14 DAY TRIAL // The laptop market may be expected to grow by 50% now that Intel CPUs and chipsets are shipping more or less normally again, but AMD-powered machines have been coming out in the meantime without any problem, two of them, made by ASUS, having now been listed.
The ironic part about the whole episode with Intel's 6-Series Cougar point chipset was the odd position that it put AMD in.
Since companies from around the world were pretty much unable to sell any new Intel-based laptop or motherboard, AMD should have seen its own CPU sales jump.
Unfortunately, its Fusion line had only covered the low-end market (only netbook and tablet parts were available), so the Sunnyvale, California-based company couldn't fill in for the Sandy Bridge.
Still, this didn't mean that no machines came out, as ASUS itself put together a pair of mobile PCs that have the distinct advantage of affordability.
Normally, even a netbook sells for around $500, but the Eee PC 1015B and 1215B somehow managed to strike the prices of $289 and $379, respectively.
For those that want a reminder, the 1015B is a 10.1 entry-level laptop powered by the 1.2 GHz AMD C30 APU (accelerated processing unit). Meanwhile, the 1215B has a 12.1-inch screen and a 1 GHz C50 dual-core APU.
Both use 1 GB of DDR3 memory, a HDD of 250 GB, WiFi, USB, HDMI, VGA and 6-cell batteries that can last for up to 8.5 hours on a single charge.
All in all, the new members of ASUS's Eee PC portfolio are very affordable netbooks (or ultraportable in the case of the 12.1 incher) that can be ordered here (1015B) and here (1215B).
What remains is to see how soon Advanced Micro Devices delivers mainstream and high-end processors and if they manage to give Intel's solutions a run for their money.