Customer Reviews

ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1201N-PU17-BK 12.1-Inch Black Netbook - 5 Hours of Battery Life

5 star:		(80)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

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 ($600). 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 $400 range when all optioned out. Ultimately, I decided that I wanted a netbook larger than 10".

The Amazon price for the 1201N was $482, 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 $800-1000 range. Asus has a CULV with Intel 4500MHD for about $600, but the Intel integrated graphics leaves much to be desired. As far as I know, there is no sub-$800 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, and note, it is a full-size keyboard. Some online review sites thought it flexed a bit too much, but I didn't notice any flexing. The chiclet style keyboard appears to be very solidly made. I do have one minor complaint, whilst typing, my greasy wrists tend to leave imprints all over the nice glossy plastic wrist-rest. I have never used a dimpled one-button touchpad before, but it seems to work well. While the touchpad only has a single button/bar, it has independent left-and-right hand sides that can be depressed, effectively making it a 2-button touchpad. Those of you who don't like touchpads may want to invest in a USB mouse for convenience.

WINDOWS 7: Initial setup of Windows 7 took about 30-40 minutes; thereafter, boot time is about 30 seconds. There's not much bloatware pre-installed; basically only MS Works, Trend Micro Anti-Virus, MS Office Starter, Acrobat Reader, and a media-player. Response to keyboard and mouse inputs seems fast, I didn't notice any lagging. Minor quibble- how do I get the Windows Classic look in Windows 7?!

DISPLAY: As for the display, I like the glossy screen, it looks fantastic, and text is clear, sharp, and very legible. Before I purchased the netbook, I was bothered by the screen not being flush with the bezel in various promotional images. Now with the unit actually in hand, I don't really notice any aesthetic issues. The whole seashell design is very nicely done.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS: Maximum battery time with a full charge is about 5-6.5 hours, but that's with LCD brightness at 50%, battery saver, and very little user activity. The battery saver settings are easy to toggle, simply pressing Fn + spacebar cycles through the different choices. The hard drive is oddly partitioned into a c: drive with about 100 GB and a d: drive with about 125 GB. Note that Nvidia's ION chipset takes 250 MB of the 2 GB of RAM for its own usage.

1080P MEDIA: Aha, here's the juicy part! So I installed CoreAVC Professional, and disabled deblocking (which helped to offset some of the CPU load). I played a 1080P music video, and opened up Windows task manager. CPU utilization was at just 60%, and I was also able to open a MS Powerpoint file, an MS Word file, and play a 3D Chess game. The 1080P file played fine, with no hiccups. I was quite impressed by the multi-tasking in the 1201N. Battery life decreased a bit to roughly 4 hours, but I wasn't continuously playing high definition media.

Also, I can't stress how important it is to use CoreAVC Pro for decoding High Definition H.264 media; the 1201N can handle 1080P without CoreAVC (using ffdshow), but CPU utilization shoots up to ~ 90%. With CoreAVC and deblocking turned off, it goes down to 60%. CoreAVC really helps boost the 1201N's multi-tasking abilities, it's also not too expensive. I think Core AVC 2.0 is selling for about $8-$10.

Sorry ladies and gents, haven't gotten around to testing games on it yet.

OTHER THOUGHTS: Reliability wise, all the netbooks are about the same, which is to say, not very reliable. Well, at least ASUS isn't as bad as HP. I decided to do myself a favor and buy a Squaretrade Extended warranty for peace of mind.

CONCLUSION: In summary, should you get this 1201N? Well, it depends on your needs. But if having 8 hour+ battery performance isn't terribly important, and you want a well performing netbook with decent battery life, superior multimedia capabilities, and some gaming performance, then I strongly recommend the 1201N.

I want to also add that purchasing from Amazon for $480 with no tax and free shipping makes this deal much hotter than buying from newegg, wherein tax tips the price over $500.


