Doesn’t play Crysis, but it’s the best netbook on the market today, January 8, 2010

By 

Senor Zoidbergo (Washington D.C.) – See all my reviews

  

  

As of the date of this review, the ASUS-1201N is the best netbook on the market today. This is my first netbook purchase, and I wanted a machine with the following characteristics;

- at least 2 GB of RAM

- graphics processor capable of playing 1080P media

- decent battery life (willing to sacrifice battery life for performance, since I’m usually close to a wall socket)

- Windows 7 Premium (offers improved battery life over Windows 7 Starter)

- 11.6″ to 12.1″ size

- 1366 x 768 resolution

- At least a 100 GB hard drive (SSD still too pricey and swapping out drives voids warranty)

First, a little background information. Thanks to restrictions by Intel and Microsoft, the number of high performance netbooks is quite small. The vast majority of netbooks have just 1 GB of ram, and are too small in size (most are in the 9-10″ range). However, I settled on 4 possibilities, the ASUS EEE PC 1201N, Lenovo IdeaPad S12, HP Mini 311, and the Samsung N510. I immediately discounted the Samsung because of the high pricetag (0). The remaining three all lacked one feature of the 1201N; dual core processors. The Asus is the only netbook to currently feature 1.6GHz Dual Core Intel Atom 330s. In general, the order of netbook processors is as follows;

Dual Core Atom 330s (found mostly on nettops) >> Atom N450 > Atom N280 > Atom N270 > Atom Z520

Since the Mini 311, Lenovo, and Asus were all comparably priced, I decided to go with the newer and more powerful Asus. I should also note that the HP Mini 311 only has the Nvidia Ion LE chipset, which is not DirectX 10 compatible, although it can be hacked to full Ion compatibility. However, I suspect that mainstream users are not interested in hacking their netbooks. I had also considered waiting until CES 2010 finished to get a glimpse of future netbooks. But, based on what has been revealed so far at CES, most of the future offerings will be just 10″ netbooks with a single core N450, 1 GB RAM and a new Crystal HD Broadcom chip. At best, on parity with the 1201N, and probably marked into the 0 range when all optioned out. Ultimately, I decided that I wanted a netbook larger than 10″.

The Amazon price for the 1201N was 2, which is at the high end of the netbook market. Why should I get this 1201N, when I can easily get a comparably priced CULV (Intel’s Core 2 Ultra Low Voltage) light notebook with superior performance you ask? Well, the CULV performance is only superior with regard to the processor; GPU-wise, CULV equipped notebooks with Intel’s integrated graphics GMA3150/4500MHD solutions are actually worse than the Nvidia Ion equipped 1201N. A CULV notebook with higher performance GPU would run you in the 0-1000 range. Asus has a CULV with Intel 4500MHD for about 0, but the Intel integrated graphics leaves much to be desired. As far as I know, there is no sub-0 CULV with 9400M that weighs less than 4 lbs and is less than 13″ and is ultra-mobile. The 1201N fills that gap.

Nvidia Ion (GeForce 9400M) >> Intel GMA3150 (PineTrail) and 4500MHD > Intel GMA950 >> Intel GMA500

I also thought about waiting for Nvidia’s Ion2 platform to hit the market, but considering that it took Nvidia and the computer manufacturers close to one year to output a netbook to take advantage of the Ion, I decided to go ahead and make the purchase. The Ion gives you the capability to play *some* games; it definitely won’t play Crysis! You’ll most likely have to play at 800 x 600 resolution to get any sort of decent performance, but at least there’s a capability. You probably won’t be able to get past the loading screen on other netbooks. While Ion dings battery life, it in combination with the dual Atoms allows you to watch 1080P content while multi-tasking on the 1201N, previously unheard of in a netbook.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS of the 1201N: The size is perfect! I’m glad I didn’t get a 10″ netbook. It arrived pretty barebones; netbook, battery, charger, and a few software CDs. Initial impressions were very good; the glossy black cover actually seems pretty fingerprint resistant. Overall construction is very solid, be careful once you insert the battery pack, because it tips the center of mass very sharply. Make sure you have a tight grip- mine nearly slipped out of my hand. In addition, I thought the Velcro straps on the battery cords were a nice touch; they keep the wires tucked away more neatly than plastic zip ties. Some also complained of the hard drive being too noisy- I didn’t notice anything unusual, just the steady hum of the hard drive that was mildly audible only if I placed my ear right on top of the keyboard. Air flow seems fine- after several hours of usage, the keyboard was still the same temperature, and the bottom was warm, but not hot.

