Asus Eee PC X101 Secretly Gets a Product Page!

Few weeks ago Asus showed off one of their upcoming netbooks called the Eee PC X101. Concerning the cheap hardware this netbooks had nothing "major" in it, except for the physical design!. This netbook without a doubt will be one of the most thinnest ones in the market and the price range, according to Asus will be under $200!.

Although at that time Asus did not confirm about its launching date but few hours ago it seems to have a dedicated product page in Asus Eee section which appeared kinda secretly because Asus didn't even make any official announcement, but it should be a matter of days if not hours perhaps.

A 10.1 inch LED Backlight WSVGA with screen resolution of 1024x600, Intel Atom N435/N455 (it will have two versions) processor, 1GB of DDR3 RAM (max 2GB), 8GB SSD drive, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 2 USB 2.0 ports, audio headphone and a card reader (SD/ SDHC/ MMC), 0.3 MPX front camera, 2 built in stereo speakers, 17.6 mm thin!, 0.92 Kgs of weight...

The only disappointing thing is (there's always one :/) the battery life. According to Asus the X101 will have about 4 hours of battery life which is not bad but when considering some other popular ones and netbooks in general I think it's a bit low for its caliber.

And also it will be able to handle 720p HD videos but not the 1080p ones, I mean, even the Intel Atom dual-core versions struggle when it comes to trying to play some of those. It would've been nice if the X101 came with an AMD fusion version because the Fusion ones have no problems whatsoever playing 1080p videos thanks to the powerful ATI Raedon 6200/6300 HD GPUs.

But I guess it might raise some of that price tag anyway.

There's also a separate MS Windows 7 powered version available, although not sure about the price of that version at the moment, but by default it comes with the excellent MeeGO operating system which must have helped to cut out some of that cost :).

They wouldn't say but from the pictures I don't think it has a full keyboard but it's a Chiclet one and looks comfortable but will have to wait until it's released to see how well it performs while actually touch typing. Oh and it has three color choices at the moment - White, Red and Brown.

So, if you're looking for a very very light weight, awesome looking (well Asus has a bit of a reputation) netbook under $200, then the X101 will be (or maybe) an excellent choice, although in no way it can replace the MacBook Air... but for a price under $200 I really gotta say it "looks" impressive, don't you agree?. 

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Asus Eee PC 1215B Netbook Hardware Specifications (& Personal Thoughts)

Recently I was searching all over the internet because I wanted to buy a new netbook. In my search for a reasonable netbook I came up with quite a few actually. But one in particular took my attention because of the general design (keyboard, screen and the other nice look-n-feel) and is called the recent Asus Eeep PC netbook model the 1215B.

Things that matter...

*. Keyboard & Display (goes hand-in-hand).

I'm a touch typist and use the Dvorak layout. Although it really didn't hit me you know, all those reviewers saying how bad the 10.1 inch screen "mini" models keyboards are (small), until recently I went into a local store and actually got my hands on a 10.1 inch netbook. I tried putting my palms on the keyboard (the typing stance - kiyahoooo ;-)) and I could barely move my fingers.

Images via: liliputing.com

It was really uncomfortable. It was so small that my fingers easily collide with each other and I wonder if someone buy these so called "mini" models and while touch typing they give them such a pain in the as*. So if you're a touch typist, then make sure to go for a net-book that has a 11.6" + screen size or the keyboard in comparison is about (at lest) 95-96% of the standard size otherwise typing is gonna be really problematic.

This is one of the main reasons why I love the Asus Eee PC 1215B models, because it comes with a 12.1" larger display screen thus the netbook in general has plenty of room to integrate an almost full size standard keyboard (96% to be precise).

Watch-out for the Touchpad!

Although the HP Pavilion DM1Z has 11.6" screen still they've managed to include a full size keyboard but I don't like their arrow keys design and the big touch-pad which is very troublesome, because when you type and rest the palm near the touch-pad area the hands get on the way thus moving the pointer!. This seems to a "standard" issue with a lot of netbooks... so before buying pay extra attention to whether the touch-pad is capable of not getting in your way while typing.

*. CPU & GPU

A lot of other netbooks have Intel Atom (ether dual core or single core) but I'm really impressed with the new AMD APU design called AMD Fusion, where both the CPU and the GPU (vga processor) are both integrated into a singe chip/core thus making they're highly efficient as a result the current version of the AMD E-350 dual core processors (1.6 GHz each) beat Intel Atom CPU (including the dual-core versions) at every step!.

The Asus 1215B has a AMD E-350 dual core CPU design and an ATI Radeon HD 6310 which is more than capable of playing HD videos at 1080p.

Other hardware specifications in brief...

*. 12.1" LED Backlight WXGA (1366x768) Screen.

*. DDR3 2GB, upgrade-able up to 4GB (2 slots).

*. 2.5" Sata HDD (250-500GB).

*. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

*. 0.3 Front camera.

