You'd think after running into ASUS's next generation
Eee PC 1018P and 1015PE over five months ago at
CeBIT, our excitement may have waned for the stylish netbooks. Oh, but it's actually the opposite, and when the brand new netbooks arrived last week, we grabbed the X-Acto knife (safely, of course) and eagerly unboxed them to see if the aluminum clad little laptops were as svelte as we'd remembered them. Sure, the $350 1018P and 1015PE have standard netbook internals (an Intel Atom N450 CPU, 1GB of RAM and Windows 7 Starter), but without a doubt they're some of the best quality netbooks ASUS has made in quite a while. Hit that read more link for an in-depth look at these two, and to see if they're all we had hoped for and more.
Look and feel
Both the Eee PC 1018P and the 1015PE are members of the Eee PC Seashell family, but they look more like first cousins than siblings. The 1018P happens to be our favorite in terms of aesthetics – it's got a black aluminum lid and palmrest (it's also available in silver) while the bottom is covered in a black matte plastic. It's only right to take a second to thank ASUS for finally getting rid of the glossy lids that have been plaguing Eee PC after Eee PC! But back to the 1018P, it has an incredibly professional, uniform look, and its battery is flush with the bottom. But above all, it's one of the thinnest and lightest netbooks we've ever had in hand – it measures .7-inches at its thickest point and weighs 2.4 pounds. Seriously, this is one slender looking machine.
The 1015PE is a bit more chunky and business casual with its soft-to-the-touch maroon aluminum lid, which is also available in black, navy, and white. Actually, the chassis design and size is reminiscent of the
Eee PC 1005PE with its rounded corners and thicker base. Speaking of measurements, it's quite a bit thicker than the 1018P -- it's 1.4 inches at its thickest point and the six-cell battery does protrude slightly from the underside. You can see where we're going with this: the 2.8-pound netbook is attractive, but won't turn heads in the same way as the 1018P.
When it comes to ports, both machines have the netbook standards: three USB ports, VGA, Ethernet, headphone and mic jacks. They also have 4-in-1 card readers.
Keyboard, touchpad and screen
The chiclet keyboards on the 1018P and 1015PE are identical to each other, and in truth they're not any different from the keyboards ASUS has been using for the last year on its netbooks (see: Eee PC
1005PE and 1001PE). The matte keys are decently comfortable, but ASUS oddly continues to shrink the right Shift key. The full-sized left Shift key, however, has a total chip on its shoulder and laughs from the other side of the deck. It's not the best netbook keyboard out there – we still prefer that on the
Toshiba Mini NB305 and the
HP Mini 5102 – but we typed this entire review at a decent rate.
While the Eee PCs don't differ much in terms of keyboards, the touchpads are like night and day. (Sadly, ASUS seems to have retired the braille-like pads of the past.) We'll save the best for last, meaning we'll begin with the 1018P's incredibly stiff single mouse button. While the pad itself is wide enough to navigate the desktop and there's a dedicated scroll strip, the single metal button is a thumb's worst nightmare. We ended up double tapping on the pad to make selections to avoid having to jam our thumb on the button. We clearly prefer the 1015PE's soft aluminum-coated pad, which is flush with the palmrest and only set off with two silver lines. Thankfully, the single mouse button on the 1015PE was much easier to press. Both pads supported multitouch gestures – pinch-to-zoom and two finger scrolling worked quite well actually, and was smoother than other PC touchpads we've tested lately.
Both the 1018P and 1015PE have glossy 10.1-inch, 1,024 x 600-resolution screens. The 1018P's matte screen bezel actually makes it appear less glossy than the 1015PE. Either way, both screens were sufficiently bright, though -- as with most ASUS laptops -- viewing angles are narrow. When we watched a clip of the
Today Show on Hulu on the 1018P, tilting the screen back on made it hard to decipher where Matt Lauer's head ended and the wall behind him began. The same thing happened when we watched a clip on the 1015PE. Both the screen bezels do have VGA webcams with nifty camera covers that can be slid on and off for privacy. No shame in confessing: it made us feel very
Mission Impossible for some reason.
The 1018P's speakers are uniquely located in between the screen bezel and the keyboard, while the 1015PE's are on the front bottom lip. Both speakers aren't exceptionally loud, but were fine for listening to "Love the Way You Lie" in a small apartment. Though to Rihanna and Eminem's credit, no set of speakers could make that song sound bad.
