Asus 1015PX Review
For many the Asus 1015PX netbook is nothing but a slightly updated 1015 PEM netbook that I reviewed sometime back. We cannot agree more since the only thing that has undergone any sort of change is the processor. As a netbook, this Eee PC has decent specs – 10.1-inch display, 1024 x 600 pixel display, 320GB HDD, 1GB DDR3 RAM, and runs Windows 7 Starter operating system. Before writing this review, I ran all sorts of benchmarks on this netbook to see how the dual core Atom N570 fares with rest of the CPUs in the market, especially the Atom N550. For those who do not know, Atom N550 is also a dual core processor and the only difference on paper are their clock speeds.
Atom N570 runs at 1.66GHz while the Atom N550 runs at 1.5GHz. Read my Atom N570 benchmark article to know more about the performance. In general usage, you will not be able to find out any difference between a netbook with Atom N550 and another netbook with N570. Both processors cope with 720p YouTube videos easily and multitasking is problem either. People expecting this new Atom to handle 1080p videos will be disappointed since videos at those resolution chocked. An ION GPU would have cured that problem though.
Display
Just like the Asus 1015PEM, it has a matte display. I found the viewing angles to be decent and since it is matte, it can be used outside too. The only thing not to like is its resolution which is still stucked at WSVGA (1024 x 600). This is something Asus need to address fast in their upcoming netbooks.
Ports
For ports, you get 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Ethernet. You also get 3x USB 2.0 ports (nope, no USB 3.0), VGA, Kensington lock, headphone and card reader.
HDMI should have been included since the mini notebook was able to cope up with 720p video playback.
Keyboard, Trackpad
Keyboard is same as other 10.1-inch Asus netbooks. Keys are chiclet style and have decent tactile feedback. I do yearn for a standard right shift key though which does results in many typos.
Trackpad works great and has a matte finish which felt nice to my fingers. Multi touch gestures worked without a problem. Mouse buttons are integrated into a small bar but fortunately, I had no problems using it.
Battery Life
1015PX comes with a 6-cell battery. Asus claims 8 hours with this 47Wh battery, but it was impossible to get those kind of runtimes in real life. I was able to get 5.5 hours while doing wireless web surfing over Wi-Fi. This is better than the 1215B that got mere 4.5 hours of runtime. Read Asus 1215B Review to know more about it.
Verdict – Most powerful 10.1-inch netbook till date, all thanks to the mighty Atom N570 processor. We loved its matte finish that catches less fingerprints than the glossy netbooks. Battery life is amazing as well and there is no reason why I would not recommend this netbook to you. Update – Asus is now offering it for just 299 dollars through amazon.
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