Review: Asus Eee PC 1215N

I treated myself to a new netbook recently. I picked up an Asus Eee PC 1215N from Amazon. After having played with one at CES this year, I decided that it was the netbook for me. I also grabbed a few accessories: a KWorld USB TV Tuner, a carrying case, and a Windows Media Center remote. My reason for upgrading from my beloved Eee PC 901 is that the 901 doesn't do HD video. I wanted something that I could take on the road that was a little faster than the 901 and could function as a mobile media center for airplanes and hotel rooms.

The first thing I did when it arrived was wipe Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit that came with it and install my copy of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. The 64-bit OS proved to lag the machine a bit much for my liking, so I moved to Ultimate 32-bit. I also had a lot of trouble with reinstalling the video drivers. This machine has the Nvidia Optimus system, where if you're watching HD video, it uses the Nvidia Ion chip instead of the default Intel 3150 video drivers for better performance. The latest official Nvidia Ion drivers do not work on this machine. Neither do Asus' Intel drivers. So I needed the following driver configuration, in this order: Intel's 3150 drivers, then Asus' Nvidia Ion drivers. Any other configuration borked either the resolution or HD video or both.

The machine's stock hard drive was a bit noisy for my liking, and the RAM at 2GB is a bit low to run Windows 7 at full speed, so I purchased 4GB of RAM and an OCZ Vertex 2 solid state drive (SSD). I finished installing both last night, and I have to say that this little bugger is humming along very nicely. It boots to completion in under 30 seconds, which for a machine with an Atom CPU, is very impressive. All app and network stuff I do is very responsive, even when multitasking. Media Center has minimal menu and app lag.

My only major complaint thus far is watching Live TV with my tuner stick via Windows Media Center. Even after the upgrades, HD and SD TV stutters every 8-10 seconds. This is definely not due to the graphics card, hard drive, or RAM. It's either caused by the CPU (prob not), video drivers, mpeg decoders, or my tuner stick. I'll be running some experiments this week to find the root of the issue. The picture does look great, though. Some people have knocked the keyboard for flexing, but it's not that bad, though it does flex a little while typing. UPDATE:  Turns out the TV stuttering issues was a result of the cheap KWorld tuner, and not my PC. I tested with a Hauppauge HVR-850, and Live TV was smooth and beautiful.

PROS:

Nice screen size and resolution
Fast (after upgrades)
Attractive case
Lightweight
Good battery life
Good feature set

CONS:

Shows fingerprints badly
Minor keyboard flex

Top 10 Electronic Devices I Own

10. Sony PCM-M1 DAT w/ CSBs

In my more formative years, I was very interested in recording concerts, specifically of bands that I liked the most. The best thing you could use before flash memory came out was the Sony PCM-M1 DAT Walkman. It can record at 16-bit/48KHz and is small enough to fit in your pocket. Pair that with some clip-on binaural mics, like my Core Sound Binaurals, and you can make some fine bootlegs. My concert appetite has mellowed recently, hence my bootlegging appetite has as well, but I did make some fine recordings with this thing. Even though it's obsolete, I can't bring myself to sell it.

9. Linksys WRT54G w/ DD-WRT

Out of the box, the Linksys WRT54G is a damn fine router, but add the open souce firmware DD-WRT to it, and it becomes the best and most versatile router within $300. Most useful to me is the wired or wireless network bridge functionality. I still use mine every day.

8. Panasonic TH-42PZ85U Plasma HDTV

I bought my TH-42PZ85U without having seen it in person, instead relying on online reviews. I really do love this TV, especially for what I paid for it. If it didn't have horrible phosphor trails in black and white scenes, it would be perfect. Other than that, it's superb for TV and movies.

7. Onkyo TX-SR606 Receiver

With only one minor flaw, this reciever is the best bang for the buck sub-$1000. It has four HDMI ports, 1080p pass-thru and decodes every type of audio codec, including Dolby TrueHD and DTS-MA. It's last year's model, but I can't see needing anything else from a receiver for a decade.

6. Oppo DV-980H

Before Blu-ray, this was THE all-in-one disc player. It plays DVD, DVD-A, and SACD, and scales to 1080p like a dream. NTSC and PAL both work great. If you have no desire or money to go Blu, get this. Your DVD collection will never be obsolete.

5. Logitech Harmony 550

I have almost a dozen devices in my living room that require remote controls. The Harmony rules them all. I honestly don't know what I would do without it. Sure, there are newer and more expensive models than the 550, but it does everything and does it well. You need one.

