14 DAY TRIAL // There has been much talk of netbooks lately, for several reasons. For one, sales are still growing, but not as rapidly as expected because the market is getting saturated. To remedy this, PC suppliers and chip makers have been doing their best to bring a better performance to next-generation models. One means of achieving this end is NVIDIA's ION 2 graphics solution, and netbooks based on it have already been announced. One of them, the ASUS Eee PC 1201PN to be exact, even seems poised to be one of the first to start selling.
The Eee PC 1201PN was made official last week and promises to enable a smoother multimedia experience, as compared with its predecessors. To be more specific, ASUS claims that the mobile PC can play videos in Full-HD 1080p resolutions. Sure enough, the LED-backlit LCD screen has a high resolution, for a netbook, of 1366 x 768 (16:9) and even an HDMI output to support this claim.
Besides having better than average graphics, the system is, more or less, similar to any other Pine Trail-based netbook out there. The CPU used is the well-known Atom N450, with a frequency of 1.66GHz, while the amount of memory can reach 2GB. There is also an HDD with 250GB of storage space, 500GB of ASUS WEB storage, a 0.3-megapixel webcam and a 6-cell battery that can allegedly keep the device running for up to six hours. As for connectivity, 10/100 LAN, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 are supported.
Initially, the starting price suggested for the ASUS Eee PC 1201PN was of 499 Euro. Amazon, however, has put it up for pre-order at 479, 20 Euro. Interested consumers will find black, white, red and silver versions here, though there is no way of knowing when actual shipments will start being carried out.