Written by Jeff Buckland, 12/29/2009
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).
