14 DAY TRIAL // Consumers that like to stay up to date with the latest happenings on the mobile front, especially those that plan to acquire a new netbook soon, will likely know that, not long ago, the ASUS Eee PC 1201PN became available for pre-order. The same consumer base would likely have frowned when noticing that there was no NVIDIA Optimus technology on said device, which means that the ION 2 graphics, while being quite useful, particularly during graphically complex tasks, won't be very efficient at it.
Since this power inefficiency is bound to cause issues of battery life, it makes sense for ASUS to make sure that its upcoming mobile PCs come without this problem. As such, the fact that the Eee PC 1215 will boast the technology is a welcome change, especially when it isn't the single bonus that the company has planned.
It seems that being predictable is not ASUS' style, regardless of how favorable. To spice things up, the laptop developer will also include a pair of USB 3.0 ports, making the netbook future proof, and even a dual-core Atom D510 CPU.
The rest of the specifications are supposedly identical to those of the Eee PC 1201PN: an LED-backlit 1366 x 768 LCD, up to 2GB of RAM, a 250GB HDD, 10/100 LAN, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1. There is also an HDMi output, meant to let Full-HD 1080p videos be displayed on a full-size monitor or HDTV.
The ASUS Eee PC 1215 seems quite likely to make the 1201PN rather unappealing when it eventually starts selling. Of course, it is just as likely that the price premium it will be accompanied by will move this danger away from the latter, though the extra monetary requirements may be offset by the gain in battery life. Regrettably, there is no hint as to when sales will actually start.