UPDATE (01/25/10): Engadget released their review today of the Dell Mini 10 with Broadcom Crystal HD hardware based accelerated netbook. All optioned out, with 1366x768 screen, the Dell Mini 10 comes to $425, which is actually quite close to the 1201N price-point. They noted that the Broadcom Crystal HD is ONLY capable of playing back 1080P WMV files media using Windows Media Player 11. For those of you who wish to use Quicktime, VLC, WMP Classic, or Flash 10.1 you're out of luck. MKV (matroskas), MOV, BLU-RAY DISCS, are **NOT** supported by the Broadcom Crystal HD chip, go figure. I know several other netbook manufacturers were considering using the Broadcom Crystal chip as well. The Dell Mini 10 also does not have an HDMI out, and the size is 2" smaller than the 1201N. Here, size makes a big difference.

So if you want any sort of 1080P playback utilizing a large range of input files while also maintaining multi-tasking at a sub-$500 price with reasonable battery life, the 1201N is the best option!

UPDATE (03/01/10): Engadget has reported on an updated, next-gen 1201PN model at this year's CeBIT. The Dual Atom 330s may be substituted with a single Atom N450, but the Ion replaced with Ion 2, which features switchable graphics and up to 10 hours of battery life. It appears that even with the single and weaker Atom N450, the 1201PN can still handle 1080P media. Everything else is the same. The 1201PN improves 3DMark scores by 33%; 1503 compared to 2000, in recent tests. My thoughts are that overall performance wise, the 1201N with its Dual Core Atoms still trumps the upcoming 1201PN. The 1201PN's lone single core N450 is going to be the big bottleneck. The only area where the 1201PN is superior, is in the battery life department, with its Ion2 capabilities.

UPDATE (03/12/10): Intel has announced that they will release a future dual-core N500 chip, based on the D510 chips currently used in nettop systems. If Asus were to release an N500 netbook with Ion2 graphics, then I think that will be my next netbook.

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.

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 $200 to upgrade memory and hard drive on a $500 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.

First the plus - it's a perfectly sized netbook with a very bright accurate screen. I bought it after giving up my Gateway 1435 which has an 11.6" screen. The extra 1/2" plus brighter and better screen actually makes a big difference in the readability of the screen.
Now for the minuses. First of all the Atom Dual core processor is noticeably slower than the Celeron dual core in the Gateway. But the worst problem is the reliability. My first two units constantly lost their bios settings and I had to press F2 on boot to restore factory settings. Then the system would boot using only 767MB of memory, taking as long as 10 minutes to boot. The first unit would blue screen with a memory error every couple of hours of use, and the second unit had video problems. I'm now on my 3rd unit, and it too will lose its BIOS setting every few days. I'm really surprised and disappointed because Asus has such a good name.

I'm an MIS (Management Information Systems) student. I needed a laptop or netbook I could take with me to the labs that was capable of decently matching the power of a desktop system and that didn't weigh 10+ pounds and break my student-sized budget. The ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1201N met and far exceeded my needs and expectations.

The straight out of the box Windows Performance Rating and Information:
Base Score: 3.3
Processor: 3.3
Memory: 4.6 (2 GB)
Graphics: 4.2
Gaming Graphics: 5.2
Primary Hard Disk: 5.9
System type: 32-bit operating system
64-bit capable: Yes
Processor cores: 2

Graphics:
NVIDIA ION
Dedicated graphics memory: 256 MB
Dedicated system memory: 64 MB
Shared system memory: 575 MB
Total available graphics memory: 895 MB
Primary monitor resolution: 1366 x 768
Direct X version: DirectX 10

The hard drive is partitioned into two drives (100 GB and 123 GB). I actually prefer to install all of my software on one drive/partition and save all my work on another. So, I like the fact that this arrangement is already setup and running when the machine arrives. You also get a year of access to a 500 GB virtual drive. The virtual drive seems to work well, but, if I need more space, I'll purchase an external drive so that access to my work doesn't rely on an internet connection.

Without making any changes, I hooked up an external optical drive and installed Adobe Design Premium Creative Suite 4 and gave the system a workout by doing a homework assignment on it. I had Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Word 2007, Firefox, and Internet Explorer all running at the same time. It met my demands and far exceeded my expectations. Among other things, I have since added the standard Apache server (for PHP and mySQL development), Flex 3, and Microsoft Office Professional and SQL Server. This powerful little netbook does everything I ask it to do and seems ready for more. It's a great system for designers, developers and business professionals.

