ASUS EEE PC 1201N Review
It's been a couple of years now since PC manufacturer ASUS revolutionized the portable PC world with its first tiny, affordable EEE PC. Then, the 7" screen and miniscule keyboard made this little machine more of a toy and a novelty than something you could really get some work done on. Since then, we've seen netbooks grow to include 9" and then 10" screens, each time giving just a little more horsepower and space on the keyboard - along with a higher price. After some playing around with 11.6" screens, ASUS is now fully blurring the line between a netbook and a full-priced notebook with the EEE 1201N.
You can find a 10" netbook for around $250 or less nowadays if you take advantage of sales, so the $499 price tag on the 1201N certainly seems high. You do get a premium machine here with pretty much the most power you can get out of what can still be called a netbook, but it's still important to temper your expectations when you're buying a PC that weighs a fraction of most laptops. It's not a powerhouse and there are some things that this machine will never do very well. But if you want a PC that weighs three pounds to multitask internet and office apps, start up a movie, or even do some light gaming, the 1201N delivers a balanced experience that may never excel at one thing, but it's an impressive jack of all trades.
Tech Specs
- 12.1" 1366x768 LED-Backlit Screen
- Intel Atom Dual Core N330 Processor 1.6GHz
- nVidia ION Graphics (GeForce 9400M GPU)
- 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 RAM, 2 x SODIMM Slot, 8GB Max
- 250GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM) + 500GB Free Web Storage
- Windows 7 Home Premium (32 Bit)
- Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR; Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n; 0.3MP Webcam
- Ports: HDMI & VGA Out, 3 USB, SDHC/MMC, 3.5mm Headphone, 3.5mm Mic, Gigabit Ethernet
- Multi-touch Trackpad
- 6-Cell Battery, up to 5 Hours of Battery Life
- 11.65" x 8.19" x 1.07-1.31", 3.22 Pounds
- 1 Year Warranty, 6 Month Battery Warranty, 30 Day Zero Brite Dot Guarantee
- In the box: ASUS 1201N, AC Adapter, Windows 7 + Driver/Software DVD
There are a few specific things I want to point out here. The Atom N330 isn't "twice as fast" as the single core, 1.6Ghz Atom N270 - as you may well know, any one program that can only use one CPU core at a time (as in, most internet and business applications) will run at the exact same speed as it would with the single-core CPU that comes in most netbooks, so multitasking is where the added core is useful. The 1201N does include a fairly decent 2GB of RAM, which helps in powering Win7 Home Premium's Aero interface smoothly - even if the ION chipset reserves 256MB for video memory. Bluetooth and B/G/N Wireless are also nice features to have in a netbook and are common in premium models like the 1201N. The low-resolution webcam takes some surprisingly decent video, all things considered.
One advantage the N330 CPU has is that it can handle 64-bit instructions - unlike the more common single-core Atoms seen so far in netbooks, this one will run 64-bit operating systems, including the 64-bit flavors of Windows 7. ASUS still only included 32-bit Home Premium with the 1201N, but most users wouldn't ever be able to tell the difference anyway - it's just nice knowing that you can take this machine to 4GB of RAM and use it all with the right OS. One thing to note is that the 1201N, like many other consumer laptops, can't run 64-bit OS's in virtualization software like VMWare.
In the Box
The 1201N is already priced higher than just about all of the netbooks out there, so many will be disappointed that ASUS included pretty much zero in the way of extras. The "slip case" included is barely better than packing material and should be thrown away, and while ASUS did include a Windows 7 reinstall disc, you'll need an external DVD drive to make use of it. Those looking for a mouse or a neoprene sleeve will have to buy those separately.
Build Quality
With a glossy plastic finish everywhere but the bottom of the 1201N, ASUS' Seashell design is definitely a step above budget netbooks. The only 1201N model shipping right now is the glossy black, which we've seen in plenty of other laptops - it's a magnet for fingerprints and smudges, but the shiny finish does look great at a glance.
Overall the 1201N feels like it's been put together pretty well, with very little flex anywhere, no rattling pieces, and all edges and seams meeting exactly the way they should with one exception: the battery. ASUS built the 1201N so that the battery sticks out the bottom rather than the back, purposely creating a natural incline for typing. Beyond that, though, the lines still don't quite match up right at the back and bottom, leaving the battery looking like it was intended for a different model entirely. But it's hard to care much about it when you spend most of your time looking at the screen and keyboard, and at the very least I found that the battery fits very tight and snug into its slot. Additionally, SD cards don't stick out of the slot when they're inserted, but they're still very easy to eject.
