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Asus EEE PC 1215B review – impressive mini laptop

By Andrei Girbea , updated on April 8, 2021
Tested: Asus EEE PC 1215B
Rating: 4/5     Price Range: $349 - $449
Summary: For the money, you'll hardly find a better mini laptop these days. The Asus 1215B is solid built, decently beautiful and fast when dealing with the daily tasks, video content or even some lighter games. Of course, the 1215B has its competitors, but it is cheaper than most of those, which should make it more attractive for potential buyers.

Had the chance these days to play with the Asus EEE PC 1215B for a little while, thanks to my good friends at Asus who sent me a sample model.

I’ve been expecting this one for a while, as it promised to be overall better than the Asus 1215N, in terms of performances, battery life and pricing.

Reading the review below will help you find out whether the Asus 1215B managed to live up to the expectations or not, as I will speak thoroughly about each important aspect of this device.

Once again, I do have to say that this is yet a sample unit and although the guys at Asus ensured us it’s very close to the final version that will be available in stores soon, take the results with grain and salt (as some aspects can be improved on the final release).

Update: One year later now, the Asus EEE PC 1215B got a successor, the 1225B. With a new design, some slight improvements and still an excellent price, the 1225B EEE PC promises to be as appreciated as the 1215B. See my thorough review of the Asus 1225B for more details.

Later update: While the EEE PC 1215B is no longer up-to-date anymore, you should check out our later coverage of Asus compact notebooks, and especially this and this article that go in-depth over the modern small-screen laptops you can find in stores these days.

Asus 1215B EEE PC - a wrothy 12 inch laptop

Asus 1215B EEE PC – a wrothy 12 inch laptop

The specs

First, let’s take a quick look at the specs to see what we can expect from this Asus 1215B 12 incher:

  • 12.1 inch LED backlit display, 1366 x 768 px resolution, glossy
  • AMD Brazos APU with AMD E-350 dual core processor and integrated AMD graphics
  • 4 GB DDR3 memory
  • 320 GB hard-drive
  • Wireless N, Bluetooth 3.0, Gigabit LAN
  • one USB 2.0 slot and two USB 3.0 slots, VGA, HDMI, headphone/mic, card-reader, webcam
  • Windows 7 Home Premium OS
  • 6 Cell 5200 mAh 56 Wh battery
  • measures 11.6 x 8 x 1.5 inches
  • weighs 3.2 pounds

Design and exterior

The 1215B inherits the seashell body shape from the 1215N. In fact, on the outside, both these devices are identical. Lid is covered in smooth rubbery matte plastic while the bottom comes with a textured finish. The matte plastic especially feels really nice and looks good, although smudges and fingerprints are visible on this black finish we had on our desks.

Matte plastic exterior

Matte plastic exterior

Overall the 1215B is a looker and is portable too, weighing just above 3 pounds with the included battery, which is fairly OK for a 12 incher.

Opening the lid, you’ll notice that palm rest and trackpad are covered with the same matte plastic used for the exterior. However, area around keyboard and display are made from glossy black plastic and while they look very nice on a new laptop, will scratch and catch smudges like crazy in time.

On the back, there’s the battery and a special bay for easy accessing RAM, where you get two memory slots.

Bottom part with textured plastic finish and easy access to memory

Bottom part with textured plastic finish and easy access to memory

More about the exterior can be found in this clip below.

As for port layout, the images below should answer any of your questions. Notice that there’s nothing missing and you get two USB 3.0 slots on one side.

Front

Front

Left

Left

Right

Right

Back

Back

Keyboard and trackpad

Pretty good keyboard and trackpad on this one, but nothing actually changed from the 1215N.

Keyboard and trackpad are good

Keyboard and trackpad are good

So, there’s the same chiclet style keyboard with Full-size keys and enough space between them. This time I got to review an unit with the US layout and there’s nothing to say bad about it: proper sized enter, shift, ctrl and other often used keys so overall the keyboard will be comfortable to use by pretty much all of you, even the ones with bigger hands/fingers.

Still, I don’t like the flex you get especially in the middle and right side of the keyboard, plus the keys feel quite cheap. The rubbery finish Asus uses on their top EEE PCs (like the 1015PX for instance) would have been a nice addition on the 1215B.

Trackpad is also identical to the one on the 1215N. Proper sized, separated from palm rest by two silver-plastic bars, it is both accurate and fairly smooth during everyday use. Comes of course with multi-touch and gestures supported and there’s a single click button, but fairly comfortable and easy to press.

