The Asus Eee PC 1015PN may be one of the most powerful 10 inch netbooks with an Intel Atom chip on the market today. Unfortunately with great power comes great less than stellar battery life. While the Eee PC 1015PN can handle 1080p HD video playback and some 3D graphics and gaming tasks, those capabilities come at the expensive of battery life, and you'll be lucky to get between 4 and 6 hours of run time depending on how you use the laptop.
The netbook has a 1.5GHz Intel Atom N550 dual core processor and next-generation NVIDIA ION graphics. On paper it sound awesome. And in reality, it's pretty good. But it's not perfect.
For instance, while the netbook can handle HD graphics, it has a typical 1024 x 600 pixel netbook display, which means that you won't really be able to see the difference between HD and standard definition video unless you plug in an external display. The Eee PC 1015PN also ships with Windows 7 Starter Edition, which doesn't support NVIDIA Optimus graphics switching. That means if you want to switch between using the ION graphics (for higher performance) and the integrated Intel graphics (for better battery life), you'll need to reboot the computer.
Still the Eee PC 1015PN is one of the first 10 inch netbooks to hit the market with NVIDIA ION graphics. If you've been looking for a light weight portable computer than can handle 1080p HD Flash and local video playback as well as some light weight gaming, the Eee PC 1015PN may be one of the best options around… although it's certainly not the only game in town.
Asus sent me a demo unit to review. In addition to the specs mentioned above, the laptop came with a 6 cell, 56Whr battery, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, 1GB of RAM, and a 250GB hard drive. It has a 0.3MP webcam.
Design
I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about the design, keyboard and touchpad on this model. The Eee PC 1015PN is nearly identical to the Eee PC 1015PED I reviewed a few weeks ago in these areas — and pretty similar to every Eee PC netbook the company has released in the last year or two.
If you've been following the Eee PC space closely, here are the two things you might want to know before you skip down to the performance section:
- The Eee PC 1015PN has a matte display which doesn't reflect much glare, but the bezel around the screen is made of glossy plastic.
- There's an HDMI port for outputting high resolution graphics, video, and audio to an external display.
The computer has the usual array of ports, including 3 USB ports, an Ethernet jack, VGA port, headphone and mic jacks and an SD card slot.
On the bottom there's a single access panel for upgrading the RAM. You'll need to take the computer apart to change the hard drive or other internal components.
The lid has a matte finish and comes in several colors. The demo unit Asus sent me is black, as is the palm rest and keyboard area.
The webcam is located at the top of the screen bezel, and there's a physical switch you can slide to open or close a door over the camera to protect the lens — or your privacy — when you're not using it
The keyboard features an island-style layout, with flat keys separated by small gaps. The shift key on the right side of the keybaord is rather small but it makes room for arrow keys and an extra Fn key on the right.
The touchpad has the same texture and finish as the palm rest, and is bordered by little strips of chrome, making it easy to find the edges without looking down at your fingers. There's a single large button beneath the touchpad, with a rocker in the middle allowing you to register left and right clicks.
Performance
There are two key hardware differences between the Eee PC 1015PN an
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