Acer Review, Asus Review – Netbook 10

You all must be tired of speculating about which company will release the first nVidia Ion bearing netbook. We know none of them will be released until Windows 7 comes out on October 22nd, and that they’ll all be released that week itself. The manufacturers’ call to fame will probably be so and so came out with its product page first.  Expect to see product pages early October and pre-ordering to start mid-month.

Now that we’re over with that, let’s focus on the netbooks themselves. They all have an nVidia Ion and Windows 7, and are all about 12″ large; let’s focus on the rest of the specs and of course, the price.

Almanac of 12″ nVidia Ion netbooks

1. Asus 1201

Asus does it again! Just when you thought it wasn’t competing in the nVidia 12″ netbook market, it’s roadmap is leaked and shortly thereafter a product page for its  nVidia bearing Eee PC 1201 is up on an online Chinese store. The specs are impressive: Intel Atom N270, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 11 hour battery life and prie tag of $500. Sold? You should be. It has better memory & storage than the rest, not to mention an extra long lasting battery life.

2. Lenovo Ideapad S12

The non-Ion version of the Lenovo S12 is selling for $450, and has received pretty good reviews. While this model comes with the Intel Atom N270 processor, I can hardly imagine Ion bearing Windows 7 equipped version will be trudging along on the slow (but loyal) processor. I’m hoping for a fast yet power efficient Intel Z series processor, but that would probably make this netbook a lil too expensive. Expect it to come with the Atom N270 and to cost anywhere from $500-$550.

3. Samsung N510

The nVidia Ion bearing Samsung N510 comes with exactly the same specs as the Lenovo S12 (and the Asus veteran of yester-years, the 10″ Eee PC 1000HE): Intel Atom N270, 1GB Ram, 160GB HDD, 6 cell batter, and a $600 price tag.  Somehow, the netbook released in Germany a few weeks ago, and performed quite well at HD playback. Full specs and details here. The Asus 1201 is definitely a better buy if you’re tight budgeted.

4. HP Mini 311

$500 seems to be the selling price for these 12″-Windows 7- nVidia-netbooks. (a) I wonder if the manufacturers are making any money out of them, and (b) I wonder why Samsung’s N510 is priced so high up at $600…

Back to the HP Mini 311. Same specs as the pack: Intel Atom N270, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB HDD and a partridge in a pear tree yeah that’s it. Considering it’s coming from HP, the Mini 311 will probably look amazing and will probably be easy to customize. Let’s hope so.

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And there you have it. I (prematurely) recommend the Asus 1201 because of of the better memory, storage capacity and battery life. Of course we’ll be  posting more informed recommendations as October 22nd comes close, so check back soon.

Related posts:

1. Asus 1201 with nVidia ion surfaces in China
2. Lenovo IdeaPad S12 Sans NVIDIA Now Available
3. 11.6″ HP Mini 311 with NVIDIA ION graphics

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