Proper sized trackpad

Proper sized trackpad

Display

The same 12.1 inch display we’ve seen on the old 1201N 2 years ago is present on the 1215B as well: standard 12.1 inch resolution and glossy finish, thus using it outside will be a bummer. The glossy bezel around won’t help either.

Glossy display

Glossy display

Brightness and colors are fairly good on this screen, but viewing angles, especially vertical ones, could definitely be improved. And there’s the same design problem I hate on laptops: screen only leans back to around 120-130 degrees, so using the laptop while in bed or on your couch can be uncomfortable.

Only leans back this muich

Only leans back this muich

Hardware and performances

Amd Fusion Inside

Amd Fusion Inside

While the 1215N and the 1215B are identical on the outside, they are completely different inside. The EEE PC 1215B comes with this new generation AMD Brazos hardware, boosting a Zacate APU with a dual-core E-350 processor clocked at 1.66 GHz and some powerful integrated graphics from AMD. Add 4 GB of memory (only around 3.6 actually usable by the OS, as the shared graphic chip will need the rest ) and you get a nice configuration. Storage drive is a standard 5400 rpm HDD, but you can replace that one with a  fast 7200rpm one or an SSD if you want to make the 1215B even faster.

This new hardware from AMD manages to give enough punch to the 1215B. Windows 7 runs fine and your daily apps should be snappy as well. However, the real benefit over the 1215N is visible in graphic applications, like playing HD content and games. The 1215N with Nvidia ION had great graphic potential but there was one big problem: the bottleneck created by using PCI-E to connect the graphic chip with the rest of the computer. The 1215B no longer has such problems, thus it managed to outperform the 1215N in pretty much all the tests we’ve run, bot practical or synthetic.

In the clips below you can see I’ve tried running a couple of types of HD content on this one and all played flawlessly, with enough resources to spare. I’ve tried a high bitrate 1080p mkv file, a raw AVCHD clip straight from the camera and a 1080p Blu-ray RIP and none were a problem for this little laptop. Nor was the 1080p clip streamed from Youtube and of course you can always output this content on a bigger display via HDMI.

And the second part of the clip.

Also ran a couple of games, like Fifa 11, COD modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops, Battlefield and others, and while not all of them were able to run decently, I can say the 1215B is still more capable in games than the 1215N I’ve tested a while ago was (Please see this comment of mine for more details about this, because in benchmarks the 1215B is slower than the 1215N, but when actually testing games, things were the other way around, based on what happened to me when I tested the 1215N).

There are also a bunch of synthetic tests I’ve ran and you can find the results below.

Windows 7 rating

Windows 7 rating

3DMark 06 on 1280 x 1024 px

3DMark 06 on 1280 x 1024 px

3Dmark Vantage Performance

3Dmark Vantage Performance

3Dmark Vantage Entry

3Dmark Vantage Entry

3DMark 11 Entry

3DMark 11 Entry

PCMark Vantage

PCMark Vantage

PCMark 05

PCMark 05

Cinebench 11.5

Cinebench 11.5

Crystalmark

Crystalmark

I’m also planning on putting together a post comparing the 1215N and the 1215B so look for that in the near future.

Software

This laptop comes with Windows 7 Home Premium preinstalled and a bunch of bloatware on top. Still, on this particular model we got to test there weren’t too many things installed (those pesky Office and Trend Micro Security Trials for instance were missing), but I doubt the final version will lack them when it will hit the stores.

You know what you have to do though: get rid of all the unwanted apps and keep the processes running in background to a bare minimum, thus you experience with this low power laptop will get better.

Connectivity and ports

Not much to say in terms of connectivity, as this one comes with the standard features offered on small laptops these days. You get Wireless N, Bluetooth and Gigabit LAN, but no option for 3G.

As for ports, we do have to mention the two USB 3.0 slots which are in my eyes a must on a computer launched in 2011. Besides that, you get good video out options, with VGA and HDMI, mic/headphone jacks, card-reader and all the other standard features.

Heat, noise, speakers and others

Based on previous experiences with AMD platforms on portable laptops, one would expect the Asus 1215B to have problems with heat and noise, but that’s not really the case. Both the top and the bottom of the device only get worm during playing games or HD content, but not hot. As for noise, this one ain’t a problem either.

Not many things no to like about this one

Not many things no to like about this one

Speakers do provide a lot of punch for such a little machine so they are definitely loud. Quality ain’t bad either, but not really impressive.

