Monday, January 9th 2012
ASUS Reveals Four New Eee PCs, Three are based on Cedar Trail
Today, after talking tablets big and small, ASUS mentioned no less than four new Eee PC netbooks, three models boasting a 10.1-inch (1024 x 600) display, the Eee PC 1025C, 1025CE and X101CH, and one equipped with a 12.1-inch (1366 x 768) screen, the Eee PC 1225B.
All three 10-inch models are powered by Intel's Cedar Trail platform while the 12-inch machine is based around AMD's Brazos solution. The Eee PC 1025C and X101CH make use of the 1.6 GHz Atom N2600 CPU, whereas the 1025CE packs the 1.86 GHz Atom N2800 processor. The 1225B comes with the E-450 Brazos APU.
The Cedar Trail Eee PCs feature 1 GB of RAM, a 320 GB (5400 RPM) hard drive, integrated graphics, Altec Lansing stereo speakers, 0.3 megapixel webcam, one Ethernet port, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, a 2-in-1 card reader, and both D-Sub and HDMI outputs. The 1025CE also has one USB 3.0 port while the 1025C and X101CH only include USB 2.0 connectivity. The 1025C and 1025CE come with a 6-cell battery (enabling up to 10 hours of operation) and cost $299 and $319, respectively, whereas the Eee PC X101CH has a smaller battery (to limit weight and thickness) and boasts a base price tag of $269.
As for the Eee PC 1225B, it packs 2 GB of RAM, the same 320 GB drive as its Intel-powered siblings, two USB 3.0 ports, Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, a 0.3 MP webcam, a 2-in-1 card reader, and a 6-cell battery allowing for up to 6 hours of operation per charge. This one runs Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit and costs $499.
All newly-announced Eee PCs are expected to ship in February.
All three 10-inch models are powered by Intel's Cedar Trail platform while the 12-inch machine is based around AMD's Brazos solution. The Eee PC 1025C and X101CH make use of the 1.6 GHz Atom N2600 CPU, whereas the 1025CE packs the 1.86 GHz Atom N2800 processor. The 1225B comes with the E-450 Brazos APU.
All newly-announced Eee PCs are expected to ship in February.
9 Comments on ASUS Reveals Four New Eee PCs, Three are based on Cedar Trail
The previous generation of netbooks were terrible at playing HD videos, Some netbooks could barely run 720p smoothly and to get HD content to play smoothly you needed to get a decoder card - aka 'Broadcom Crystal HD' I bought and tested one of these on a much older laptop and it was great.
The thing is...you shouldnt need to buy that kind of functionality these days. and depending where you can find them, these decoder cards arent exactly cheap.
The way i see this, they are trying to bridge the gap between AMDs APUs like the C-50, E-350 & E-450 which were totally amazing right from the getgo which handled 1080p effortlessly.
throw in some decent Altec Lansing speakers and you have a nifty little media center to watch HD videos on the go.
Obviously the design is very similar to HP's DM1 & DM1z series which feature speakers made my Altec Lansing and Dre Beats Audio (terrible speakers compared to the Altec Lansing - absolutely atrocious, I was lucky enough to have one for test and playing around with the EQ for an hour resulted in nothing more then the lack of bass, mids and constant clipping and it didnt matter if the volume was set high or low)
the only area where these Cedar Trail lack the ability to compete is gaming. E-350 and E-450 can handle games like CoD4, MW3 and L4D1&2 pretty easily with settings from medium to low. (I think i maxed out CoD4 on my E-350)
otherwise, Yay! Brazos!
I'm happy to see Ceder Trail, a HUGE update to the old Atom and it's pathetically archaic chipset. But yeah, the screen could have used an update too. But the 12.1" could be nice.
Don't get the Cedar Trail-powered models if you're looking for 64 bit computing and more than DX9, by the way. Those CPUs are limited to 32 bit and DX9 by Intel because of incompatibilities.
and youre also wrong about the graphics... the GMA3650 supports DX 10.1
The only problem with the GMA3650 is that its a weak performer in general due to being mainly used in small netbooks. they have to keep it within restrictions for power and heat otherwise it would either eat batteries or overheat constantly
Asus sticking to those appalling displays for this generation is a big fail in my book.