Asus Eee PC 1201NL, first NVIDIA ION netbook in India

It’s hard to find a netbook with an HDMI out port. If you’re in the lookout for a netbook that can play games and 1080p video, you can go down two paths: the AMD MV40 Congo CPU and ATi Radeon HD3200 graphics, found in the  MSI U230 and the Asus 1201T. The second option an Atom CPU paired with an NVIDIA ION chipset. This has been available in the west since last year, but hasn’t found its way into India yet.

Techtree recently reviewed a pre-release sample of an ION netbook, the 12-inch Asus Eee PC 1201NL, which will be launched  next month. The 1201NL has the ION LE chipset, not the actual ION, which supports DirectX 10. Specs wise, the LE chipset looks pretty similar to ION, and is intended for netbooks bundled with Windows XP.

The review finds that the 1201NL, priced at Rs 25,990, struggles with today’s entry level games, (tested with Streetfighter IV), comes with only 1GB RAM, and a 160 GB hard drive. It was able to play back 1080 video flawlessly, and delivers around 5 hours of battery life, not bad for a graphics heavy netbook.

12.1” 1366 x 768 display (glossy)

Atom N270 processor

Nvidia ION LE (so no support for DirectX 10)

1 / 2GB RAM

160GB / 320GB HDD

802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR

6-cell battery (48Wh, 5 hour battery life)

HDMI out

0.3MP webcam

Windows XP