There’s also a webcam on top of the screen but there’s few things we can say about it: will do its job in good light conditions but in dim light you might not be that satisfied with it. Still, webcam ain’t really a priority for me that’s why I consider the one on the 1215B to be good enough for the everyday user.

Battery life

Due to the fact that I only got the 1215B for a very short time I could not conduct any accurate battery tests. Still, on everyday use with writing, browsing, chatting, listening to music, watching some clips with Wireless ON and Screen Brightness set to around 80%, the 6 Cell 5200 mAh 56 Wh battery inside the 1215B averaged around 5 hours of life, which is for sure better than I was expecting and better than the 1215N averaged.

So if you feared the AMD hardware inside the 1215B will negatively affect its autonomy, rejoice, that’s not at all the case with Brazos.

I will try and get the 1215B back again in the near future and get together some proper battery tests, till then though, that’s the best I can give you given the very short time I got with it.

Availability and prices

While we know nothing for sure right now, Asus announced the 1215B will hit the stores in April with prices starting at $449. You’ll probably only get 2 GB of memory and not 4 for that kind of money, but that still makes the 1215B 50 bucks cheaper than the 1215N.

Update: The Asus EEE PC 1215B is finally shipping in the US. List price goes for $449 with only 2 GB of memory (1 x 2 GB module) and NO USB 3.0 slot (comes with 3 x  USB 2.0 slots). It is available online on Newegg.com and Amazon.com (with a small discount and Free Shipping included here).

Final words

After seeing the Vayo YB in action and reading review for laptops like the HP Dm1 and the Lenovo ThinkPad e120x, my expectation from an AMD powered Asus 12 incher were high. Luckily, the 1215B actually managed to live to pretty much all of them.

Asus 1215B is definitely a top pick if on the market for a powerful and affordable mini laptop

Asus 1215B is definitely a top pick if on the market for a powerful and affordable mini laptop

Nothing changed on the outside from the 1215N, there’s the same seashell body covered in matte rubbery plastic, same keyboard, trackpad and display. However, the 1215B is faster than the 1215N, especially in terms of graphics, so will be able to deal with any kind of HD content and some modern games as well. Plus, you get superior battery life and a smaller price.

All these make the 1215B a winner. And with the 1215N being a popular pick, I’m pretty sure the 1215B will get its share of fame, although some might fear picking an AMD powered laptop these days (but there’s no reason to, as the new Fusion platform really is impressive).

It will face tough competition though, from the likes of Sony Vaio YB, Lenovo ThinkPad X120e or HP Pavilion Dm1, but that’s always good for us, end users. I do feel however Asus might be a little too late to the dance with this one, don’t you think?

Update: And don’t forget, the Asus EEE PC 1225B is now available in stores and we already reviewed it here on the site, the slightly improved and more up-to-date version of the 1215B.

As always, your feedback and opinions are much appreciated, so please leave a comment if you have anything to say or to ask.

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Andrei Girbea, Editor-in-Chief at TLBHD.com. This project was born as part of my search for capable mini-laptops that I could easily lug around to work, and still provide the performance that I'd need on a daily basis. I'm primarily using such ultracompact devices and have been testing them since 2006.

75 Comments

  1. Steve 'Chippy' Paine

    March 12, 2011 at 2:05 am

    Good, detailed review. Thanks for that.

    I was expecting a little more from the CPU in the CrystalMark tests (which seem to match Atom N550 unless i’m mistaken.)

    Any plans to test the CUDA core in video editing apps like Cyberlink Power Director which is CUDA enabled?

    Chippy – UMPCPortal / Carrypad

    • Andrei Girbea

      March 12, 2011 at 5:41 am

      @Chippy Will try if I can get a hold of it again (only had it for a day and a little bit, like I said in the review). Unfortunately I’ll be offline for the next 10 days on a previous planned vacation 🙁

  2. Hi

    March 12, 2011 at 4:49 am

    Does asus 1215b have super hybrid engine to overclock the computer? Thanks!

  3. Vincent

    March 12, 2011 at 11:43 am

    Late to the dance? Not for europe because we only can buy the Sony AMD E-350 here.

    No Lenovo x120e and HP dmz1 available here yet.

  4. Tiago

    March 13, 2011 at 2:29 am

    @Vincent Yup that’s true.

    Here in Portugal we can’t even buy the Sony yet. It’s only on pre-release for the moment.

    It would be nice to know the release dates to Europe.

    @Mike Among the other laptops running AMD E-350 which is the best for you in terms of performance?

