Review: ASUS 1015 PEM Best Dual Core Netbook of 2010

By Nicole Scott
Posted 9 Dec, 2010 8:06 pm

The ASUS Eee PC 1015PEM rises to the top as one of the best Netbooks on the market. Its got a sleek and slim profile that is inline with the Seashell lineup of Eee PCs. The attention to detail in design makes it rise to the top like cream, this is the netbook that Peter here at Netbook News is planning on buying and I am picking up the ASUS 1015PN which has a few tweaks including USB 3.0 & Nvidia Ion.

Quick Specs
The ASUS 1015 PEM is a 10.1-inch netbook with a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 sporting an Intel Atom 1.5GHz N550 with a 250GB HDD (5,400rpm) and 1GB of RAM which is upgradable to 2GB.

Design
The chassis finish of the netbook is soft to the touch and feels like its very good quality and at all like cheap plastic. Since its matte it is not the traditional finger print magnette we’ve seen on glossy models, you still get a few smudges but nothing significant. If black isn’t your style you can also pick it up in blue, red, and white.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard was extremely functional, the shift key’s could have bit a touch bigger for my liking. The overall performance of they keyboard layout met my expectations for a device that I aim to use for productivity. It didn’t bend or flex even when I got particularly excited while writing a blog post

The touchpad is huge measuring 3.0 x 1.6-inches and it has the same matte finish as the rest of the palm rest. Rather then being textured to separate it from the rest of the unit its got a thin chrome strip that elegantly sets it apart. Potentially where this touchpad could have gone wrong is the single mouse button. Thankfully it is soft and responsive to the touch and large enough that accidental presses of the wrong mouse button isn’t a concern.

Display
The display is one of the best features of this netbook, its 10.1-inch, 1024 x 600-pixel display is non glossy. Since glare isn’t an issue it has very wide viewing angles with colours as vibrant as a glossy display.

Music & Media Performance
If you want to use your netbook to watch movies or listen to music it produces a decent sound for something of this size. You won’t need to plug in external speakers to fill your home office with sound. When listening to music I was pleasantly surprised that it only sounded a tinge tinny.

Looking at system connectivity the USB ports are set to the back so they won’t get in the way when using the netbook. Another small detail that just makes up love this netbook even more is that you’ll be able to charge all of your devices even when the device is off or sleeping. It’s all the little things that just make this netbook so desirable.

See Next Page with Video Comparison to ASUS 1005 as well as Performance, Battery Life & Conclusion
Performance
The 1015PEM comes with Intel’s dual-core Atom N550 1.5GHz processor with 1GB of DDR3 RAM. We ran PCMark05 and received a score of 1741 which is higher then the ACER Aspire One D255 which is in the same league as the 1015PEM. To give you a point of reference single core netbooks usually ranked in the 1300 range.
The only place the 1015PEM lets me down is its ability to stream HD video from the internet. Its got no issue handling HD content locally on its Hard Drive but it struggles with HD YouTube which is disappointing. This is actually why I’ve opted for the ASUS 1015PN as nvidia’s Ion lets the system tackle YouTube HD with no issue.

Battery Life
The Eee PC 1015PEM’s six-cell battery lasted a whopping 8 hours and 11 minutes using LAPTOP Magazines Battery Test. What can we say Avrim has made a great test that opens and closes various browsers and programs so it really mimics actual usage scenarios. If your wondering how long it takes to charge, you’re looking at about 2 hours to 80% and 3 hours for 100%.

Conclusion
The dual core N550 processor lets Windows 7 run like it was meant to so performance wise is an easy choice over a single core netbook. Its price is extremely reasonable for what you get; an elegantly built machine with all day battery life and zippy performance. Streaming HD content isn’t going to be on your to do list but playing native HD content won’t be an issue.

Its also not every netbook that comes across our table that we can say 2 members of Netbook News are opening up their wallets for purchase as their personal netbooks.

Check out the Asus Eee PC 1015PEM at Amazon.com.