As is standard with Atom processors, the processor is the bottleneck for the system performance. Except for about a 5-15% lag when doing intensive processing, I haven't noticed a real performance dip when comparing this netbook to my desktop systems (Dell Inspiron and Dell XPS). Adding an extra 2 GB of RAM would improve the system performance and is something I plan to do very soon.

The touchpad is very responsive and, unlike many systems, it doesn't pick up my wrist movement very often (I touch type). It also has a function switch to quickly turn off the touchpad when needed. The keyboard keys are well spaced and it took me very little effort to adjust to the layout. The lack of a number pad bothers me a bit, but it is understandably necessary on this size of a system.

I prefer matte screens and was a bit worried about the glossy screen giving me literal and physical headaches. The screen glare is minimal even when I have a lamp behind me or beside me. Glare might be a problem if I sat with my back to an open window with streaming sunlight pouring in. But, it handles standard room lighting well.

I haven't tried any 3D games on it, so I can't say how powerful it would be as a gaming machine. It works for standard casual games and should run most 3D games on lower settings. I feel more limited by the 12.1" screen size than the processor and graphics card when it comes to gaming: I prefer games on a 20+ inch screen.

Cons: The transformer box on the power cable gets hot enough that it's painful to touch. The power cord attachment is also a bit loose and has disconnected a few times when I moved the machine. The vent on the left also gets hot enough that it might be uncomfortable for a left-handed person to use an external mouse positioned near it. The sound from the speakers is a bit tinny, but fantastic through headphones. It needs a more powerful battery as I only get about 2 to 3.5 hours of battery life before it needs a charge.

Thought a netbook could not handle the new games? Well wrong. The ASUS Eee PC 1201N is just what any avid gamer wants while traveling light. Granted the AUS Eee PC 1201N does not have the horse power to run CPU intensive apps ... but who wants that when you are on the go. Email, Web Surfing, Blogging, Tweeting, IM'ing and Video Chat are what you basically want to run in a netbook; and GAMES for those looking to frag and pwn whenever they can. A lot of folks tout about battery life. I'm getting approx 3-4hrs on the 1201n not the best, but I'm never too far from an power outlet.

Little know fact: The 1201n can support 64bit os (i.e., window 7 64bit) This allows you to take advantage of memory over 3.5GB (up to 8GB). By default you get Window 7 32bit and 2GB or RAM (not too shabby). Also, the Atom 330N can be over-clocked .. I'll just leave it at that.

Now, there are lots of reviews on the ASUS 1201N on the net (mostly positive, so you don't need me to convince you.) I you are looking for a netbook that does the basic w/o the need of game and HD-media, you can get any cheap $200-300 netbooks (sub $200 if you search hard enough.) However if you are in the hankering for gaming and HD-meida, you'll need either a netbook or notebook with a pretty powerful graphic. The Asus 1201n has the Nvidia ION, which out-powers any other integrated chipset in the netbook and low-end notebook market. If you were to look for a good video chipset in a Notebook, expect to spend close to (and even over) $1K. So, the fact that the ASUS 1201n is sub $500 to me is a good deal. Now mind you, if want to wait ... there will always be better, powerful and probably cheaper netbook coming around the corner. My personal advice on waiting is: You'll grow old waiting before you'll buy one because there'll always a better one down the road and so on. The decision is ultimately yours. Think what you what and how you will use it; not occasionally, but seriously. You will not regret your decision.

All in all, I love this little netbook, it's doing exactly what I wanted when I'm on the move ... wish it was a bit smaller still though :p

Hope this review helps.

First things first, I disagree that the 1201N is a "netbook" straight away...it's bigger than a netbook, physically sort of anti-netbook with dimensions @ 3.22 pounds, 12.1" LED Backlit LCD Display, a battery that supports no more than 3-4 hours of constant activity of any sort; in short, this is a small laptop with a lot of positive things going on for it, but even when you change things like the 5400RPM HD to enhance its potential...it's NOT a netbook!