Portability
At 3.2 pounds, the 1201N weighs almost a pound more than ASUS' 10" Seashell netbooks, but it's only a few ounces more than most of the budget 10" netbooks from other manufacturers. The rather tiny 40 watt AC adapter is about the same as we've seen come with other netbooks, and it adds less than half a pound to the total. The thickness of the 1201N is just over an inch at the front and about 1.3" at the back where the battery sticks out of the bottom just a bit.
Battery Life
The six-cell battery included in the 1201N won't take this netbook quite as far as we've these same batteries take 10" models. Basic internet usage that taxed neither the CPU nor the nVidia ION chip gave me battery life exceeding four and half hours, and that was with the wireless on and the screen as bright as possible. If you use ASUS' SuperHybridEngine to slow down the CPU a bit, dim the screen, and disable the wireless whenever you don't need it, you might manage to get ASUS' advertised five hours in total.
That's less battery time than you'll get from many 10" netbooks, but that's part of the overhead of a machine that can also multitask, play some 3D games, and cruise through HD videos. I also found that you can get through a full HD movie, even a long one, on battery power if you've got GPU-accelerated video going - more on that later . If you need continuous operation on, say, a six-hour flight from New York to LA, then you might need to get a travel power adapter for plugging into an airplane seat, a second battery to swap to, or an entirely different netbook (like ASUS' 11-hour 1101HA).
Gaming taxes the 1201N's battery life far more than playing movies, and I found that more demanding 3D games drained the battery after about two hours and ten minutes, give or take a few minutes depending on the game. Casual titles like Popcap's Plants vs. Zombies fared much better, mostly because the GPU was hardly being engaged.
Included Software
The 1201N doesn't come installed with a ton of annoying third-party software, but ASUS' own utilities are numerous, mostly useless, and a drain on resources. From voice-activated weather checking (seriously, how hard is it to type in a city on weather.com?) to not one but two ASUS self-update utilities - one for the built-in software and one for the BIOS - to the web-based storage software to a silly-looking dock giving access all of the ASUS apps (which already have links in the Start menu), there's just too much.
I also found that some of this software was causing issues. IE8 would crash when downloading from some sites, the sound had a disturbing number of pops and cracks in it, and ASUS' included screensaver plays terrible music - constantly. I'd say that the pre-installed software was easily the worst part of my initial experience with the 1201N. On the plus side, I was able to fix most of these problems simply by uninstalling the apps I deemed unnecessary (which was most of them).
For those who find themselves reinstalling Windows often, you've got a couple of options on the 1201N: there's both the recovery partition on the hard drive that restores the machine back to the way it came in the box, and the included Win7 DVD will allow you to install a crisp, clean version (assuming you've got a USB-powered DVD drive around).
Heat Dissipation and Noise
The 1201N works nicely in those situations where you find yourself sitting it in your lap. It vents all of its heat out of the left side, only warming your leg a little bit with light usage (and only a bit more with the CPU and GPU firing on all cylinders). There's a single fan inside that cools off everything, and with normal usage, I found it impossible to get the fan to run at any setting I'd consider to be loud. The fan was almost always running, though, and while it was never superbly quiet, it did just fine even while gaming.
Upgrading
The 1201N's one easy-access slot is for RAM upgrades, and for around $50 as of this writing you can get a 2GB SODIMM PC6400 stick and take the machine to 3GB. Unfortunately, RAM's about all you'll likely upgrade; getting to the hard drive requires system disassembly, and that means voiding ASUS' warranty. They wouldn't even give me information on how to take the 1201N apart, instead pointing me to forum posts about upgrading EEE netbooks that are nothing at all like the 1201N. If you're looking to add a 7200RPM drive or an SSD to a netbook, then only get the 1201N if you like living on the edge.
Video Playback
Unlike most netbooks, the 1201N most definitely has the horsepower you need to play most any video how you want it. Not only does it play every YouTube, Hulu, and Vimeo clip I threw at it perfectly, but I also didn't have to install that beta version 10.1 of Flash that offloads the processing to the GPU. It is still a good idea to install it anyway, as it frees up CPU cycles for multitasking and improves battery life, and even gives you enough power to play YouTube HD videos in full screen mode as well.