    BTW good review, thanks 😉

    • Mike

      March 13, 2011 at 9:19 am

      tiago, only tried this one and the sony and this one felt a bit snappier, probably because there was less bloatware installed. Don’t know what to say about others, but both the hp and the lenovo looked impressive in tests

  5. Tiago

    March 13, 2011 at 1:35 pm

    @Mike Hmm ok thanks 😉

    I’m really looking forward to see this machine coming out.

    Even if it isn’t the one with more perfomance I think I will buy it. 12″, USB 3.0, BT 3.0 and Wifi N that is something to have in mind when thinking about the future!

  6. Dan

    March 13, 2011 at 3:36 pm

    Could you ask MSI to send you Wind U270 sample? I'd love comparison.

  7. Commodore

    March 13, 2011 at 9:11 pm

    Will you review the Lenovo Ideapad S205?

    It seems to be the first 11,6″ Brazzos-platform we’ll get here in Europe besides the Sony, but for some reason nobody is talking about it. Would love to see a comparison.

    • Andrei Girbea

      March 13, 2011 at 11:51 pm

      will ask my contact at lenovo. not sure they are going to bring that one soon in my country

  8. sisqo

    March 14, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    its annoying we have been told no. i hope when the successor to the x120e is released uk gets it too. maybe we had to much stock of the x100e to add it in and they want to sell as much stock not to lose money.
    but at the same time they said we will have a the edge 11 (which was around last year)
    ive ordered my x120e from the usa for a price no different i would expect the uk to have sold it for.

  9. Steve

    March 17, 2011 at 12:50 am

    @ Commodore – Seconded. Would love to see the s205, we only seem to have the sony here in australia too. And its constantly on 2 week preorder due to demand. It’d be great to have a concrete release date for the lenovo, even if you can’t review. 🙂

  10. Jonny Zhu

    March 17, 2011 at 11:10 am

    Fantastic review Mike! The part where you included videos of you running some graphic-intensive games which really stresses the system is fantastic!

    In other reviews, we just read lines after lines, after lines of words where the reviewer said this don’t work, that don’t work… but in your video, we really get to see the reasons why. THANKS! and keep it up!

    1215B just reached Singapore’s shores =) and i DOUBT x120e & dm1 will ever reach here >.<

  11. John Smith

    March 20, 2011 at 10:21 am

    Hi, is it able to run Adobe CS4 and Visual Studio 2008 relatively well?

    • Andrei Girbea

      March 21, 2011 at 3:43 pm

      Relatively in the word. Takes a bit to load Photoshop. Haven’t tried Visual studio yet though

  12. Brandon

    March 24, 2011 at 4:46 pm

    I wonder if they could put in a SSD might have a read+load performance boost

  13. Flachmann

    March 31, 2011 at 12:01 pm

    In a review from a German website, they said the 1215b has problems with the fan noise. They say the fan is always on. Do you confirm that?

    • Mike

      March 31, 2011 at 2:49 pm

      Didn't really see any such problems with the unit I had

      • Fff

        April 7, 2011 at 1:56 am

        Real model has no Gigabit Lan and has only one USB3.0 port

      • Mike

        April 7, 2011 at 10:55 am

        I was leaning to say that sucks in the first time. Still, one USB 3.0 port is enough for me and don't really care about LAN, it's not like I'm using it on anything besides my desktop these days.

      • Fff

        April 7, 2011 at 1:56 am

        Real model has no Gigabit Lan and has only one USB3.0 port

      • Cesare Brizio

        February 8, 2013 at 9:37 am

        Hi Mike, please excuse me for my incompetence, you seem one of the most knowledgeable people around about Asus Netbooks. In several forums, I didn't find anything conclusive about the fact that my Asus 1225b's fan is always on, regardless "cool 'n' quiet" bios setting, and regardless any configuration that I can make with power saving options with windows 7. I can't understand whether it's possible to have the fan stop when the netbook is idling, or when the processor is low. I am annoyed both by the fan noise and by the idea of an useless power consumption. I think (but I may be wrong) that after all, when idling, the processor shouldn't need to be actively and continuously cooled by the fan. I look forward to your competent opinion, many thanks from Italy and all the best – Cesare

      • Andrei Girbea

        February 8, 2013 at 12:37 pm

        There used to be some windows apps that allowed you to control the fan speed, but unless you really know what you're doing, they can be dangerous for the CPU. SO i don't recommend them.

