Asus Eee PC 1215N
- Category: Notebook Computers
November 29, 2010
Editor's Rating
- Above average screen resolution
- Comfortable keyboard/trackpad
- Strong performance
- Dual-graphics system
- Slightly larger/heavier than most netbooks
- Some motion blur present
The Asus Eee PC 1215N is a netbook with a 12.1-inch LCD display with some added kick than the average netbook. It has a higher-resolution display and a dual-core Intel Atom CPU with 2GB of RAM. It's quite a powerful device despite a few minor shortcomings.
The Eee PC 1215N from Asus weighs a little more than other average netbooks, coming in at 3.2-pounds, but it's still relatively portable. Previous Eee PC models had a glossy black body, but the 1215N has a matte finish that isn't so reflective, so it's much less of a fingerprint magnet. The chassis is mostly black with only a few chrome accents around the power button and touchpad.
The keyboard is quite comfortable and quite large, which makes for a very comfortable experience. The only quip we have about it is the downsized Shift key on the right side, which can lead to some mispresses during early use. The mouse touchpad is extremely smooth as opposed to a textured surface on previous models. This surface Asus included on the 1215N is relatively low in friction which also leads to a comfortable experience. The trackpad is also quite larger and supports multitouch gestures. The single mouse button is just that, single, as opposed to a two-button style for right-clicking.
Asus includes a 12.1-inch LCD display with a resolution of 1366 x 768-pixels (720p HD), which is slightly higher than some other netbooks out there. The display is quite bright and displays a good picture, however the horizontal viewing angles are a little quirky which results in frequent tilt adjustments. There's a 0.3-megapixel Webcam right above the display and has a little privacy shutter than can be closed over the camera for added privacy. We should mention in this discussion of the screen that during videos with a lot of movement, we saw minor blurring and smearing, which was slight disappointment for a higher-resolution display.
On the right side the Asus Eee PC 1215N, you have two USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet and a headphone/mic audio ports. The left side has a VGA out, a memory card reader, HDMI out and an additional USB port.
Some of the specifications of this Asus netbook is an Intel Atom D525 dual-core CPU clocked at 1.8GHz and 2GB of RAM (upgradable to 4GB). You also get a 5400RPM 250GB hard drive and an upgraded Nvidia Ion 2 graphics processor alongside an Intel GMA 3150 GPU. The Nvidia Optimus software automatically switches between the two depending on the need and in turn, saves the user battery power by using only low-power graphics during times of less intensive tasks. Asus also includes 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and the 32-bit edition of Windows 7 Home Premium. It's a rarity that the 32-bit edition is included these days on computers, but because of the 2GB of RAM, you don't have any reason to use a 64-bit OS.
Performance with the Asus Eee PC 1215N was quite good, especially with HD video and playing movies. Videos loaded extremely quick and performance with other tasks, like the usual computing tasks, was very good also thanks to the new dual-core Intel CPU.
Battery life with this Asus netbook is quite good as well, averaging about 5.5 hours of battery life, which is just ahead of other comparable netbooks on the market today.
Asus pre-installs a 30-day copy of Trend Micro Internet Security and a 60-day trial of Microsoft Office 2010. Other than that, pre-installed software is kept to a minimum ,which we like.
