A few hours ago we attended an Asus and Nvidia launch event in Taipei, Taiwan, where among other things the new EeePC 1201N netbook was officially revealed. This 12-inch EeePC is based on Asus’ seashell chassis and although the model on display at the event was a pre-production unit, it felt very solid and well built.

Specification wise the EeePC 1201N stands out from the crowd by using a desktop dual core Atom 330 processor. Asus has paired this up with the Nvidia ION chipset to create something of a bastard machine that everyone wanted, but has so far been out of reach. We’re not sure how happy Intel is about this, but we can’t imagine that there’s much they can do to prevent the 1201N to hit retail.

Other features include a 250GB 5,400rpm SATA hard drive, 2GB of DDR2 800MHz memory, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 and a 0.3Megapixel webcam. The ports consists of a D-sub connector, an HDMI connector, three USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet port and a pair of audio jacks.

The EeePC 1201N will retail for NT$19,988 (€412/$619) in Taiwan, including a 6-cell battery rated for about 5h of usage as well as a copy of Windows 7 Home basic. Below is a short hands on video of the EeePC 1201N.