        On the other hand, its been nearly 2 years since I tested the 1225B and I can't recall if the fan shut down on my unit when in idle. So i can't say if there's something wrong with your unit or just that's the way things are (on many laptops the fans never shut off completely and that's just how they are designed)

      • Cesare Brizio

        February 8, 2013 at 12:54 pm

        Thanks Mike, by googling around there seems to be a general consensus about the fact that every 1225b has its fan continuously on. I can't resign… 🙂
        But I agree with you that if that is a built-in feature, there must be a reason, and it's most probable that I shouldn't tamper with it.

  14. ET3D

    April 9, 2011 at 4:52 am

    Thanks for the review (which I found through googling). Looks like a good E-350 entry. A bit lighter than the HP or Lenovo, USB 3, same price range.

  15. caribala

    April 24, 2011 at 5:58 am

    Just got this baby on my lap.

    Love it very much, WEI @ 3.8 for procie, but it work flawlessly for me.
    My netbook is for office suite and internet most of the time.

  16. Tolneko

    April 26, 2011 at 9:36 am

    My USB 3.0 Has One on the right side (In your Picture 1Blue & 1 Black [Blue is USB 3.0] )

  17. Tolneko

    April 26, 2011 at 9:39 am

    OH!!! i forgot
    In Thailand i bought its 13,900 ThaiBaht
    (13,900 / 30.00 =463.33$)
    That’s price is include VAT 7% & Free DVD External (Asus Thailand Promotion)

  18. Ståle

    May 5, 2011 at 12:09 pm

    Too bad they cut USB 3.0, dealbreaker for me.

  19. bigT

    May 7, 2011 at 2:41 pm

    USB 3.0 is back on the higher end models.

    • Ståle

      May 9, 2011 at 6:56 am

      Too bad since a usb 3.0 controller is about 15 $

  20. Lucas .

    May 11, 2011 at 3:09 pm

    I can’t decide between this one and the HP Dm1z…

    what would you recommend?

    • Mike

      May 15, 2011 at 6:56 pm

      both are good. can’t really say which one i would get. I like the design and the keyboard on the dm1z more, plus the fact that you get a 7200 rpm drive by default. the trackpad on that one is awful though.

      They are so close that these tiny details can make the difference.

      • DLegasy

        May 20, 2011 at 1:38 am

         How about in terms of fan noise?  I found the dm1 distracting and actually returned it after a week.  Is the 1215B the same?  Does the fan run at all times?

  21. Basileus

    May 25, 2011 at 3:17 pm

    You said that “1215B is still more capable in games than the 1215N I’ve tested a while ago was” but after your own tests in 3Dmark06 Asus 1215N scored 2671 points, but 1215B only 1982 points. So in which model graphic card is better?

    • Mike

      May 26, 2011 at 8:33 am

      Well, things are a bit complicated. Theoretically the ION inside the 1215N is faster, as you can see from those synthetic benchmarks. Practically though, at the time I tested the 1215N, i had problems running some of the games. Please have a look at the clips with games, I have one for the 1215N and one for the 1215B in the reviews and you’ll see that games actually run better on the 1215B.

      That’s because of the bottleneck created by connecting the Nvidia chip by PCI-E on the 1215N. I’m not sure if they addressed this problem, so I advise you to look for other opinions as well, preferably from guys owning a 1215N these days. My 1215N review is old now and those were my conclusions at that particular time, I do not have the device anymore and I cannot test it again 🙁

      So that’s what I wanted to say by that particular sentence.

  22. HITESH K H.

    May 25, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    Hi Mike, I read all netbook reviews that appear on your site as I have subscribed to it.

    Now, I have a couple of queries (they began as one but stretched a bit). Which one of these two — AMD K125 and AMD C50 processors — is better?

    The Dell 101, that is available in India, has K125. The Toshiba 550D, which hasn’t reached our shores yet, has C50. And the 1215B available on ebay.in with Linux doesn’t interest me.

    Also, what do you think of dual boot netbooks like D255? Would it be more better if I buy a netbook with Windows and install Android on it as an option? Would I be able to move between the two OS’ easily  — with a switch of a button or something like that?

    Regards, Hitesh K H.

    • Mike

      May 26, 2011 at 8:27 am

      Hey there.

      AMD K125 is an older generation AMD processor, with decent power but with battery life problems. The C-50 is newer, it's a dual-core APU and provides improved graphics and excellent autonomy. So I would definitely go for a C50 netbook now over one with K125.

