Does it come with External DVD Writer?

so isky can u give some review since u re the one who got it early. how much do u bought it?

HP Direct Blog about new revision of DM1 with E-450 HP Blog

Seem Gaming experience score improve a lot on E-450. Check it out...

Matte silver, but no matte black??

Well, I have had the 1215B for almost a week. Haven't had a chance to play with it much cause of work, though I had the notebook with me in a small messenger bag throughout the whole day, and would occasionally pop it out to surf on the free hotel wifi. Overall, I have to say that I am quite happy with the purchase. Bought it for a little over RM1250, with a freebie cleaning kit(which is getting used regularly). Not the cheapest, but Devour was willing to come to my area to COD, so the extra bit was worth it. There were a few lowyat members pricing it at RM1229, who after a few PMs, stopped communicating. Mmmm.. Anyway, decided to deal with Devour who seemed more reliable. Also, bought a relatively cheap vztec slim vertical messenger bag (12in) to keep it in. Nice fit, but not too much space for anything else, which is OK with me.

External build quality:
Yes, the damn glossy lid is a finger print magnet, and for the life of me I don't know why companies like Asus just luurve to make these things glossy. I was thinking about it before, but now I'll definitely be looking to invest in a decent set of laptop and screen protectors. External build quality overall is quite good, with a few little niggles. The biggest annoyance is the LAN port - internally, it's not aligned exactly with the plastic hard shell. The first time I plugged in an ethernet jack, I thought the laptop would forever have a tail cause I couldn't get it out for quite a while. (Found out later that there was a similar complaint from a reviewer on Amazon)

Keyboard:
Keyboard is good. No flex issues at all. Liked the layout of this much better than the DM1, since I am a pageup/pagedown kinda guy. But lately, I've been doing the two-finger scroll though.

Screen:
My initial impression of the screen was pretty 'meh'. I think the screen is a side-lit led screen, since there is a slight light bleed along the edges. The biggest "turn-off" for me initially was that the screen looked like it was a low contrast screen and the colors not very saturated, especially on battery. Fiddling with the screen brightness either made it too bright or too "grey". It's only when I found some settings in the Catalyst control center and adjusted them (powerplay>varibright settings) that the screens look better. Mind you, putting the varibright settings on high will affect the battery. So overall, the screen is better the 'meh', pretty good overall, but not excellent. But i do like the not-so-thick bezel compared to the DM1 with its 11.6in screen

Haven't had to deal with the reflective screen issue much, since I've been mainly using it indoors. A few times, the reflectiveness was visible and a little annoying. I'm hoping a good lcd screen protector with a matte effect will improve it. I know there's armourone, and then there's the pricey one used for apple phones and ipads (which I have to order online). Haven't decided which one yet.

Audio:
Ok. No issues, though sometimes it does seem a little low. Had to gain / normalize the sound settings on media player classic to get the sound levels to what I want. Maybe I'm just a little deaf.... Haven't played music on it, so I can't say too much on overall sound quality.

Touchpad:
I gotta say, the synaptic touchpad is nice and big, much bigger that a lot of other bigger laptops. Quite usable, especially the multitouch side of things.

Bloatware:
Unfortunately, got quite a bit of bloatware to get rid off. I dumped express gate, and pretty much all of the installed Asus software, and slimmed downed Windows even further. I also dumped the eeepc boot screen. I have to say, the Eee PC logo is pretty damn ugly. I have learned to ignore the eeepc logo on the top-left corner cause I haven't figured out a way to get rid of it.

Heat / sound (loudness):
I don't find the 1215B loud at all, and haven't heard the loud fan issue that others in the past complained about. Nor is it particular hot, though there is more heat when the HDD is being used aggressively. An SSD would solve that issue I think.

Actual Use:
So far, I don't have any complaints at all. I haven't played any games, or done heavy work like photoshop or animation to really test the apu, but for everyday word processing, surfing, etc., the AMD e450 is more than up to the task. No stuttering issues in playing HD videos, though make sure you have the correct amd driver installed. The Broadcom wi-fi is fine, and I haven't had any issues with dropped connections or poor coverage. Haven't used the bluetooth or the usb 3.0 yet. What i particularly like is that i can hit Fn-Spacebar to cycle between power saving, auto power saving, and high performance to adjust cpu performance.

Next steps:
I plan to eventually upgrade to an SSD, and pop in 4GB of ram for 6GB total. Also, need to get a set of laptop and screen protectors.


