Samsung and Dell may be ready to ditch netbooks in favor of higher-margin products, but small and affordable mini notebooks are not dead yet. Asus, the company largely responsible for popularizing the form factor in 2008, is planning to release a new Eee PC model based on AMD's Brazos platform.
The Eee PC 1225B is a follow up to the company's 1215B model and will arrive in two flavors: a dual-core AMD E450 APU clocked at 1.65 GHz and a dual-core AMD C60 APU clocked at 1.0 GHz. The system features an 11.6-inch (1366 x 768) LED-backlit display, 2GB or 4GB or RAM, Radeon HD 6320 or Radeon HD 6290 graphics with DirectX 11 support, and Windows 7 Home Premium pre-installed.
Other specs include hard drive capacities of 320GB, 500GB or 750GB, 802.11 b/g/n connectivity, optional Bluetooth 3.0 + HS, a 0.3MP camera, and a 6-cell 56Wh Li-ion battery promising up to 7 hours. There's one USB 2.0 and a couple of USB 3.0 ports, as well as Ethernet, an SD/SDHC/SDXC/MMC card reader, VGA, and one HDMI output for 1080p full HD video playback on external displays.
The Asus Eee PC 1225B should be available in a variety of colors, including grey, red, silver, black and white. There's no mention of price or an actual launch date in the product page, but Asus will need to aim for a low starting price if it wants this netbook to be noticed in today's Ultrabook-focused market.