4. Asus Eee PC 901

Ah, the 901. I was an early adopter. I really and truly love this netbook. Short of HD video, it does everything I need it to, has a 6 hour battery, and weighs 2.5 lbs. Webcam, mic, speakers, Bluetooth, Wifi. Runs XP and Windows 7 perfectly (except Windows Media center). Of course, I have to mention that I added a Runcore SSD to the thing, and without it, the 901 moves like mud. If you like th 9-inch form factor, one of these can be had on the cheap. Add a Runcore SSD, and the thing will fly.

3. PlayStation3 w/ Media Server

I got a PS3 last year for Xmas. It is the best Blu-ray player around, it's a solid gaming platform, and with the free PS3 Media Center suite for PC, it streams all my HD videos with full surround, basically all but eliminating my need for an HTPC.

2. FiOS w/ HD-DVR

FiOS is the best TV service in the USA. Best video quality, best channels. I thought I was going to have to spend $600 on an HTPC in order to record HDTV. The FiOS HD-DVR (QIP6416-2) has great video quality, easy use, and intelligent seeking. I love it. I just need more storage.

1. Modded Xbox running XBMC

My Xbox has been very good to me. What do I do with it, you ask? I have my entire music, video and picture libraries on it for couch-based enjoyment. I have 16 vintage console emulators running approximately 10,000 games. I can watch streaming TV shows. Apple movie trailers, too. No machine can do all this so well. I also have a Xir installed for ease of use with my Harmony remote. Thanks XBMC.

XP vs. Windows 7 RTM on the Eee PC 901

In a previous installment, I posted some preliminary benchmarks for Windows 7 RC vs. XP. Based on the feedback I received, it seems that people are interested in this sort of thing, so I thought I'd continue with it. I recently got a hold of the RTM (release to manufacturing) build of Windows 7 Ultimate, so here goes.

As previous, I'm dual booting XP and 7 across a Runcore 32GB SSD (PATA) on the 901 for ease of comparison, and because I wasn't ready to stop using XP altogether on my 901 because it runs really well and I'm very happy with it. This 901 has 2GB RAM (up from 1GB stock). Installed is the 2103 BIOS (official) that fixes the black screen video issue in Windows 7. Windows 7 RTM default drivers are installed except for ACPI (from Asus) and Aero is enabled. SuperHybridEngine is installed and set to Super High Performance mode for both. XP has all the latest official drivers running. Both have all Windows Updates installed. PassMark PerformanceTest 7.0 was used for the PassMark scoring.











Conclusion

Windows 7 RTM seems to have closed the performance gap quite a bit on XP in the latest build, especially in the areas of CPU and Memory benchmarks. My results last round did not have SHE enabled in the Windows 7 side, so that might explain it. Plus I'm using a different PassMark version. SSD performace is still great on Win7, which is very good to hear. What I take away from this is that XP is overall going to give a user the better Windows Experience of the two, but Windows 7 is now a viable netbook OS.

Coming up next... XP vs. Windows 7 on the Eee PC 701SD.

XP vs. Windows 7 on the Eee PC 901

I recently started playing around with Windows 7 on my Asus Eee PC 901. I had read that I could get it running smoothly if I upgraded the 901 to 2GB RAM, and since I was already running an upgraded RunCore SSD, I figured I'd invest $20 or so and give it a go. I'm actually very impressed with the performance of Windows 7 on my netbook. More on that later.

I thought people might find it useful to see a few performance benchmarks comparing Windows XP to Windows 7. Windows 7 seems to be the proper heir to XP, as most IT professionals and end users have written off Vista as crap. I'm dual booting XP and 7 across a Runcore 32GB SSD (PATA) on the 901 for ease of comparison, and because I wasn't ready to stop using XP altogether on my 901 because it runs really well and I'm very happy with it.

These benchmarks are not scientific. They are merely presented as a rough guide to how XP and Win7 run on a netbook. This 901 has 2GB RAM (up from 1GB stock). Installed is the 2103 BIOS (official) that fixes the black screen video issue in Windows 7. Windows 7 RC default drivers are installed except for video (Intel Vista drivers) and Aero is enabled. XP has all the latest official drivers running. Both have all Windows Updates installed. PassMark PerformanceTest 6.1 was used for the PassMark scoring.

Conclusion

Windows 7 actually shows modest gains on XP in SSD performance. This wasn't surprising, given the press coverage that has been dedicated to this very topic. However, this is where Windows 7's dominance ends. XP bests it in every other measurable way on the 901. Having said that, I really like Windows 7. It just feels right. It has all the new bells and whistles that we've been clamouring for from Microsoft for years. The included update of Windows Media Center is great. If I was forced to, I could switch over to 7 from XP without losing my mind. Thankfully, I'm not.