My Windows Experience Index:

Processor: 3.9
Memory (Ram): 5.5
Graphics: 4.5
Gaming graphics: 5.9
Primary HD: 5.8

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As I said earlier, I am happy overall with my purchase of the 1215B. With its charger and the Vztec bag i bought, the whole bag weighs just under 3kg, which makes it easier to carry the bag through the whole day. However, I think I would certainly have considered the 1015B if it came with the e350/e450 instead of the c50. The 1215B is more like an ultraportable and less of a netbook in terms of size. But then again, it does have a pretty nice almost full size keyboard.

Hope this review helps.

PS - On a side note, if you guys plan to install Windows 7 64bit, make sure you do plenty of research first. Another friend of mine also bought a 1215B and installed a 64bit windows. Although eventually he made it work, it took a while since some of the default 64bit drivers on the Asus website don't work. I do plan to install mint 64bit at some point in time, but I plan to research all the driver issues thoroughly beforehand.

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Added on September 27, 2011, 7:13 amDon't know why the DM1 desktop Graphics rating is only 3.8, since it's 4.5 on mine. Also, their memory and 3D graphics ratings are a little lower than my 1215B.

This post has been edited by Isky: Sep 27 2011, 07:13 AM

You should consider 3M screen protectors.

Thanks for the suggestion. The Vikuiti screen protector looks promising, but a little pricey i expect.

What is the latest price for both Asus and HP?

HP DM1-4010AU RM1299 at Jayacom, Lowyat Plaza.
http://jayacom.com.my/images/laptops.pdf

But I bought the MSI CR650 for RM1199 15.6"

edit:pricelist link

This post has been edited by lagila: Sep 27 2011, 10:26 PM

hmm..HP DM1 now sell at rm1299..which is same price as asus 1215b... with usb3.0, why should we get hp??? i saw the silver colour of 1215b..kinda like it.. and its matte.. at least not so fingerprint magnet..

weight between 1215B vs DM1?

lets hope acer will throw a hat in the ring. good for us.

acer AO522
AMD C-60
1280x720 10.1inch LED


Acer AO722
AMD C-60 also!!! Hmmmm
1366x768 12 inch LED..

no word on e-450 model yet!..

why they not release AO722 with E-450?

AO522 would be a great choice, if the price is right. Otherwise the 1015B still beats it flat in terms of price/performance.

acer only have e450 built in 14" display laptop

If only AO522 is 6-cell batterly, I would've gotten it anytime over 1015B lol.. The screen resolution is the thing to die for..

FYI, Since there's been so much back and forth and conflicting info on this... For those of you considering the upgrade to an SSD, I contacted ASUS support on the issue of whether the new e450 1215B supports SATA2 or SATA3. According to them, SATA3 is supported.

What do they mean by supported? FYI you can use SATA3 devices on SATA2 ports.

weird...i install win 7 x64 professional with no issue what so ever...
but..the weird thing is...on asus 1215B driver....there is no Hotkey Service ATK as this eeepc need it to use the blue button..weird huh?already inquiry from vip asus...but they say to send it to the service centre...

i manage to find it through google though..Asus is weird...

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Added on September 29, 2011, 1:04 pmwill the ssd(sata 3) get sata 3 speed...or..sata 2 speed?

This post has been edited by redzwan: Sep 29 2011, 01:05 PM

The Service Tech, with the somewhat intriguing name of "Bubble Liu" wrote this:

"Hi, for this issue, your laptop can support SATA3".

This was in response to my question about SSD upgrades, and whether the 1215B can only support SATA2, or is also able to support SATA3. I get what you saying, and yes - SATA3 is backwards compatible. Anyway, I just sent her a follow-up email, this time asking whether the 1215B can support the full 6GB/sec SATA3 transfer speed, or whether the SATA3 will default down to SATA2 speeds. We will see what Bubble has to say.

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Added on September 29, 2011, 1:21 pmI think they filed it under "keyboard filter or KB filter, if I am not mistaken. the ATK driver is 1.0.0.3, the KB Filter Utility is also v1.0.0.3, but does not work properly if I recall my friend correctly. There is another older version in the included files that he installed. YMMV.

This post has been edited by Isky: Sep 29 2011, 01:21 PM

The A50M chipset for the E-350 already supports SATA3 natively. Won't be too surprised about the E-450's support.