ASUS 1215N-PU27-SL 12.1-Inch Netbook (Silver) on sale

JO. B Say: ASUS 1215N-PU27-SL 12.1-Inch Netbook (Silver)
ASUS 12 in silver, 2011-10-11
This review is for: ASUS 1215N-PU27-SL 12.1-Inch Netbook (Silver)
So I ordered one of these laptops about two weeks ago and had to return it because the touchpad stopped working. So I got a replacement and two days later slowly but surely the new laptop's touchpad started doing the exact same thing. So I went on the ASUS website to try and find a solution other than replacements and external mice. I downloaded the most recent update for the driver for the touchpad that is on the same page as the specs for the laptop and now it works like new so if your's stops working there is always that.But Amazon gets 5 stars for delivery because when the update on my app said that it was just leaving KY it was already delivered so I thought that was cool.link to download:[...]

Cary L. Brown Say: ASUS 1215N-PU27-SL 12.1-Inch Netbook (Silver)
Nice little "portable" which is ALMOST as good as a full computer, 2011-09-06
This review is for: ASUS 1215N-PU27-SL 12.1-Inch Netbook (Silver)
My old laptop died recently... well, the video card died, and that's not able to be replaced, so I'm stuck with low-res software rendering only, which makes it ALMOST unusable. And I needed something, quick, to fill the blank in my "mobility" life.I thought about getting a high-end laptop... an Alienware, for instance. I still think I will eventually, because this little thing isn't quite that capable. But money is tight for now, and portability was an issue as well, and this unit is a GREAT stop-gap measure 'til I can get a "monster" laptop.In fact, the capabilities of this little thing are significantly greater than my old laptop, overall... with the main drawbacks being the lower-resolution, smaller screen, and the pretty poor speakers. Otherwise, this is a GREAT little unit.I bought this, along with an external DVD-writer (a Samsung unit) and I'm using the same Logitech wireless mouse I've been using all along. Yes, you'll need an optical drive if you ever want to install anything from disk, obviously, and that's not provided.There is also no physical media provided to "restore" the system. (You can buy a restore disk from Asus, but that disk will cost you $50 or so.) There is a "restore partition" on the hard drive, apparently.I've heard stories about the touchpad occasionally going haywire. But I'm one of those folks who HATES touchpads, so I normally just disable it anyway. I have a little handheld trackball device for mobile (plane/train/automobile) use, and my nice mouse for use in hotel rooms and the like. I only use the touchpad in rare instances, and so far I've had no troubles with it.So... what do we have here? Well, we've got a NICE display, albeit small. My old laptop was 1600x1400 resolution, while this is 1388x768, and half the screen real-estate. We've got poor speakers, but if you use your headphones, you'll get nice, if not impressive, 2.0 sound reproduction (typical quality for Realtek audio, which is what this laptop has). We've got a pretty nice keyboard, though it's not as nice as a full keyboard with full keystroke depth, and I've mistyped on it more than once (something I never do on a full keyboard like I'm using now).What I'm impressed with is that this machine will run software I'd have never thought it could run, and can run it well. I was just running Far Cry with pretty much zero hickups, and a pretty good frame rate.The dual-core Atom isn't the fastest CPU on the planet, by a long shot, but it works better than I was expecting. The second-generation ION graphics chip does a fine job, quite a bit better than the Geforce 4 in my old laptop.In other words, while this is not a gaming powerhouse, it's far, far better than I'd ever expected, and runs thing I never expected it to be able to handle (and which my old laptop couldn't handle).The machine comes with two RAM slots, both populated by 1GB sticks. You can replace those with 2GB sticks to get it up to 4GB total memory... and I think I'm going to do this, since the machine is frequently hitting the ceiling of its installed memory right now (which is my main performance issue, I think).It comes with a 500GB hard drive. This drive is partitions... one small "restore" partition which is hidden, a 100GB "C:" partition, and a ~350GB "D:" partition. I would have preferred to have just a single system partition, but I didn't feel like risking data loss through partition-shuffling since I don't currently have a restore CD. Suffice it to say, when 1TB laptop drives become commonplace, I'm going to transfer this drive, proportionally, to a larger drive, as both of my partitions are above 2/3 full right now.This device comes with Windows 7 64-bit "Home Premium" which is NICE (most "netbooks" come with the "starter" edition). I plan to upgrade this to "Ultimate" at some point in the future, as there are a few features I'm accustomed to having that I don't have on this machine right now.There is a pitfall of Windows 7 (which also came into play with Vista)... the "WinSXS" directory grows to ridiculous size very quickly. This is "windows side-by-side" and is a tool build into Windows since Vista which provides the benefit of supposely allowing any application to access current, or older, versions of various installed operating-system files. Well, every time you have a Windows Update pass, the directory grows... right now, "WinSXS" is about five times larger than my entire "Windows" installation directory and three times larger than my "program files" and "program files (x32)" directories combined. At this rate, it WILL consume my entire hard drive, of that there's no doubt! But that's a Microsoft issue. At least, with this system having a pretty good-sized drive, there's some buffer before it entirely consumes my hard drive!So, that's my summary of the system. I'm overall very happy... more so than I expected to be. I will eventually buy a "monster laptop" but for now, this is meeting my needs better than I'd expected!The main drawbacks to this device are also the main benefits... low size means awkward keyboard and small display, and small (and "tinny") speakers as well.But for a traveler... this thing has an HDMI out... hook it up to your hotel room's TV and you can get 1920x1080 output on a huge screen. Use a nice wireless mouse (and shut down the touchpad) and it becomes easy to use. Get a cheap keypad as well if you want the equivalent of a full keyboard, though I don't plan on doing this. This is virtually a "mid-range desktop replacement," which is a far cry from the netbooks of just a couple of years ago, isn't it?

DavidP Say: ASUS 1215N-PU27-SL 12.1-Inch Netbook (Silver)
Now with Windows 7 64bit---- UPDATED!, 2011-05-25
This review is for: ASUS 1215N-PU27-SL 12.1-Inch Netbook (Silver)
****UPDATED 12/14****I have changed my review from 5 stars to 1 star. The touch pad has went out on me twice now. The communication with ASUS is horrible. They simply do not care if they fix your computer or not. I had to pay to ship it back to them in September ($15) and after 2 weeks I got it back. It worked for about a month and now the touch pad is broke again. I have contacted ASUS again and after a few days they reply telling me to ship it back across the country. If you read the reviews on here you will see that this is a very common problem and ASUS does not care if their customers are happy. I would definitely not recommend buying this computer!When I compared this to the 1215N-PU17, I couldn't find any difference other than the 1215N-PU27 cost $16 more. I called Amazon and they couldn't tell me what the difference was either. I decided to gamble, pay the extra money and get the newest update. I have only had the computer for a couple hours but I have already found one big difference. The 1215N-PU27 has Windows 7 64 bit opposed to the 32 bit on the PU17. Amazon has the product description wrong.I was also pleased to see that this model has almost no bloatware, which was a big complaint on the previous model. (Apparently Asus listened). So far, I am very happy with this machine. The silver case really looks like extruded, brushed aluminum. Very nice. The screen resolution is great but the viewing angles are limited. Some angles make it look washed out. Asus also has a cool feature that allows you to operate the computer without starting Windows. You can access music, pictures, and the internet without draining the battery running the Windows OS. Overall I am very happy with this purchase, but like I said, I've only had it a few hours now. Hopefully Amazon will fix the product description.