Published in News

Asus N10 has switchable graphics

by on05 September 2008

Image

Leaked presentation reveals all

A leaked presentation over at the BoyGeniusReport has detailed all the features of the upcoming Atom N270 powered Asus N10 netbook which is the first Atom powered netbook that we know of that comes with a discrete graphics cards, but it has now emerged that the Geforce 9300M GS graphics card can be switched off via a hardware switch to allow the system to use the Intel GMA950 graphics of the chipset.

According to the presentation, this allows for increased battery life, as you get 6.5h using the integrated graphics versus 4.7h using the Geforce 9300M GS card. It seems like Asus will have a couple of different SKUs as well, depending on the market.

As we've reported before, there will be models with a 320GB hard drive, but it looks as if the first models will feature a 160 or a 250GB hard drive. Asus is also aiming the N10 towards the business market, with a model featuring Windows Vista Business with the option to "downgrade" to Windows XP Pro.

Price wise you're looking at US$749 (€523/£425) for a model with a 160GB hard drive, 2GB DDR2 533MHz memory, 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR, a 1.3Megapixel webcam, a fingerprint scanner and Windows Vista Home Premium. The business model with the larger 250GB hard drive and the two OS option will set you back another US$100, or US$849 (€593/£482).

There's also a "budget" model without the Nvidia graphics and as such it doesn't have an HDMI port and it only had 802.11b/g WiFi and comes with Windows XP instead of Vista. This model will set you back $649 (€453/£368), but doesn't seem to offer much apart from the Express card slot and a new design compared to the Eee PC, although for a premium price.

On the upside, all models seem to feature a 6-cell battery which is why the battery life if decent, although we're not sure who is going to be willing to pay this kind of money for an Atom powered netbook when you can get a much better 12.1in notebook for about the same money, albeit at a slightly larger size and heavier weight.

You can find the presentation here

Also read

More Asus N10 details and pictures

The Asus N10 gets pictured
Last modified on 05 September 2008
Rate this item
(0 votes)