*. 2 USB 2.0 ports and a singe USB 3.0 port! - This may not necessary at the moment and since its netbook having USB 3.0 may not make much of a difference... but when comparing with the HP DM1Z the USB 3.0 port is a handy feature concerning the near future.

*. 6-cell battery and Asus say about 8 Hours battery life. But according to actual testers such as Brad from Liliputing computing has an excellent review and according to his tests, under typical usage (web browsing, video playback, etc) it lasted about 5.5 hours which is pretty decent.

*. HDMI port, card-reader (SD/ SDHC/ SDXC/ MMC) and Rj-45 LAN output.

*. Dimensions - 296 x 203 x 38 mm (WxDxH).

*. 1.45 kg of weight (including the battery).

*. Genuine Windows 7 Home premium (64-bit) comes pre-installed.

Although it would've been nice if you Asus had a GNU/Linux pre-installed to cutout the cost a bit more. Anyhow, after considering its excellent performance I think if you're looking for a netbook with a powerful features (for its caliber) then Asus Eee PC 1215B is an excellent little companion for a reasonable price (around $450-500).

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Asus UX21 - An Impressively Thinner Yet A Powerful, Laptop

Although I certainly didn't get my hands on it, yet from those who did, I hear them say, at its most thickest point, it's still about 17mm (about 3mm! at the most lowest). And when looking at the whole design it's apparent that Asus upcoming UX21 Laptop is certainly "inspired" by Apple's Mac Book Air.

But when considering its hardware specifications it's certainly powerful than theMac Book Air. For instance it packs with USB 3.0 mega speed :) ports, SATA III SSD drive as the main HDD, Intel Core i7 processor... yup it may look like a skinny/sexy model (female of course :P) but also very powerful at the same time as well.

But we all have seen these iPhone killers or iPad killers yet none of them have been able to beat Apple at their own game. I honestly can't figure out why Apple products are so much popular but if you are gonna introduce another iPad or Mac Book "Killer", it's not just about Power, which should be apparent by now.

Anyway for those of you haven't heard SATA III SSD doesn't mean it a hybrid HDD with a rotating SATA mechanical drive + solid state disk... again most of you know this but for those who doesn't, UX21 comes with a SSD drive and that "SATA III" part means that the SSD drive is as fast as the SATA III or version 3 which is about 6000Mbit/s (at its peak - Megabytes per second).

So basically with a SATA III SSD drive you can copy/move a 700MB DVD rip slightly above 1 second, how's that for speed.

Well, it looks pricey... :)

Asus say that they'll start shipping it in September. It comes with a 11.6 Wide screen display with 1366x768 HD resolution, gassy touch pad (those aren't that sensitive for my taste), Full and stylish keyboard, mini-HDMI port, no SD card reader (but that may change if they "hear" the complaints), 1 USB3 port and 1 USB 2.0 port, 64/128SSD drive.

A 1.1kg of weight...  although for the "showoff" they had an Intel Core i5 processor running at 1.7Ghz yet they've said that it'll come with an i7.

Although other things such as battery life, price or RAM are still unknown yet when asked whether it'll be cheaper than the Mac Book Air, the answer was Yes! (consider the "bold" :D). Well it's just 3 months ahead, so, we'll see.

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Asus EeePC X101 Netbook , Powered by the "MeeGo" Linux Operating System!

When Asus launched the EeePC "project" it was a hit because EeePC gave users the ability to purchase low-end netbooks with lots of features for a very reasonable price (not all of them are cheap, anyhow). They consume less power, has a longer battery life, light in weight... perfect companion for our busy daily schedule.

Although I can't really remember the name but the first few EeePC came with an Chinese Linux distribution which was actually a mixture of applications/toolkits (you know the file manager was Konqueror and had several GTK written apps, etc).

And those were the "early" days of the powerful Mobile OS platform known as MeeGo.

It wasn't durable and ready at that time but now after several years the MeeGo mobile OS (funded by Intel, Maemo and Nokia) is looking pretty awesome and strong!. And as a result yesterday, Asus officially released one their latest EeePC netbooks called X101 which runs MeeGo as the operating system.

The catchy thing about the X101 is actually its price. When Google boasts about their Chrome Netbooks, Asus on the other hand has come up with "something" that has...

*. 1.33 Oak Trail  Intel Atom CPU.

*. 1GB of RAM/Memory.

*. Uses Intel GMA 600 GPU (since Intel has an open source friendly GPU designs... overall integration of Intel graphics are almost always better than Ati or Nvidia).

*. 10 Inch display area with 1024x600 resolution.

*. Wi-Fi

*. 2 USB ports.

*. Lithium Ion 28Whr battery (2600 mAh, 6-cell).

*. MicroSD card slot.

*. 16GB SSD drive as the main storage device.

*. Sizing at just 17.6mm, watch out Mac Book Air!.

*. Weights less than 1kg (950 grams to be precise).

and has a much lower price tag!. When considering all these decent hardware features, the X101 is gonna cost around $199 in US! (£150 in UK, but it's yet to be confirmed). There will be an option to pre-order it with Windows 7 (will rise the cost as a result - thank you Microsoft :P) as well. Anyway, I think by using MeeGo has a definite impact on the lower price without a doubt.


