tasks
HDMI port!!
Cost
Cons:
Trackpad is horrible; plan on buying a new mouse
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