Performance, graphics, and battery life
There's no doubt that the Eee PC 1018P and 1015PE have ripe looks, but we can't say the same of its internals. Both mini-laptops are powered by the 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, 1GB of RAM and run Windows 7 Starter. It's no surprise that both netbooks functioned like most we've reviewed over the last half a year – writing this review in Microsoft Word 2010 Starter, chatting with Trillian and surfing the web in Firefox was rather peppy. Not
Core i3 peppy, but we certainly weren't waiting around when toggling between windows or tabs.
There's no change in terms of graphics, either: it's fine for playing back standard-def videos and streaming YouTube and Hulu videos, but anything high-def makes it break down and start limping. Those looking for an HD-capable 10-inch netbook should consider the AMD-powered $349
Acer Aspire One 521 – not only can it handle 1080p video and YouTube HD content, but it has an HDMI port. The 1018P and 1015PE have 250GB hard drives.
|
|
PCMark05 |
3DMark06 |
Battery Life |
|
ASUS Eee PC 1018P |
1244 |
154 |
4:40 |
|
ASUS Eee PC 1015PE |
1365 |
154 |
5:00 |
|
ASUS Eee PC 1008P |
1531 |
152 |
3:20 |
|
ASUS Eee PC 1005PE |
1431 |
157 |
8:10 |
|
Toshiba Mini NB305 |
1272 |
156 |
6:30 |
|
Acer Aspire One 521 |
2286 |
1481 |
4:02 |
Both the 1018P and 1015PE claim to get 10 hours of battery life. Uh, we're not sure how ASUS is testing these days -- perhaps with WiFi turned off and brightness turned all the way down -- considering we got about half that runtime. On our video rundown test, which loops the same standard-def video at 65 percent brightness, the 1018P's 44Wh six-cell battery lasted only 4:40 minutes. The 1015PE's 47Wh six-cell battery lasted a slightly longer five hours. No matter how you slice it, the runtimes are disappointing, especially when the Eee PC 1005PE ran for eight hours on that same test. To the 1018P's credit, it does run for about an hour longer than the
1008P, which has a similar slender design and battery integrated into the chassis design. In everyday use the Eee PC 1018P lasted about five and a half hours and the Eee PC 1015PE closer to six hours. Both would probably provide enough juice to last on a flight from San Francisco to New York, but not as much as other netbooks that could last the duration of some nine hour international flights.
Update: ASUS says its Eee PC 1015PED will have the same battery as the 1015PE so that model should last longer on a charge than our unit did.
Software
The Eee PC duo come loaded up with a fair amount of ASUS software, including its EeeDock which is locked to the top of the desktop and contains shortcuts to a few ASUS utilities. Additionally, they boot the new ExpressGate Cloud OS when you hit the button above the left side of the keyboard. The new instant-on OS is more polished, but it seems more sluggish than the previous version. We know, we sound like a broken record on these pre-boot environments, but they seem quite pointless when you can just wait 30 seconds more to get into Windows. The laptops also came with Syncables for syncing files between computers and ASUS's EeeStorage, which includes 20GB of online storage.
Wrap-up
Indeed, ASUS has done a really nice job in designing the most attractive netbooks on shelves today, and the best part is that you don't have to pay more than $350 (at least at Best Buy) for those premium designs, as the company has been known to do in the past. In the end, both the 1018P and 1015PE are very solid choices, though if you're looking for a netbook that lasts longer on a charge we have to recommend the Toshiba Mini NB305 or the Eee PC 1005PE. However, if you've got your mind set on one of these new very dapper Eees, we're more inclined to recommend the 1015PE over the 1018P because of its superior touchpad and battery life, but there's no denying the 1018P is the better choice for those that place priority on looks.
posted July 23rd 2010 12:30PM
I just read this review in the hope of gloating over my Acer 521 purchase.
It worked!
Now why did these get the same score? Better keyboard, thickness, and metallic cover > CPU & GPU speed? I guess I'm a little bitter that the 521 got 6/10. Maybe compared against ALL current laptops that's true, but against other 10" netbooks it's easily an 8. (9 if you put 2GB and Win7 Pro on it).
I love Joanna's reviews, and I'm not against scorecards in concept, but so far the Engadget implementation seems a bit too arbitrary.
@StalkyTheFish Sooooo agree. Don't go with the scorecard. Really, anything a 6 or higher is worth looking into.
These are really nice! Might pick one up in a while.
Although, companies need to stop with the freaking stickers. They're annoying, and a pain to remove.
Im glad my Alienware didn't come with those damned stickers.
@Firewave
Amen to that. I remember my Dell XPS m1330... the Nvidia sticker was attached so tight I had to use a utility knife to get it off >.