Mac OS X "Leopard" on the Asus EeePC 901?

I'm not a huge Mac fan. I find their software to be limiting and overly simplistic and their hardware way overpriced. That being said, there are certain things that Macs do well. Anything dealing with multimedia, for one. So, I thought it would be a fun project to see if I could get Mac OS X running on my favorite toy, my EeePC 901. Apparently, I'm not alone. The interwebs are chock full of tutorials about how to do this. The guide that I used, which I found to be the most comprehensive, is EEEmac. I obtained a "Leopard" retail disc via the usual channels, and simply followed the guide. You can see the results in the above images.

Overall, the process was a success. Software-wise, everything is fully operational. OS X is (un)officially running on my 901. I have the OS running on a 32GB RunCore SSD drive, so its pretty damn fast. Hardware is a different story. The system doesn't always shutdown, boot, or wake up correctly. Lots of holding down the power button involved. The camera and ethernet are not working yet (no drivers). There is a Unix (FreeBSD) ethernet driver here, but porting it to Mac is outside my scope.

So, I have a Mac netbook. Sounds weird. I may try it out for a couple weeks. I can't see ditching XP altogether, though. I really can't understand why Apple has yet to release a netbook. They'd sell a million of them on the first day. There is currently and will be a market for the netbook form factor for years to come. Smarten up, Apple. Get with the times.

EeePC 901 SSD Face-Off (Part 1): RunCore vs. Phison

In July 2008, I purchased an Asus EeePC 901 (20G) Linux netbook, pretty much the day it came out. Since then, it has accompanied me on trips long and short, and has been what I consider to be a wise purchase. However, the 901 is not without its shortcomings. The 901 Linux has 2 SSDs, or solid state disks, both made by Phison: a 4GB (SLC) and a 16GB (MLC). Both SSDs have slow read/write speeds, with the 16GB being the slower of the two. Out of the box, the 901 is a Linux machine, running a Xandros variant. I liked this OS, but I wanted to use Windows XPon the machine as well. So the day I got it, I decided to dual-boot Linux and Windows. Until recently, I had the 4GB running Linux and the 16GB running XP. Linux was slow but usable. I've since removed the Linux partition, leaving only XP on the 16GB. I found the read speeds to be tolerable on XP, but the writes were downright painful. Thankfully, 3rd party manufacturers recently began releasing faster replacement SSDs for netbooks. One of these makers is RunCore. Somehow, RunCore has managed to produce the fastest AND cheapest replacement SSDs for netbooks like the EeePC and the Dell Inspiron mini 9. Last week, I bought a 32GB MLC replacement for the 16GB Phison, and installed XP on it. I ran some common tasks and a commercial benchmark suite, and I immediately saw returns on my investment. The results of the tests, shown below, are breathtaking.

About the Benchmarks

These benchmarks are not scientific. I didn't try and clone the drives, or assure that they all had the exact same services and apps running during testing. However, I did attempt to make the runtime scenarios as similar as possible. The one "apples-to-oranges" issue would be that the Phison was formatted FAT32 and the RunCore was formatted NTFS. I used FAT32 on the Phison because FAT32 has a smaller block size and does not use journaling or the other more advanced write-intensive features of NTFS. On a systems with slow write speeds, this seemed to make sense. Both machines contained the following:

-Window XP Professional SP3
-All Windows Updates
-BIOS 1808 (latest)
-"Super Performance" mode a.k.a. full CPU speed
-Latest device drivers


Results







These are the common tasks I chose to look at. Number 3 is a cold startup timed from button press to right after the sound drivers load, but before the network (wireless) drivers load. Number 5 is copying and pasting a 98Mb zip file.





I used PassMark PerformanceTest 6.1 on both drives to evaluate disk speed. All of the other tests in the benchmarking suite, i.e. 2D, 3D, RAM, CPU, etc., were statisically insignficant between the 2 drives. As you can see, the Disk tests yielded far different results.

Conclusion

The results speak for themselves, I think. The bottom line is that the RunCore SSD destroyed the stock Phison disk in every measurable way. Some of the results are so extreme, they're practically laughable. In short, adding a RunCore SSD to your EeePC 901 will turn it into the machine you wished it was out of the box. I'll go so far as to say that it makes the 901 useful for more than just web browsing, which in the realm of today's netbooks is really saying something. RunCore SSDs are available from MyDigitalDiscount.

Not sure what Part 2 of this article will be. Could be Phison NTFS vs. FAT32. Could be Phison SLC vs. RunCore. Ether way, Part 2 will be coming soon. If you have strong feelings about what you'd like to see given what you've just read, feel free to comment.