ASUS Eee PC 1201N: Dual-Core Atom + ION FTW?

Surprise: Desktop Atom 330 Hurts Battery Life

This is the big compromise on the 1201N. You get better performance than any other Atom-based netbook, but you also lose quite a bit of battery life. The question you'll need to answer for yourself is exactly how much battery life you want/need. Personally, I don't often go unplugged for more than ~4 hours; I'll do two hour plane flights with two hours in an airport, for example - or ten hours running around a trade show, but only 1/3 of the time is spent with my laptop powered up. If what you do is similar, the 1201N offers a good blend of performance and battery life… but then so do a lot of other laptops.

On the other hand, some people will go unplugged for 8+ hours; I know Anand likes to have at least that long where possible (and it's one reason he loves MacBooks). In that case, the 1201N is going to fall short - though you can always buy a second battery in a pinch. Here are the results - and keep in mind that the ASUS 1005HA, 1005PE, and 1201N all use essentially the same size 63Wh battery.

The battery life of the 1201N looks rather poor in the above charts, but remember that we're comparing it against what are predominantly long battery life options. The Gateway NV52 and NV58 represent more common entry level laptops, and the 1201N clearly surpasses those (though the NV58 ties in idle battery life). Still, compared to even a standard Core 2 P8600 with 9400M (the Dell Studio 14z), the 1201N is only better in low demand situations - the 14z wins in both the video playback results, for instance. Of course, the 14z also has a 72Wh batter compared to 63WH.

Looking at the ASUS UL80Vt, we see the potential of a CULV + 9400M design. With an overclocked CULV and a discrete GeForce G210M CPU, the UL80Vt still beats the 1201N in battery life and relative battery life. G210M with a GS45 chipset undoubtedly uses a few watts more than nForce 730i (aka ION), and the overclocked SU7300 bumps up power draw a bit as well (more depending on load). While dual-core Atom + ION does pretty well, it's clear that CULV + 9400M would do better.

Considering ASUS already went out on a limb and potentially incurred Intel's wrath by putting a desktop Atom chip into a laptop and paired it with ION, plus the aforementioned UL series, it seems like such a design is a no-brainer. Really, ASUS, we'd like to see it happen! Or just get the price a bit lower on the UL series.