ASUS' Ion 2-based Eee PC to launch in April
By Thomas Ricker 
posted January 21st 2010 2:50AM
posted January 21st 2010 2:50AM
Rather than mongering yet another rumor, DigiTimes is apparently reporting as fact that an Ion 2-powered Eee PC will launch in April. It's also expected to host a 12-inch display if we're reading this report correctly. That NVIDIA boost is welcome news since the Pine Trail-only bump given to its Eee PC 1005PE didn't offer much in the way of performance improvements and still can't handle YouTube video in HD. While no direct prices were given, Atom N450-based Eees are expected to drop in price to NT$14,000 (about $439) in Q2 after ASUS depletes its stock of legacy N270- and N280-based Atom netbooks. DigiTimes also notes that its 10-inch Eee PC T101 convertible touchscreen tablet (the T101MT presumably) will launch in late February along with a 12-inch Eee PC built around AMD's Congo.
damn you ASUS. now i have to give you more money.
why not throw in a ULV while you're at it?
I could go for some AMDeee
@New Reformation
Why? You like your battery to last half as long? Or is it just you like extra heat on your lap in the winter months?
@New Reformation - why? AMDs mobile processors suck. Have you seen reviews for the Thinkpad X100e? When in battery mode, the Neo processor is throttled to 800MHz (which makes it slower than any Atom), and still it kills the battery within less than 4 hours...
@NewLYo did you guys hear that Asus is supposedly making a 10.1 inch tablet? WSJ has been talking about it and how it's going to have reader, MID, and gaming functionality. It's super secret so don't tell anyone. :p
If it doesn't have an HD display native why even bother. I'm sick of not being able to pick up a netbook at a retailer with a display proper enough to view most web pages and well just be useful period.
HD as in what resolution, I find having a resolution of 1920x1080 on a 12 inch display that text may be a tad hard to read ;)
I guess you mean 1366x768 which is a good middle ground.
@autobot I would gladly pay $500 for a 10" Pinetrail/Ion2 netbook that had 1366x768 reso with the power to drive HD video and still had a 6+ hr battery life. I spend about 1/4 of the year out of town so a nice small laptop that can play video/movies etc. and actually last a 3 hour flight would be grand. I have an EEE 1000HE right now and well it kinda works up to the hulu and youtube videos being slide show along with any video over SD resolution.
@(Unverified) I'd gladly pay for a Pinetrail/Ion netbook at 1024 x 600 resolution if it would play a frigging flash video without choking.
I don't care if the native display resolution is less than HD, we still need a video processor so the normal display doesn't choke on youtube or hulu.
Plus then you can have an HDMI output and use the netbook as a portable player on hotel TVs etc. An HD screen would be icing on the cake but being able to handle basic web surfing is a must on a netbook.
I read that the main problem with the Ion-Atom combo was that the atom processors caused bottleneck in graphic intensive tasks like gaming. Does anyone know if Ion2-Pinetrail combo will have the same kind of problem? technically games like Modern Warfare 2 are playable at mid-low setting on 210m...can this nettop actually handle games like that?
Ion2 already? I'm still waiting for the 1201N to become available in the UK.
@dazzla76
Yeah. Quite like the 1201n, the only pity being the price and the battery.
@dazzla76
Gah, also meant to say...less than £350 and a true 8hr+ battery life would be killer.
As it is, it's sneaking into cheap ultraportable territory, where the cpu compares unfavourably.
@yegon
Yeah i agree about the battery, but think i can live with it. The CPU doesn't worry me too much because it should be better than my current Aspire One A110.
I just want a good mobile machine that is moderately powered at around 12 inches. A nice to have is suitability as a hackbook.
It's a toss up between the 1201n and the Acer 1810TZ, the Acer wins on CPU power, but loses out on GPU and Bluetooth.
@dazzla76
Hmm, it's a pretty nice piece of kit. A 9400m is more than adequate too. Had a brief look to see if anyone has bunged Snow Leopard on there, some success but involves swapping out the wifi card iirc.
May still be tempted when it hits the UK (when?) but I'm holding out to see what the Apple tablet is exactly. Barring something revoutionalry, I don't for a minute think I'll be interested in getting one tbh, plus it's unlikely to be out in the UK for aaages....but still, seems unwise to purchase anything so soon to the big announcement of anything.
@yegon
Good point, who knows what the Apple gig will bring next week.
If i were made of money i would get a Macbook air. I already have a 17" unibody for home use, just want something easily portable for the train etc.
I've been keeping an eye on the 1201n Snow Leopard threads, The only problems seem to be the wifi and sound. The sound seems like it should be fixable given time. The wifi does require a replacement card, but i will buy one of the Dell n class mini cards and do the swap myself.
@dazzla76
I just got the 1201n yesturday, seems pretty decent. My only complaints are the glossy screen, and battery life. I can only get 4 hours out of it (wifi on, bluetooth off, power savings mode, less than medium brightness). Other than that I'm really happy with it.
I'm about to buy the ASUS 1201N.. but now I see this, should I wait and see what ION2 and ASUS bring? or can we expect it to cost more than the $489 that they are now?
And will the battery life be worse on ION 2 than on regular ION and N330?