It's a bit later than the mid-December target heard previously, but ASUS' 12-inch Ion-packing Eee PC 1201N is up for pre-order with an anticipated January 15 release. A penny short of $500 takes home a dual-core N330 processor clocking 1.6GHz on the Atomic clock, 2GB of DDR2 memory with room to expand to 8GB, a 250GB 5,400 RPM hard disk, Bluetooth, 802.11n WiFi, webcam, and fancy new 32-bit Windows 7 Home Premium OS -- none of that
Starter Edition netbook nonsense. Here's the rub: are you really going to pull the trigger for a legacy
Diamondville-class Atom lappie now knowing that the big CES event in January will likely be flooded with Intel's latest
Pineview-class machines sporting new N450 Atom processors, of which, at least
a few will offer HD video acceleration? Pre-order now if you want but we'd wait until
January 11th to see what might get announced.
[Thanks, Luke F.]
Update: We've been in touch with ASUS' UK team and can confirm that Blighty will be getting its chance at Ion-infused nirvana at a similar time, "mid-January" they say, and at the slightly higher price of £399 ($663).
posted December 4th 2009 4:57AM
This way one can wait all his life, because almost everyday there are announced new and better technology.
Does anyone know why the new 1201N and other new eee pc models are no longer white?
@(Unverified) Affirmative-action?
@(Unverified) I L(ed)OL. Its 8:45 and you just made my day. Awesome.
@(Unverified) : Once you go black...
Reading the reports from Hexus and Ars, the N450 will be similar to the N270 and the on-die GPU will be a GMA500, which is no challenge in gaming or HD video to Ion. If they had integrated a X4500 things would be different. Pinetrail with N450 seems to provide power benefits, not performance.
The N2101 will remain more powerful than the first Pinetrails, but it might not stand up to a CULV machine at that price.
It's very tempting to order it but ... considering it's being released on the 15th next month, I guess I could wait.
Thank God I'm unemployed?
Dear Mister Ricker,
I have read with interest your article. However, I disagree on one point.
To quote :
"Here's the rub: are you really going to pull the trigger for a legacy Diamondville-class Atom lappie now knowing that the big CES event in January will likely be flooded with Intel's latest Pineview-class machines sporting new N450 Atom processors, of which, at least a few will offer HD video acceleration? Pre-order now if you want but we'd wait until January 11th to see what might get announced."
You are totally wrong. The Atom 330 [2] is far more powerful than the upcoming N450. It is a dual core and 64-bit CPU and is roughly equivalent to a Core 2 Duo U7500 @ 1.06 Ghz. The N450 is just a fanless N270.
A successor could be a D510 and ION 2 platform, but we will need at least the end of 2010 to see such designs floating around.
At the current time, I'm sorry but it is the best value netbook available with the ASRock G22 [4] (No-OS and Blu-Ray Optical Drive)
Best Regards,
Guillaume FORTAINE
[1] http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=35641
[2] http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Atom+330+@+1.60GHz
[3] http://www.asrock.com/NB/overview.asp?Model=G22
@gfortaine
Also, any HD video acceleration offered by Intel will be inferior compared to what this netbook has: NVIDIA gpu. NVIDIA gpu's can even be used by CoreAVC codec for hardware acceleration, which is the best h264 codec out there by far.
The real rub is... are you really going to wait more than a year to see if a better netbook comes out? This thing's got it all: portability, power of the dual core desktop class atom, screen capable of 720p, a decent OS, HD acceleration, and an affordable price. If you're in the market for a netbook, I'd snatch it the day it comes out instead of waiting around a year to see what might get announced, hyped, manufactured, and shipped only to find out that it's only a little bit better than this netbook.
I have this exact chipset, and with Linux it's a monster. It eats up whatever I throw at it. I've had no problems with it so far.
Why is this shipping with 32-bit W7? I thought MS was strongly encouraging vendors to stick with 64-bit when hardware permits.
That is my question as well. Has anyone out there tested the n330 with 64 bit OS's ?
Does Ion improve the display of YouTube's Flash videos? In particular, does it display YouTube's 720p HD Flash videos smoothly?
@LondonConsultant Flash 10.1 beta is available now, and w/ the 330 dual core atom, the answer is 'yes'.
@LondonConsultant With Flash version 10.1, which currently is in beta stage, Ion accelerates YouTube flash videos. I don't know about smoothness, but I guess its fine.
@Jurrr Depends on how well that second Atom core does. Any benchmarks?
@LondonConsultant My HP Mini 311 can play 1080p Youtube just fine, I've got the N280 processor, 3GB of RAM, and windows XP home on it. You need to use flash 10.1 and nVidia's newest drivers to get the best performance.
I agree with your position that this might not be worth pulling the trigger with the technology that awaits around the corner - that said,for this price you can get a laptop with a real CPU - I would rather get a bit more of a workout carrying than have an underpowered rig
@Ineed911 Cost is the icing on the cake, and the 330 scales wonderfully and is actually twice the performance of its single core sibling.
Thus is more than fast enough for "regular duty" on the go tasks paired w/ an ION, and needs less cooling and gains about an hour of battery life over a Intel Core 2 Duo U7700, all else equal.
@(Unverified)
Maybe I have some more homework to do. I have seen some of the nettops with the N330 that look interesting as a HTPC alternative - as you mention, a major advantage is in the cooling which translates to noise.
Any experience with how some of the more bloated (read: MS Office) apps work on this setup?
Thx for the reply!
@Ineed911
I built an HTPC using the Zotac Ion 330 motherboard.
For video, the Nvidia chipset does astounding work.
1080p runs at about 60% CPU usage.
720p hits about 30%.
It is definitely slower when doing complex programs like Google Sketchup or GIMP.
But for a netbook, it would rock and roll.
Atom 330 with ion chipset will be my next netbook, for sure.
I really don't know if it's worth the buck, for the same prize one can get a "thin-and-light laptop" with a dual-core Pentium SU like the Toshiba T-115.
Anyone know if this will be able to handle non-flash 1080p video like divx/h.264?
@wctkdman
It should be better than the other ION netbooks, but for this price, getting a CULV will be a better choice.
This netbook is more powerful than a similarly priced laptop. It's dual core and has a very nice graphics processor... This netbook easily out-performs most of the $500 notebooks we sell. It handles games better as well. I say this after using the HP mini 311 which is only a single core Atom 270... This is a dual core Atom, so it's bound to be even faster.
@doom fox:
Compared to the 1201n, the Toshiba is smaller (11.6"), heavier, has no "n" on the wifi, crappy sound, but worst of all, has integrated intel graphics. You will undoubtedly still find yourself stuttering along with hulu, et al. 1080p? My guess is barely watchable. The only real advantage for the Toshiba is good battery life. The 1201n will not only handle 1080p video smooth as a baby's bum, but will also run the new flash 10.1, which is on the verge of release. You can also play 99% of games with a decent frame rate. I believe the 1201n will be the gold standard in 12" netbooks until ion 2 machines come along late in 2010. Upcoming CES will be a flood of machines with the new Intel Pineview processor, which is only notable for its combining of components on one chip, NOT for any brawny performance. Pineviews will still be video crippled compared to ion.
I am really excited for this one, I may wait for CES, but I am pretty certain this is what I am getting. It looks really nice for the price, and I love the Eee PCs, they are some of my favorite netbooks.
"2GB of DDR2 memory with room to expand to 8GB"
Wat?!
I want verification on that now!