A little about MeeGo...

MeeGo's original name was actually Moblin. It's basically a separate Linux project under the supervision of Linux foundation and several other commercial companies such as Intel as mentioned earlier. The interface is optimized for mobile devices (you know, it's efficient and won't "waste" that precious "spaces" of these smaller touch/screens) and the UI is written using Qt toolkit. But other portions of MeeGo is written using the GTK+ and Clutter as well.

Although some portion of the OS (such as the Kernel few other parts) are released under GNU/GPL license but the whole Linux OS in general is an opensource project rather than a "true" GNU/Linux distribution. But the rest assured, it looks very very promising and totally free of charge!.

Will the X101 and MeeGo be able to impress the users??, well, I think when considering the price and the OS and the hardware features... heck ya it can! ;-).

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Transformer TF101 - Asus Eee Pad That Runs Android Honeycomb 3.0!

For no particular reason (other than their excellent portability) for sometime now I've been searching for a Tablet PC that comes with a reasonable price + the possibility of running running GNU/Linux easily. Asus has been producing their "Eee" family personal computers for sometime now but their "Eee Pad" which resembles "Eee version" of Tablet PCs are something new to the consumers.

And to be honest, I haven't purchased it and has no idea whether it we'll be able to run GNU/Linux distributions, considering the fact that it runs the Android 3.0 Honeycomb... well, it might. Anyhow after reading few reviews and the official product page here are the main features and my personal thought about it.

Main Hardware Specifications...

*. Comes with the Nvidia Tegra 2 (a GPU that's especially designed to run on Mobile devices, performance + low power consumptions, etc) Dual-Core CPU that runs around 2 Ghz.

*. Has the ability to comfortably play HD videos around 1080p (resolution level).

IPS Panel, 178° wide view angle.

*. Display - 10.1" LED Backlight WXGA (1280x800) Screen, 10 finger multi-touch support + a scratch resistant glass (for all you "long fingernail" ladies :D).

*. 1GB of physical RAM.

*. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 version.

*. 1.2 megapixel front camera and a 5MP back camera.

*. MicroSD card reader/HDMI output (+ audio output jack and a mic-in).

*. 5 Different sensors - G-Sensor, Light Sensor, Gyroscope, E-Compass and GPS.

*. Powered by the open-source Android Honeycomb version 3.0 (there might be an update available through Asus to the latest 3.1 version, but as usual, delays are expected) and Adobe Flash 10.2 support.

*. 16/32GB SSD (solid state disk) for storage.

*. Battery life of 9.5 hours!.

*. Weight - 680 grams.

But one important thing about the Transformer TF101 Android Honeycomb Tablet is, by adding a portable docking station (more likely a keyboard actually, shipped separately)... you can convert the TF101 Tablet PC into a light weight netbook!.

Have a look at the above screenshot. As you can see, the Tablet is fully integrated into the "dock" because by default the Tablet PC version has two "docking Latches". After integrated with the docking station, it gives you a physical QWERTY keyboard (obviously) but most importantly, this is not just a "keyboard" but it consist of ...

*. 2 USB ports (2.0 high speed).

*. 40 Pin standard battery charger.

*. Dedicated "Android buttons".

*. SD card reader to the right corner and since it has a powerful battery embedded to the dock itself, after attaching it with the Tablet, you should be able to expand the default 9 hours into an impressive 16 hours! (although these values may differ since these are just what the Asus claims).

And apart from the Android Honeycomb interface, Asus gives a UI of its own called Waveshare by using which you can access Asus's online services such as MyNet, MyCloud, etc with ease. And the Asus application Launcher is also embedded into the Honeycomb as well.

And as said, guys/gals this is not a review, because I haven't bought it or anything. But the reason that I choose to write about ... well it kinda impressed me with that Tablet PC and the "dock" thing :).

And if you're wondering about its ability to render HD videos directly into your huge TV screen, well according to Asus, TF101 can do it pretty easily, quoting...

"Powered by the NVIDIA® Tegra™ 2 dual-core processor, the Transformer browses the web at blazing speeds, providing a snappier response time and better performance when multi-tasking. Sporting a HDMI 1.3a port, the Transformer can connect to a HDTV and 5.1 surround sound system, delivering an enhanced multimedia experience..."

Although to be honest, Apple's iPad2 is not as impressive as its predecessor. Because even after Apple claiming about its GPU being, what 9x times faster was it?... still it can't even play HD videos of 1080p... just mirrors those videos. So in that sense the TF101 apart from its cheaper price when comparing with iPad2, it's pretty powerful.

But again, when it comes to the look-n-feel ipad2... oh it looks better, the TF101 looks a bit like came from back in the 70s!. Oh and that dock as I said has to be purchased separately (I think it costs around an extra $130 something). If interested, you can purchase the Asus Transformer TF101 A1 from Amazon :D.

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