I own two netbooks, an Acer One 8.9" that weighs 2.45 pounds, and an HP 10" 5101 FM976UT#ABA that cost more than the 1201N ($599!), with a 10.1" LED backlit LCD display, 2.9 pounds weight, just a tiny bit larger than the Acer the HP is...now THOSE are netbooks! The Asus 1201N...THIS IS NOT a netbook! Those can go all day on a single battery charge, both the Acer and the HP will do 8 and 10 hours respectively with their 6-cell batteries...the 1201N? 5 hours of battery is impossible, it's most like 3-4 hours tops with any type of video activity, web surfing and listening to iTunes, whatever...this thing uses up juice like it was a 17" laptop! It is NOT a netbook!

Let's get specific about the battery life so I can qualify the assessment of 3-4 hours battery life. The 6-Cell battery has a "design capacity of 60,750mWh", according to EmBat Power Battery Utility, my standard battery checker. My particular battery gives a 100% charge up to 58,793mWh, which is good for a given battery...about 99% of full capacity. Using that same utility, and a timer for backup, I started playing movies in HD, using the built-in ArkSoft Theater 3 codec which up-scales any video to HD. During playback I checked the battery utility to see a linear discharge happening, a good thing, no spikes which would indicate a faulty battery or other problem.

But my gosh, the battery was discharging at a rate like my Acer 5920-6727 full sized 15.4" laptop gives! When the 1st movie finished, I opened up EmBat Power and saw that the computer up time was 1:47 (1 hour and 47 minutes), and there was just 37% battery left! WOW! I was shocked! I played a second movie and sure enough, the computer went into hibernation at 7% battery remaining, and run time was 2:57 (2 hours and 57 minutes)! Needless to say the 2nd movie did not finish...so from full charge playing movies constantly I got 3 minutes less than 3 hours run time. This is way off the manufacturer's rating of 5 hours battery run time.

I repeated this several times, to verify my battery time while watching movies. Next test, after full charge was reached I turned on iTunes (which I'd installed) and started listening to music, while I worked on writing some assignments I had to finish for work, keeping open my web browser...so 3 windows open, two in the dock, active window Microsoft Word.

EmBat Power utility was called into service again for this assessment, and after 3 hours and 18 minutes of run time, 7% battery was again reached, and the computer went into hibernation to protect the data on board. Once again, the run time was not even close to 5 hours, and I was not doing anything CPU intensive, just listening to music, doing some writing, and once in a while checking out my web sites in FireFox 3.57. I verified this twice, so just more than 3 hours of run time with MS Word, FireFox, and iTunes playing music constantly! That's all she wrote...

Now to be fair, I had BlueTooth on, my WiFi was on, and I did not customize energy saver preferences, just went with standard settings and didn't openly TRY to save power, I was simply being myself, using the computer nominally. I'll bet I could have saved 30 minutes or more by turning off Bluetooth and Wifi, maybe 40 minutes. So that would give me just about 4 hours run time, still short of 5 hours though. 3-4 hours run time with normal, nominal, usual settings and simple word processing, with music on yields just over 3 hours of run time, not 4 hours, and certainly not 5 hours! I rest my case, THAT is reality with the 1201N, not 5 hours run time!

To get on with the review, Wavey Davey has lived with the 1201N for 8 straight days, day in and day out, work, play, lots of different computing activity every second I've had it turned on, watched 9 HD full-screen movies so far, (beautiful stuff, the HD graphics @1366 x 768 pixels are just great!) and I've had it turned on 24/7 (but for sleep of 5-6 hours a night) so you can trust my impressions more than the gleeful, "Oh great, it's got ION Graphics" reviews if you want the truth. I did change some things for the better, yes I did! Like...

I have disassembled the 1201N and installed a fast 7200RPM 320GB hard drive. You can do that too if you want, and after my review you may want to do just that. I suggest researching "Asus 1201N Take Apart" at [...] for some great videos on the subject of replacing the OEM hard drive.

