Despite earlier reports that said ASUS' first Ion 2 based netbook in the form of the Eee PC 1201PN would include the use of NVIDIA Optimus technology, turns out this isn't going to be the case.

The discrete GeForce 201M GPU in this unit runs continuously and while Intel's IGP is of course nestled inside, there is no switching hardware that allows Optimus to auto-switch the GPUs depending on load scenarios (for which reason, a simple firmware update won't enable it either).

Needless to say, battery life will be woeful as a result, but apparently ASUS rushed this first model so they could have it ready by late next month and claim it as being the first next-gen Ion netbook to market.