When it came to playing back downloaded videos, I installed K-Lite Codec Pack and it was able to play everything I found through the included Media Player Classic HomeCinema. This allowed the 1201N to play back full 1080p, high-bitrate video without a hitch, even when outputting to a HDTV over HDMI. As long as DXVA acceleration was going, the highest processor usage I saw with 1080p videos played through MPCHC was about 22% - and the system was running very cool and quiet, too. On the other hand, doing HD video without hardware acceleration was a crapshoot. Apple Quicktime runs without acceleration and could just barely play 720p videos from the Apple Trailers site, and 1080p was out of the question. The end result here is that you really need to take advantage of DXVA-based video acceleration if you want to play HD video efficiently on the 1201N.
Retro Gaming
The 1201N is a fantastic little machine if you want to play classic games on the go. The screen's 1366x768 resolution allows you to run PC games that have a 1024x768 minimum (like Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri) just fine - that's a plus over 10" netbooks with 1024x600 resolutions. I also decided to go a little further back in time and found that starting up DOSBox to play some X-Com, TIE Fighter, or Ultima Underworld worked great. Classic arcade and console games also play perfectly through emulators. Many Windows-based games that are more than a decade old can have issues running under the included Windows 7 Home Premium, but if they were popular enough in their heyday, you can often track down fan-made fixes that get the games running on today's hardware.
Modern-day Gaming
The nVidia ION (it's a 9400M) in the 1201N is a fairly capable little GPU that's generally capable of running many of today's games on low-to-medium settings. It's still relatively weak, though, if you're used to desktop GPU power; if playing the latest games in a somewhat-portable package is all you want, then consider something like this 14" laptop - it weighs more, costs more, and won't last as long on battery, but the gaming performance will be far, far better than with the 1201N or any other netbook out right now.
The limiting factor in many of these tests is the Atom CPU; even though these dual-core chips are supported fully by today's games, it's just not powerful enough to keep up with their demands. It's easy to tell when a game is limited by CPU power - if going from 640x480 to 1280x720 in a game hardly changes your frame rate, then that's the Atom limiting you. It seems silly to try and create a comprehensive list of modern games that can be made playable on the 1201N, so let's just pick a few important examples:
Dragon Age: Origins
The 1201N can squeak by in Dragon Age with low resolution and details. Since nothing is twitch action-based, having a frame rate in the teens may be annoying, but it's not a deal-breaker. You won't be exactly impressed with the overall experience, but there's no machine this small that can do nearly as well as this.
Assassin's Creed
Ubisoft's action game Assassin's Creed ran surprisingly well on the 1201N, with its large city-based views doing just fine. The frame rate was generally in the low 20s on lower detail settings, but it seems to work well enough for this game.
Mass Effect
Bioware's Mass Effect played horribly in the initial scene on the Normandy, and going down to the surface of Eden Prime didn't help much at all - even with the lowest possible settings. The brief times that I saw the frame rate go up to 20 was no consolation for the many times it sat in the single digits.
Left 4 Dead 2
Sadly, the zombie hordes of Left 4 Dead 2 proved to be too much for the little Atom CPU. The game simply slowed down far too much and too often, even at minimum detail settings and 640x480 resolution, to be playable.
World of Warcraft
The 1201N handles Blizzard's hugely popular MMORPG just fine, delivering frame rates from the mid-20s to the 40s at medium details and a screen resolution of 1366x768. The 5400RPM hard drive is sluggish at loading up all the player models and textures in highly-populated areas like Dalaran, but you could conceivably get through a 25-man raid on the 1201N without getting everyone killed.
Far Cry 2
It was goofy to even try Crysis, but what about Ubisoft's faster-running Far Cry 2? The answer is no - frame rates almost always stayed in the teens at the lowest possible resolution and detail settings. That's just not smooth enough for a fast-action shooter like this.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Infinity Ward's latest shooter runs astoundingly well on older hardware, so I thought this one had a pretty good shot. I was at least half-right: online action wound up doing better than offline, and I was able to generally get by at around 30fps in most matches - even while playing at 1280x720 with medium detail. Offline play started out fine, but quickly dropped into the teens once the bullets really started to fly in several missions. It was borderline playable, but not really worth it considering I was at 640x480 in offline play.
Fallout 3
I fully expected the 1201N to crash and burn playing Bethesda's post-apocalyptic RPG, but once I got out of the Vault, I was able to play at a frame rate usually in the 20s with the lowest settings and an 800x600 resolution.
Street Fighter IV
Capcom's latest fighting game delivers some surprisingly good performance on slower PCs, and it was no different here on the 1201N. I found that the game really doesn't feel right unless it's delivered at a sizzling 60fps, and to my surprise, this was actually doable with minimum detail settings, vsync on, and a 720x480 resolution.