KEYBOARD/TOUCHPAD: I really like the keyboard,…

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Perfect balance between portability and performance, January 7, 2010

I am a huge gadget person and own numerous portable devices. This is my 4th laptop that I have owned and it is the perfect blend of portability and performance. All of my past laptops have been Dell Inspirons 15 inch machines that have treated me well, but I wanted something that I could carry around without the hassle of it taking up my entire travel bag. I played around with other 10.1 inch nebooks, but found them to be too small and not worth the hassle, especially since I have a Blackberry smartphone which can pretty much do everything a typical netbook can do. I looked at the HP Mini that offered the Ion Nvidia graphic card and had a slightly bigger 11.6 screen and almost purchased that device until I saw the Asus 1201N in a website’s review. I noticed the Asus had a dual core atom and included all the upgrades of an HP 311 mini. I immediately found this Asus being sold on another vendor site (would have definitely bought from Amazon cause I have never been dissatisfied with this site, but it wasn’t available yet) and purchased. I have not regretted the decision. The dual atom processor and the ION NVIDIA graphic card means you don’t sacrifice as much functionality as you would with your typical netbook. I basically use it to do office work, light gaming and multimedia stuff like iTunes and watching movies (via web and locally) and have not disappointed. Below, in summary, are some of the pros and cons:

Pros:

- Outstanding screen resolution – high definition and crystal clear.

- perfect size – compared to the Dell mini, which is 10.1 the Asus 1201N machine is not that much bigger in size when folded, yet the screen offers a lot more view ability with 12.1 inches than a 10.1 inch screen.

- Plays multimedia pretty well. I have noticed some slowness with Hulu, but I have read this is a problem with Flash that is supposed to eventually be worked out.

- Windows 7 Home Premium included. The HP Mini I was looking at had XP Home on it for the same price (assuming the other features included).

- Pretty quick loading up – less than a minute to fully boot and be ready to roll.

- stays pretty cool other than a small area on the left that disperses the heat.

- Various power modes you can set to balance efficiency versus performance.

- Very competitive price given HDD size and all the included features like Bluetooth and SD media reader.

Cons:

- Battery only goes for about 4.5 hours at best and takes awhile to charge (this also might be because I am using high performance mode at the least so to be fair there is a power saving mode I have not tried).

- Keyboard sometimes is a little less responsive than typical keyboard. Half keystrokes don’t necessarily work when typing quickly. This is not a big issue.

Overall I am very satisfied with this netbook. I did quite a bit of research and was between a high power netbook like this one, a ULV (ultra low voltage), or a smaller laptop. In the end I felt this machine was the best option for the price. This machine seemed more powerful than any ULV in the same price range (when considering the ION Nvidia graphic card) and when you started going into higher price ranges, you were almost better off with a low end laptop. The battery is definitely not going to provide your typical 5-10 hrs of time other netbooks/ULVs provide, but with more performance power, you are going to sacrifice a little battery life. The way I look at it, I can always buy another battery to carry around, but I can’t just turn other netbooks into higher performance machines, when I need it.

****UPDATE****

I’ve gotten to play around with this netbook a little more since my initial review and I am happy to report that the 1080p on this unit is amazing given it is only a “netbook”. I was able to hook it up to both a 40 inch and 65 inch TV using an HDMI cable and the unit was immediately displaying on the screen in full HD without a hitch. In addition, I joined Netflixs and was able to run movies seamlessly from their Streaming Internet Movies On Demand application. Hulu is still a little choppy, but given Netflixs works great, I now have some sort of proof it is the Flash application Hulu is using and not the hardware causing any problems.

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Nice Design, Perfect Size, Just A Touch Slow, February 26, 2010

Like many who have reviewed before me I chose the ASUS 1201N based on the positive feedback from buyers. I also read a glowing recommendation from Laptop Magazine. The size is perfect and the ASUS 1201N is a nice, slim design.

However, the slow hard drive is noticeable and “Super Performance” mode still doesn’t cut it (my wife’s ASUS 1005HA is more responsive). I see that several buyers upgraded to a 7200rpm drive. I have already purchased and upgraded the RAM to 4GB (this does nothing for speed but it allows me to have a whole lot more going on at one time). So perhaps a hard drive upgrade is in order but spending 0 to upgrade memory and hard drive on a 0 machine puts it in another product class and kind of defeats the purpose of buying at this price point to start with.

First, however, I have to see about a new problem that has arisen recently.

About a week after receiving my ASUS 1201N it started “randomly” shutting off. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason. It could be running on AC or battery and I might have five applications open or none. The machine is vented well.

So I Googled “asus 1201n shuts off” and selected the ASUSTek Computer Inc. Forum link. For the next half hour my stomach lurched as I read report after report (seven pages at the time) of buyers having the same problem. Sometimes the issue seemed related to the USB mouse driver, other times to overheating because the cooling fan failed to start after awaking from sleep mode. At the time I am writing this review ASUS does not seem to have a solution and buyers had started returning their 1201Ns.

So I will give this another week or so and see if the problem can be resolved with a BIOS fix or software patch and then I’ll decide if I will return the machine.

UPDATE: March 21, 2010 – ASUS released a BIOS upgrade that seems to have fixed the shutdown problem. I’ve been running almost two weeks now without a blue screen or any of the other annoying shutdown problems. Have decided to keep this machine and upgrade my rating to four stars. Still wish the machine was a little more responsive.

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