Yeah, these are an improvement over the seashell design of current eeePC netbooks but in terms of build quality and style I think Asus netbooks still have a ways to go. The aluminum back covers are nice and remind me of my UL-30A but the build quality of the screen area and keyboard just doesn't compare to higher end netbooks.
@DaHarder
it's Apple's "answer" to the netbook. Anybody holding out for an ACTUAL apple netbook is an idiot.
@TomSawyer Here are the benchmark results of Asus Eee 1018p with N475 processor, 2GB RAM - http://gadgetmix.com/netbook/asus-eee-1018p-review/
@DaHarder Did you mean "uFAIL"? (not that you fail...)
@pple is poo
I always considered the macbook air to be apples "netbook" even if the price isn't right.
@KennyB123 I just want to say that I got my mom the 1015PE from Best Buy for Mother's Day. I threw Jolicloud on it and she loves it. I would say that the stock Windows sucked and did not seem nearly as quick as Engadget made it out to be, but after I tweaked it by uninstalling a lot of the crapware (which takes forever because the computer is fairly slow and there is just soooo much crap on there) and paring down the running programs and services, it ran at a fair clip that most non-power-users would deem acceptable. Overall, for the $320 I paid at the time, it was an amazing buy and she loves it. I am sure that now, since the review is extremely late, there are better values for the money or prices will soon fall.
I like the use of aluminum and that red color is sexy. Personally I'd be all over that 1018P if it came in that color. The only thing I definitely don't dig is the single-button mouse button. It works on a mac because you're used to not having two buttons and that one-button has only had one function (regular-click). Windows has the two-mouse buttons because that's what you're used to and they have separate functions. I wouldn't want the button to do something different depending on where I press the button. Sorry for the tangent guys but that annoys me with a lot of netbooks.
@TomSawyer How's it an 'answer' to anything. It can't even function on a level even approaching the lowest spec netbooks, requires syncing to an actual computer to function, has no hard keyboard, completely lacks the netbook form factor and is more expensive than nearly the entire range. What the hell argument is this.
How well do these computers handle flash games. Would these handle long sessions of farmville?
Why is endget reviewing the low end version of these netbooks. wheres the 1018p im looking for with the 2gb ddr3 ram and N475 1.83cpu?!
On another note.. Engineers have invented a laptop at the mere cost of $35.
http://thelikepage.com/1197/Engineers_invent_a_laptop_that/
@pple is poo
On another note.. Engineers have invented a laptop at the mere cost of $35.
http://thelikepage.com/1197/Engineers_invent_a_laptop_that/
I have 1018P netbook. The netbook has equipped with a hybrod system with both ExpressGate Cloud and Windows 7 on the same machine. I like to use the ExpressGate Cloud 2.0 for picture, music, and browser for fast access in public location. Also, I have activated the Security with parental control for my child tp safely surf the web and secure the windows system. Like my hybrid car Lexus gs450 which intermix gas and electronic features into one car. I like ASUS hybrid system which mixes the speed and safe surfing into the same system with shared hard disk. The Gadget like GUI is a good idea to the fast access. But I sould expect more convenient function like weather, world clock, Facebook games, and latest new Youtube video clips into the Gadget Cloud services.
I was reading about the Asus 1005PR - which does HD video by the way - and at the bottom of the page in small print they give their battery test methodology. It states...
Estimated battery life was done in reader mode with MobileMark® 2007. Actual battery life may vary based on product settings, usage patterns, and environmental conditions.
The link is here:
http://promos.asus.com/US/EeePC_1005PR/ASUS_1005PR.html
The new Asus netbook is gorgeous! I want one! I bought an Asus netbook last year, it came with a few of the same features, including Syncables. Syncables is great, I've ended up using my netbook more often because of it! It's fun and very simple to use – and it does more than just keep all of my folders and emails up to date between my netbook and laptop, I can also upload my pictures to Facebook seamlessly from within the application.
Now I just have to find a way to get my hands on one of those 1018P's!
Went to my local bestbuy today to check these out. The mouse button on the 1018 really is terribly stiff. Other than that they really are nicely built. I ended up going with an HP Mini 210 because of the design with Windows 7 Premium 32-bit Intel(R) Atom(TM) N475 (1.83GHz) + Broadcom(R) Crystal HD Video accelerator + Intel(R) Graphics 3150, Memory 2GB DDR3, 250GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive,10.1" diagonal High Definition HP BrightView Infinity LED Display (1366 x 768). If i could get these specs with one of the these new Asus Mini I'd be in there but that would most likely drive cost way up.