Casual Gaming
Almost every casual and budget game I tossed at the 1201N was handled with ease. Classics like Peggle and Bookworm were great, but even 3D-accelerated independent games like Gratuitous Space Battles and Torchlight ran just fine as well. Braid took some serious tweaking to get it running acceptably, and even then I got some slowdowns, but it was still quite playable.
Internet Usage
One of the most important things I found with the 1201N is that the Atom N330 CPU may be dual-core, but each of those cores is rather underpowered. Single-threaded applications won't ever be extremely snappy on the 1201N compared to pretty much any other non-netbook CPU on the market, but using the right software can really help. Google Chrome is definitely one of those programs: each tab in the browser is a separate Windows process, so if you've got a video playing on YouTube, starting a new tab will split it so that each tab is essentially running its own CPU core. Chrome is just superbly fast overall, though, so I recommend it for any slower PC that needs to maximize speed everywhere it can. Beyond that, running lightweight versions of an instant messenger, Twitter app, and Skype simultaneously while browsing works great.
Business Software
The 1201N does pretty well with your average business software. The 1366x768 screen made me feel less claustrophobic in Google Docs than a 10" netbook's 1024x600, although I also had access to games other netbooks couldn't play which caused me to miss at least one deadline so far. In general, business performance is solid on the 1201N, but then again it's difficult to get any mainstream business application to really stress modern CPUs. The only way I could do that was by multitasking them along with browsers and PDF files open all at once, and the Atom N330 CPU helped the 1201N do much better than a single-core netbook would.
The 1201N is like most laptops of its size in that there's no DVD drive, and that may be a deal-breaker for business travelers that are still given important documents on burned CDs (rather than in email or on thumbdrives). There are also those who have a DVD collection they'd like to pick from and watch while traveling, and that's simply not an option here.
For this reason, I recommend that if you're considering the 1201N, try and figure out a way around having an optical drive. Have people email you their documents and rip your DVDs to the rather generously-sized 250GB hard drive before you go out of town. Sure, you can buy a slim USB DVD burner for about $50 nowadays, but that makes the whole thing significantly less portable, too.
Overall Value
The 1201N costs $500, which is at the high end of netbook prices - but if you need what it's got, you'll find it well worth the cash. A few years ago, you couldn't get a 12" laptop (for any price) that did everything the 1201N does. The closest ones were from companies like Lenovo and Sony and they cost well over $1000. And that's probably the greatest thing about the netbook revolution: it made PC manufacturers look at their pricing schemes and forced them to realize that small PCs don't have to cost more. Sure, the feature list will have to be cut down as you go smaller and smaller, but portability is no longer the primary factor in deciding a laptop's price.
For a hardcore PC user that wants a secondary machine to travel lightly with, the 1201N will serve nicely. It offers a very unique set of features at what I find is a reasonable price - enthusiast-type users will get plenty of use out of all of the 1201N's extras, but after some recent releases like the Acer 1410, the 1201N is now finding itself in competition to the new range of so-called CULV laptops being released by several manufacturers. Most of these have weaker video cards but more powerful CPUs, making them better-suited for general application usage than the 1201N.
The Intended Audience
So, who should buy this netbook? If all you want is a portable machine that can check email and write papers, then get a cheaper netbook or a comparably-priced CULV portable instead. Even if you're mostly looking for a larger screen and keyboard than the tiny 10" models, there are better ultraportables out there for business and internet usage. But if you also want to do some light gaming that involves 3D acceleration, or if you want to play back HD video, then the 1201N is a great portable choice. If your top priority is battery life, then you're better off with something different.
Simply put: to make the 1201N worth it, you need to be looking for a machine that does a little bit of everything, and you have to be willing to do a little bit of work to take advantage of its features. Compared to the standard selection of 10" netbooks, the increased price tag and shorter battery life are the costs you pay for having a somewhat more versatile and powerful machine that still weighs only 3 pounds. Either way, you need to make sure you're buying the machine that meets your needs.
Conclusion
The 1201N is a fantastic little machine, but it's also ill-suited for many users. It's got features that some people will never use, and the compromises that must be made won't be worth it for people who just want to check their email. But if you're looking for a little 3-pound machine to perform a much wider range of tasks, there are few better choices available right now. Of course, the ultraportable laptop market is moving at lightning speed with new, faster and better products seemingly every month or two, but right now, the 1201N stands out from the pack with a very interesting balance of performance, price, weight, and battery life. For those that need exactly what this little machine does, there's simply no better substitute. At least, not for a couple of months.