      Toshiba Nb550d is a nice device, I've reviewed it. Nothing to say about that Dell though, it's not available here but I'm not a big fan o Dell netbooks anyway: kind of overpriced for what they have to offer, in my opinion.

      With Dual-boot devices like that one things aren't easy. You get to run Windows naturaly and Android on some type pf virtual machine. I played with one at MWC 2011 and from what i can remember, you boot your Windows and from there you have to select boot to Android and restart. And then you get to Android. From here you can select to go back to Windows. So it's not really a fast booting system. But I might be wrong, they might have improved that since I saw the system in action in February.

  23. Basileus

    May 30, 2011 at 7:10 pm

    Hi,It’s hard to find any good review for MSI U270. Could you tell me, which one, in your opinion, is better – MSI U270 or Asus 1215B? In MSI U270 we can raise the memory up to 8GB and it’s a little bit cheaper than Asus 1215B.

    • Mike

      May 31, 2011 at 5:42 am

      I wish I could but I haven’t got the chance to play with that MSI. it’s not available in my country. performance wise they should be right on par, so other aspects could make the difference for you, like finishing and price

      • Basileus

        May 31, 2011 at 10:06 am

        I find that available version of the MSI U270 in my country has a 11.6-inch screen in WSVGA resolution (1024×600). It has 500GB HDD and 8 GB memory, but this resolution can be problematic f.e. in games http://www.msi.com/product/nb/U270.html#/?div=SpecificationIt's hard to find suitable platform for resonable price.

      • Mike

        June 1, 2011 at 11:07 am

        uh, are you sure? haven’t heard of any 1026 x 600 px 11.6 inch display before. probably a mistake on those sites. You can see that on MSI’s site there’s the standard 1366 x 768 px resolution noted…

      • Basileus

        June 1, 2011 at 1:05 pm

        Yes, I’m sure. I searched whole Internet and I couldn’t find any mention about that novum so I emailed to the central of MSI and they told me that Wind U270 with 11’6 inch with resolution 1026×600 was distributed on the Polish market. So on this marker there are two versions of this notebook – U270 12.1″ 1366 x 768 with HD ready and U270 11.6″ 1026×600 probably without HD ready.

      • Mike

        June 1, 2011 at 1:42 pm

        So weird… I wouldn’t get the low resolution version even if it’s significantly cheaper, I’d hate the cramped working area.

  24. mudpyro

    June 2, 2011 at 11:42 am

    Unfortunately this model currently has issues with a defective touchpad.  About one third of the 35 reviews on Amazon mention this.

    • Mike

      June 2, 2011 at 11:59 am

      Yea, I saw that as well. The one I tested did not have any of these though, that’s why it was not mentioned in the review

    • Vassnarr

      July 6, 2011 at 1:52 pm

      Just bought one in here in norway with exactly that problem. Sad to say. Anoying stuff.

  25. Bob

    June 3, 2011 at 2:20 am

    AMD has really stepped it up. I feel there should be a full battery test regardless of what the indicators show.

  26. Fredrik

    June 4, 2011 at 3:35 pm

    Hi. Just got this i Norway. 4 GB memory, 500 gb HD and 1 USB 3.0 and 2 USB 2.0 is standard her. Price 3350 Nkr. Thats about 560 USD.. Very happy with it so far…..

    • Lulu

      July 26, 2011 at 4:25 pm

      I live in Norway as well, and I currently consider buying it. How does it hold up? Have you tried any games on it?  Thanks 🙂

  27. Anonymous

    June 5, 2011 at 8:01 am

    Hi mike, in my country, there’s only the C-50 version of this 1215B netbook. I’m not sure whether thet have limited stocks of the E-350 version or they didn’t ship it here yet

    My question is, what are the major and minor differences between these two versions and should I get the hp dm1z with amd E-350 instead? Btw, is the C-50 single core? And is there any problems compared with the dual-core E-350?

    • Mike

      June 6, 2011 at 8:18 pm

      C-50 is a dual -core processor but it is way slower than the e-250 both in terms of raw cpu power and graphics. See results in this test or my review of the sony vayo YB and compare them to the results on my reviews for the asus 1015b and the toshiba nb550d, which come with C-50.

      My advice though: go for the dm1 in this case

      • Anonymous

        June 8, 2011 at 8:44 pm

        Thx for the reply. I like the dm1z’s design n keyboard but I hate its non-black bezel and its touchpad and I have always doubted HP’s quality. Is the dm1z reliable and not hot/noisy?

