And you thought the days of the netbook were done in the wake of the tablet takeover. Think again. It’s using IFA to launch the EeeBook X205, a netbook in all but name that will cost $US200.
It’s to tablets what the vinyl revival is to digital downloads. An 11.6-inch laptop, it’s running off an Intel Atom Z3735 Bay Trail processor. Although its 1366 x 768 screen is a resolution lowly enough to hark back to that brief time when netbooks were all the rage, its other internals are a bit more up to date — you’ve an option of 32GB or 64GB of solid state storage, and a battery life that’s a solid 12 hours long. A measly 2GB of RAM however means multitasking on the machine may be a bit of a chore — I could imagine Windows 8.1 with Bing (pre-installed here) will be chugging a bit on this.
Only 17.78mm thick and a little under a kilo in weight, it is highly portable though, packing in a microSD card reader, micro HDMI port and 2 USB 2.0 ports. If Chrome OS puts you off getting a Chromebook and you’re looking for a back-up travelling machine that won’t break your back whilst out on the road, it could be worth a look. It will cost $US200 when it becomes available towards the end of this year.
More Asus News From IFA
• Asus IFA 2014 Live Blog: The News As It Happened
• Asus Is Resurrecting The Netbook With The EeeBook X205
• Asus ZenWatch: Home-Grown Functionality With A Big Price Tag