The 1215N is more of a large netbook than a full fledged gaming laptop, but it’s still good enough for some fun on the go. It is a diminutive package, that’s for sure, continuing the otherwise laudable Atom philosophy, of great power management for many hours of autonomy. The 1215N has a 11.6 screen with a 1366 x 768 resolution and a 16:9 aspect ratio, making it a good choice for both HD gaming and video playback.
It’s the top resolution you might get on such a small machine and is good enough for an exquisite visual experience on a 12 incher. Looks wise, the 1215N is your standard mini laptop, having a plastic finish with no patterns or designs, in a combination of matte and glossy versions. It’s not much, but it’s enough, I might say, for such a small machine, as an extravagant design might have been useless and mean just some extra bucks on the price tag.
The keyboard is island style and has an extra row on the right for page up, page down and other navigational buttons, while the touch pad and mouse buttons are a little too modest if you’re going to use the machine for games. You’re better of buying a mouse. Under the hood, the 1215N has a dual core Atom processor, namely the D525, which has a speed of 1.8 GHZ. It’s of course much more than you get from a single core, 1.5 GHZ Atom chip, the D525 being the fastest and one of the smartest (when it comes to power management) processors that Intel released for mobile devices.
The 1215N's HD screen is great for some gaming on the run
It’s a pretty fast processor for its class, with enhanced multitasking support and improved circuitry in order to cut back power losses. The processor pairs, for some decent gaming, with a dedicated Nvidia ION graphics card, that comes with 512 MB of video RAM. It’s not the best mobile video card out there, truth be told, but if you don’t want to spend over a grand for an Alienware laptop, the 1215N has a good setup for an entertainment machine wrapped in a 3.2 lbs package that costs under $500.
The system comes with 2 GB of RAM and a 250 GB hard disk drive, which is a decent setup, considering that many budget mini laptops come with only 1 GB of RAM and hustle you into buying the second one if you want some decent performance. The Optimus technology lets you switch between on board Intel graphics and ION graphics, so you can ditch the dedicated graphics for the Intel solution when you don’t need all the fire power.
As for what the dedicated graphics module can do- games like Unreal III or Street Fighter IV are working just fine, and HD playback, both local and streamed, will also be a breeze. If the 11.6 screen is not enough for you, there’s always the option to use an external monitor, with a pretty extravagant maximum resolution ( 1920 x 1080) via the HDMI port.
Looks like a netbook, feels like a netbook, but plays like a gaming laptop
Keep in mind though that this option should be mainly used for displaying HD video and playing Flash games, as more demanding titles, such as Portal and Star Craft 2, will work decently on a more modest resolution, say the default 1366 x 768 px resolution of the 11.6 display. As for battery life, most tests revealed that the 1215N can go for around 5 hours on a single charge, which is below what you usually get on a netbook or mini laptop, but considering you can spend those hours playing, it’s not half that bad.
The $500 computer is a true gem amongst netbooks, considering the dual core CPU, decent amount of RAM, dedicated ION graphics and Windows 7 Premium, all in a package that weighs around 3 pounds.
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