      • JD

        June 26, 2011 at 4:26 am

        have had a DM1Z with e-350 for 4 months now. No problems at all. Not a single crash. A bit noisy if doing heavy processing like editing HD video but not bad in normal use. touchpad is very sensitive but drilling into the configuration and getting the sensitivity set right helps a lot. Very happy and would buy another but lack of USB 3.0 blows. C’mon HP???  Have a good friend that bought one at the same time as me and he has had good service from his including editing photos with photoshop when he is on the road. A bonus, the speaks are way above average for a small laptop.

  28. Siveve

    July 2, 2011 at 7:35 pm

    hi mike, can you give me any suggestion about the battery consumption? 

  29. Michael Ratzke

    July 13, 2011 at 7:40 am

    this is a fantastic review!

  30. Rangga Herdi

    August 4, 2011 at 1:00 am

    Hi Orange, now I am still confused between two choices. This ASUS 1215B and Dell Inspiron M102Z. Which one will you recommend me the most? The spesification are almost smilar between this two. But i found the reviews that this ASUS has a cons with it’s trackpad issue. The other issue is about booting problem when you connected your usb. I found this problems on many ASUS 1215B users. On the other hand, Dell M102Z have some better spec, i think, like srs surround speaker, and higher rpm on its hdd. Although it’s bulky design is pretty awfull. Will you give me any recommendation?

    • Mike

      August 5, 2011 at 3:01 pm

      The 1215B is overall more versatile than this one. While raw CPU power is a bit under what the 1215P can offer, the 1215B with the AMD E350 APU on board offers way better graphics, being able to handle easily all kinds of 1080p content and even some modern 3D games. All these with a bit less battery life and an increase price though.

    • Orange

      August 7, 2011 at 5:56 pm

      Hello Rangga Herdi,
      One of the reasons why I have chosen for this net-book are:
      –  12 inch (11 inch is too small for me but that’s personal)
      – AMD E350 (See mike’s comment)
      – Include USB 3.0 port (Dell comes with 3x 2.0 USB, wһісһ іѕ a bit of a Ɩеt-down)
      – Radeon 6310 (I can play my favorite games on High/Medium like PES11/C&C3/Starcraft2/HAWX/Assassins Creed Brotherhood etc.)
      – Long battery life (using Internet/Office/music, 4h 30min)

      User review:
      I test this net-book now for 1 week but I found no problems. I was surprised about the speaker performance, which although quite powerful, and I must say that the sound quality is very good! For installing my net-book I used a Kingstone 8GB flash-disk and I’ve no problems at all with installing Windows.

      With a tropical climate constantly 30C the laptop is still cool on the top of the keyboard. Also when I play games for several hours.

      For me is the HDD rpm. not so important because most of the time I use my net-book for business. But you can always upgrade the net-book with a SSD and put the old HDD into a ext. usb case.

      In my opinion for a optimal performance in the ASUS 1215B you need a SSD and 4 GB RAM. But you can upgrade the RAM to 2x 4GB, but that’s a little bit overkill unless you use VMWare or RAMDISK.

      Next week I buy 4GB extra for my net-book what makes a total of 6GB. It’s no problem because the memory banks are single channel not dual!

      Last but not least my Windows Index score:
      CPU 3.8
      MEM 5.1
      Desktop Graph 4.1
      Gaming Graph 5.7
      HDD 5.7

      Conclusion:
      I’ve no regret that I buy this net-book. I use it every day for business and private.
      For gaming I use ReadyBoost and Gamebooster. It helps me to win 3 a 5 fps.
      Unfortunately I have no experience with Dell net-books. Only with IBM/ASUS/ACER, so I cannot say if the DMZ performance/quality is better or not.

      Recommendation:
      What I said before, so fare I know the DMZ has no USB 3.0 and it’s 11 inch. That’s why I have chosen for the ASUS 1215B

      I wish you luck with chosen your net-book.

      Cheers, Orange

  31. Joe_Terrier

    September 9, 2011 at 6:57 pm

    Hi!
    Is this Asus capable of moving Visual Studio 2010 or SQL Server 2008!

    Thanks for all!

    • Orange

      September 20, 2011 at 6:52 pm

      Hello Joe_Terrier,
      My experience with software development is that it can, but not smoothly. I use Netbeans for programming java servlets but it ask a lot of memory and CPU usage. Standard 2 GB is not enough, you need minimal 4 GB or more. The CPU usage with Netbeans is around (60 – 90%) in combination with Windows 7.  In the past I programmed in Visual Studio with SQL Server 2005 on my dual core laptop but that was already on the “max” with some extra background processing.