I've tried out 64-bit Windows 7 and came back to 32-bit with the factory OEM drivers, video display codecs from Arcsoft Total Media Theater 3, and I installed Flash Player Beta 10.1.55.66 also to enhance HD video playback. I dispensed with the Asus OEM "double partition of the HD" and used Paragon's Partition Manager Personal 10.x to get rid of the 16MB "ghost partition" at the end of the HD partitions (an unnamed partition that does nothing at all), and DELETED the 122GB 2nd partition. Now I didn't really "get rid of it"...I merged it with the 1st partition so that there's one large partition, not two! Simple!

I Cloned the OEM HD to the new HD, a "proportionate" Cloning with Partition Manager Personal 10.x "Copy Disk" feature, so now I have one 285GB Partition for the OS, applications and storage, plus the Recovery Partition of 13GB, instead of one of 120GB and another of 165GB, plus the Recovery Partition of 13GB, which is what the factory HD would have apportioned to if I'd not have dispensed with the OEM formatting.

My hard drive now is a fast 320GB Western Digital Scorpio Black 7200RPM SATA II Ultra ATA/133-3GB/sec 16MB Cache HD--with Free Fall Sensor to protect my data in case of sudden movement or fall, instead of that slow plain-Jane 5400RPM Hitachi SATA II 8MB Cache OEM HD that came in the box. Once I ditched the factory HD this is a transformed 1201N GUI...Fast, fast, and faster yet it is now, with 16GB Cache which speeds up reads incredibly, applications launch instantly, it's just a superior HD to the factory HD.

Next, there is no way this enigmatic machine will support 8GGB of SODIMM/RAM with the present BIOS, even though the processor is an Intel Atom 64-bit N330 Dual Core CPU with the ability to use 64-bit Windows Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate should you want to splurge and install what this computer needs to utilize its built-in CPU power, not the 32-bit OS. I installed 4GB Crucial PC-6400 800Mhz RAM, 2 x 2GB 200-pin SODIMMS, and stored the factory's 2 x 1GB OEM SODIMMs...and that's all the machine supports, period...4GB of RAM, 3.25 usable RAM for the OS, the rest for ION graphics.

I have investigated the 8GB RAM situation thoroughly, and here's the deal: there are Asus 1201N owners in the Asus Tech Support Forum who have tried 8GB of RAM, and 64-bit OS on this computer, and guess what? Yup, only 3.25GB RAM is available for the OS, end of story, the rest is held in 'Hardware Reserve' by the computer, so don't bother trying to install 8GB RAM, it just won't work...You'll just have to return 8GB of RAM, it doesn't work on the 1201N.

Asus could blow this whole controversy/problem/ability straight to Hell's Bells and come up with a BIOS fix, and we'd be stylin' and using 8GB of RAM after that, but that's what it's going to take. The latest BIOS flash on the web site is BIOS #0318--I've flashed my 1201N with that BIOS and it doesn't improve the RAM abilities, with 8GB or 4GB RAM the maximum available for the OS is 3.25GB RAM...the rest ION gets, or it is held in 'Hardware Reserve'--like the folks who sprung for 64-bit OS AND 8GB of RAM discovered.

There are a bunch of redeeming qualities that the 1201N has, but you've read about that from all the other reviewers, why should I repeat all that? Let me give some other impressions, and tips of usage for the 1201N owners to be out there in Amazon.com Land--that will be a better purpose for this review, don't you think?

I optioned my 1201N with a Logitech N100 Cooling Pad, which you can score here at Amazon.com for less than $25 shipped, and that's something the 1201N needs a bunch. It will run cooler, run longer, last longer because heat is a laptop computer's worst enemy--you'll eliminate 50-70% of all heat build up with a cooling pad, and the Logitech N100 is the best one for this computer.

Get a USB external optical drive to go with a 1201N, or make your own setup like I've done years ago with a good, heavy USB/Firewire case with PSU inside, and that cost a grand total of $75 shipped back in the day. You might want something more portable than that. You might want a BluRay player, what do I know? But get some type of optical drive to go with this computer, because you'll want to do multi-media things, play movies, add software of various types.

I will not understand Asus thinking when it comes to the power adapter (brick) and the port for power on the computer...it's just unbelievable! I am used to a MacBook Pro's 'Mag-Safe' power port arrangement, which Apple patented of course so Asus can't use that, but my Lord...they've got a tiny little 2.5mm x Pen-width power plug-in for this computer! What were they thinking? I guess it works, but my gosh it's tiny, and it should be robust, something strong, heavy duty, and significant not this itty, bitty tiny-people plug-in for power!

