Comments Locked

10 Comments

Back to Article

  • TrackSmart - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link

    The 12-inch Brazos-based model could be a nice, inexpensive ($399) portable for those with basic needs. The poky atom processors and painful 1024x600 displays on the other 10-inch models are a non-starter (in my book). I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't spend $80 more to get the increased screen size, higher resolution, and double the performance...
  • Roland00Address - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link

    The N2600 and N2800 aren't out, so we can't "officially" do comparisons, but we can compare it to the previous N550 and N570 to the E-350/450 and C-50/60. We can do this for Intel isn't doing any changes besides die shrink and better graphics.

    In single threaded stuff the Zacate (the Fast Brazos with 18w tdp) can be up to 50% to 60% faster. In anything multithreaded they are practically tied with a difference between AMD or Intel of only about 10%. Just look at AMD bench to compare the cpus

    http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/328?vs=110

    Now the graphics on the 6310 and 6320 may be faster than the PowerVR SGX 545 graphics. But now they are using PowerVR, it can actually decode h264 and many advanced video formats. So all AMD does is give you better gaming performance and most likely better drivers.

    -----

    I prefer the Brazo platform personally over Atom, but it is still very limited and it is not double the performance!
  • TrackSmart - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link

    I don't disagree with your points, but these machines are obviously for light duty tasks, so will be mostly limited by single-threaded performance. This is born out by the many, many reviews that report Brazos machines as feeling dramatically snappier in day-to-day use.

    And again, I said that these are a non-starter *for me* due to the display resolution. Only 600 vertical pixels? I've used netbooks like this and always felt claustrophobic. It's like browsing the internet through a mail slot. So much painful scrolling. And some application windows don't fit on the screen because it doesn't meet the minimum 1024x768 resolution expected of modern hardware!
  • frozentundra123456 - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link

    Agreed, the E-450 model for 399 is very attractive. I have wanted a HP dm1z for a while and have not been able to find one under 400.00 (or find it at all, actually). So this Asus model at 399.00 MSRP might go on sale for a bit less. Seems very attractive. I wish Best Buy would get it, as I got a lot of BB gift cards for christmas. I was planning to get a tablet, but everytime I think of spending that much money without being able to do any real work on it, I have second thoughts.

    As to buying the cheaper atom model, I could see maybe getting it if you only want to do light internet surfing, e-mail and word processing. The battery life is also considerably better than the E-450 model. I am looking for a thin, light device to carry with me when I go to a lab on another campus from my home lab, to be able to check e-mail mostly and do light web surfing. The atom might actually be enough for this, but the atom just leaves a bad taste in my mouth so to speak.

  • yveZ - Tuesday, January 17, 2012 - link

    The _only_ reason for getting an Atom N570 (or perhaps the N2600/N2800 if the difference is still notable...) would be the fact that the AMD ones (at least here in NL) do not come in 10.1" netbooks. The smallest AMD netbook, is 11.6". This 1.5" is a lot if you look at the size overall.

    Granted, performance _should_ be leading, specially compared to price/less size ratio...however, for some, that extra 1.5" is worth the difference in performance...
  • r3loaded - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link

    Take a look at the resolutions - 1024x600 on the 10 inch, 1366x768 on the 12 inch, both of them TNs. Meanwhile, 10 inch tablets are getting 1920x1200 IPS screens this year...
  • quiksilvr - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link

    Netbooks are an afterthought now.
  • frozentundra123456 - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link

    Well, I still see a use for them, but they need something better than atom. Originally I was very much against windows 8, but maybe the touch interface will allow some really nice netbook/tablet hybrids that have the entertainment value of a tablet yet allow you to do real productivity tasks too.

    Personally, I think Intel is going the wrong way with Ultrabooks unless they can get the price down to the 500.00 range. I would prefer a brazos netbook at 1/3 the price to an Ultrabook. The ultrabooks are cool, but are so expensive, and they seem like they would be easily damaged if carried around a lot, which is the main idea behind making them so light.
  • lar34 - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link

    I wonder how the upgrade to a PowerVR SGX 545 GPU will affect Ubuntu OS support. I remember trying to load Ubuntu on a netbook with a GMA500 Poulsbo (PowerVR SGX 535) and that was worse than garbage. I hope Intel will provide a credible driver this time around.
  • proculus - Wednesday, January 11, 2012 - link


    This is like the 10th article I've read about the x101ch, and only one of them, which has since been taken down because of nda issues (I think because they posted benchmarks), mentioned that it is fanless.

    If you look at the x101ch pictures (especially the left side), you won't see any fan exhaust.

    To me, this is a huge selling point, and I think ASUS should be screaming at the top of their lungs that the thing has no fan inside. I don't understand why they didn't make their other new Cedar Trail models fanless too.

    I have a Dell Mini 10V (atom n270) with an ssd running Ubuntu 11.0, and it has no fan either. It is totally silent, and it does not get hot. It is so peaceful to work on it at night in the perfect silence (I live out in the sticks).

    I'm really hoping for a fanless 11.6" or 12" Cedar Trail netbook to replace my Dell with, but if none come along, I think I'd be happy with the x101ch. At least it has two cores and is still fanless.

    lar34, did you try the closed-source Intel Poulsbo EMGD driver? If you go to the Ubuntu wiki, you can search for Poulsbo and find out about it. They have a ppa for it. Since the Poulsbo is PowerVR SGX 535 and Cedar Trail is PowerVR SGX 545, I wonder if it will work on Cedar Trail?

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now