      Most of time I use the netbook for webdevelopment (php) in combination with MySQL and it works perfect for me.

      Conclusion:
      To run smoothly such programming like SQL Server 2008 or Visual Studio 2010 I recommend a Intel Core 3 or above in combination with 4 GB or more on a netbook / laptop.

      Regards, Orange

  32. Kupipot2078

    October 27, 2011 at 7:14 pm

    hello, which would you prefer between asus 1215b and asus k43u which are bothe e350/450? thanks 🙂 I’m actually finding a review comparing both…

  33. eso

    November 9, 2011 at 10:30 am

    Dear Mark

    I am wondering if a ASUS U30S is better or this one? I am having a problem deciding. All I want is a light, efficient laptop so I can carry it around in school, I find U30S very bulky, but at the same time there are a lot of functionalities to it…

    Thanks!

    • kevin bennett

      December 16, 2011 at 11:42 am

      If you want something to carry around eso as someone who has had the 1215b for a couple of months now i have to say i just love the thing! Its light, I can watch full HD videos for nearly 6 hours (when I shut it off last video watching I still had 15% battery after 5 hours 20 minutes of movies) and while I wouldn’t play say Crysis or Just Cause II on it it does play TF2 and L4D quite nicely. It doesn’t get hot to the touch even after long period of heavy activity, I even use this 1215b as a drummer in a box with hydrogen when the drummer can’t make it and its just great! Audio editing, web, my nephew liked the feel of it enough he got rid of his full size and got himself one for class and just loves it like I do so if you are needing a school machine I’d say go for it.

  34. Haris

    November 13, 2011 at 1:51 pm

    Hi orange, can you tell me where the store is? I’m interested. Is it somewhere in jakarta?

  35. kevin bennett

    December 16, 2011 at 11:49 am

    Hey Mark I can tell you why it scores lower in benches, that is because most benchmarking software is compiled with the Intel compiler that rigs any code compiled on it to run slower on non Intel CPUs. this is well documented and was part of the reason why AMD sued Intel and got a 1.25 billion dollar settlement from them. 

    For those that don’tr know here is how the Intel compiler works: It looks for the CPUID flag and if it reports back as “Genuine Intel” it runs full SSE optimization but if it reports back as “Authentic AMD” it drops ALL SSE optimization and drops the code into X87 mode. Since the X87 code path has been depreciated for over a decade in favor of SSE what this does is ties a boat anchor on any code compiled with the Intel compiler when run on an AMD CPU or APU.

    Sadly this compiler rigging is so bad you can see just as Mark did what a difference the Intel compiler makes as the benches show the Intel to be more powerful even when its not. I bet if Mark were to run those benches again but change his CPUID to read genuine intel he’d see his scores suddenly jump. That is why until the benchmarking software companies agree to use a neutral compiler like GCC or Open64 I’m afraid one simply can’t trust their software to give accurate results anymore.

  36. kyle

    December 17, 2011 at 2:30 pm

    Does anyone who can help on how to change the deskop background on ASUS 1215B?
     

    • Ringe

      January 12, 2012 at 3:15 pm

      Right-Click on the desktop – backrounds – and than you should be able to change background. It is as easy as on every other computer with WIN7, just use the WIN7 help or just google “WIN7 how to change background”

  37. W1n5t0n

    January 17, 2012 at 7:16 am

    Hi mike,

    I love ur reviews keep em up! I just wanted to ask if u think this laptop is overclock able to around 2 ghz? Tks!

  38. Schutze

    March 10, 2012 at 4:25 pm

    What embedded AMD graphics card are you using when you played the games above?

    Does it have extra dedicated memory?

    • Mike

      March 12, 2012 at 12:18 am

      It's the standard AMD E350 APU with integrated Radeon 6230 graphics.

  39. Waffen

    March 21, 2012 at 4:34 am

    What graphics card did you use to play Bad Company 2 for this review?

    • Mike

      March 22, 2012 at 4:22 pm

      It's the integrated graphics with the AMD E350 APU

  40. Ali

    October 5, 2012 at 3:37 pm

    is 1225B (E450) mini laptop is suitable for running Matlab software or not?

    • Andrei Girbea

      October 6, 2012 at 11:24 am

      Ali, I haven't tried it. My guess is that Mathlab should run, but it's not going to be very fast. You'll need something with a Core i processor for speed, the CPU inside the e450 APU is not really that powerful

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