The Asus 1015E is a tiny notebook computer with a tiny price tag. It features a 10 inch display and sells for under $299. In fact, many stores are selling the little laptop for as little as $249.
That's not a bad price for a 2.8 pound computer with an Intel Celeron dual-core processor, a 1366 x 768 pixel display, and Windows 8 software. While it's not the fastest, thinnest, or lightest laptop around, it's the only 10 inch laptop on the market that I'm aware of which offers better-than-netbook performance.
In my tests, the Asus 1015E offers about twice the performance you'd expect from a netbook with an Intel Atom processor. But it's just as portable and at least as inexpensive.
In other words, it might be the best 10 inch laptop you can buy.
But it's not for everyone. The keyboard is rather small. You can't use it as a tablet. The fan is kind of noisy. And while the laptop offers reasonably good battery life, the only way to get true all-day battery life would be to invest in a second battery pack.
But did I mention that the Asus 1015E sells for as little as S249?
Asus is also bringing a model with Ubuntu Linux instead of Windows 8 to market. That model's expected to sell for as little as $215.
Asus loaned me a Windows model for the purposes of this review.
Background
Low cost portable laptops have come a long way in the past few years. If you wanted to buy a 10 inch laptop in 2006, your only options were expensive premium models which sold for $1500 or more. Asus changed all of that when the company introduced the first Eee PC netbook in 2007, featuring a 7 inch screen and sold for $400.
The idea was that most people looking for portability in a notebook don't necessarily need bleeding edge performance. Over the next few years we saw dozens of laptops with screens between 7 and 12 inches in size, selling for as little as $250.
Nobody talks much about netbooks much anymore, but in recent years we've seen low-cost portable devices ranging from inexpensive Android tablets to Chromebooks which sell for as little as $199.
We've also seen a number of laptops with 11.6 inch and larger displays with reasonable price tags, including the HP Pavilion DM1, Asus VivoBook X202e, and others. They're faster than netbooks — but they're also larger.
For years I've been hearing from netbook fans who have been waiting for a notebook with a 10 inch screen featuring a processor that offers more power than the Intel Atom chips that have powered most netbooks since 2008.
The Asus 1015E fits the bill.
Overview
The Asus 1015E features a 10.1 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel matte display and a 1.1 GHz Intel Celeron 847 dual-core processor.
That's a Sandy Bridge chip with Intel HD 2000 graphics. It's a 17W chip that was first released in 2011, but it's still faster than any Intel Atom processor on the market. While you shouldn't expect Intel Core i3 level performance, the Asus 1015E can handle most basic computing tasks and has no problem playing HD video.
Asus offers the notebook with a 320GB hard drive, although out of the box it's divided into two user-accessible partitions and a hidden recovery partition.
The notebook has 2GB of RAM and comes with Windows 8 64-bit, although an Ubuntu version will also be available soon. It supports up to 4GB of RAM, but there's no access panel on the bottom of the laptop, so you'll have to partially disassemble the case to upgrade the memory or storage.
Asus includes 802.11b/g/n WiFi, 10/100 Ethernet. Some models may also offer Bluetooth, but the notebook featured in this review does not.
The laptop ships with a 6 cell, 56 Whr battery, but Asus says a smaller 3 cell battery is also available.
Around the sides of the laptop you'll find 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 USB 3.0 port, an Ethernet jack, HDMI port, a VGA/Mini D-sub port, an SD card slot, and a combo mic/headphone jack.
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