Please Asus, fix that in the next version of this computer! I worry so much that I'll break the thing off inadvertently, or it will break off by itself, and get stuck in the plug-in port and then what will I do to charge the battery and power it up? Hmmm, I'd be screwed, right? So would you! Please fix that Asus, next time around.

You'll LOVE the switch to turn off the trackpad! That is KUHL, and I recommend this computer for that alone almost. Especially for you fast typists like me, out there! The keyboard is sublime also, a chiclet-style keyboard which doesn't flex, contrary to some reviews of this computer...I type very hard when I am going at 100wpm pace, and believe me when I write this: THE KEYBOARD DOES NOT FLEX!! It is great!

The Fn keys are great also...they actually do something useful! Do you know, that all you have to to do select a power plan is hit Fn and the Space Bar, and BAM! All the power options from Asus SuperHybrid Energy System are there...Super HighPerformance (which overclocks the CPU to 1633Mhz by the way!!) for when you're plugged in, High Performance, Auto High Performance, Auto Power Saving and Power Saving for when you're on battery, it's all there at the space bar! You do NOT have to go into Control Panels and choose a power plan, just use the Fn and Space Bar, and BAM! Done deal, KUHL!

I have been watching my Apple M4V and MP4 H.264-formatted movies on this thing in High Definition, up-scaled with the plug-in from the media player which is standard equipment on this computer, and it ROCKS! I have an unending supply of Apple iPhone and Apple TV movies over on the Mac side of my computer world, and all I have to do is store 7-15 (sub-1GB movies) of them on my A-Data 16GB USB Flash Drive, plug that sucker into the USB port of the 1201N and BAM! I am watching HD movies full-screen in HD, up-coverted, and done really, really nicely, no artifacts, no pixelation, just good, solid colors and action...XLNT!

You, too, can store movies on Flash Drives and do the same thing, so remember that when you own a 1201N...convert movies to MP4 or M4V H.264 movies with your favorite converter system, whatever it happens to be, and you can store an endless supply of sub-1GB movies on Flash Drive, let ArcSoft Theater 3 up-covert the videos to HD, and BAM!! You're watching HD movies that you didn't even have to make! Love it!

Let me discuss the sound controls from RealTek on this computer, and I have two words to use for this system: DEFEAT IT! The speakers cannot do HD audio which is "adjusted" by the RealTek Sound Manager to some custom profile like "Rock", or "Concert Hall", whatever... at high volume, they distort at all levels of play. But when you go into the RealTek Sound Manager you have the option to defeat "All Sound Effects", so do that, and BAM! Clear as a bell sound, both from the speakers, and from your headphones, whatever they may be.

I have been using a set of IEM's with the 1201N, which are Ultimate Ears (UE) SuperFi 5 Professional In-The-Ear Monitors, and man do they sound FANTASTIC with the HD audio output, IF you defeat all of the sound effects like I have done, that is...otherwise sound will distort at higher volumes, and be crackly and poppy at low volumes, so DEFEAT THAT SOUND CONTROL MANAGER! This is a suggestion that works for me, YMMV, and you may love the distorted sound for all I know...my suggestion may help some though, so there you go!

The finish of the silver version is impeccable, so think seriously about getting silver instead of black, which as I see it is just a big old fingerprint catcher! It will look beautiful in the display box, but once you start using it, touching it, it will look horrible quickly unless you are constantly wiping it off, and silver shows NOTHING AT ALL! Silver ROCKS!

I love the silver version, and I've seen them both up close as a friend got a black 1201N, and now he regrets it after seeing my "Mini-MacBook Pro" as he calls it, my silver 1201N. I guess it looks a LOT like my wife's 13.3" MacBook Pro Unibody machine when I think about it here, so yes, he's right! The silver version of the machine is just fantastic!

That's about it for my 8-days-into-ownership impressions, and my descriptions of things to do, to change, to modify if you want, to make a good machine an excellent machine. You can leave it box-bone stock for all I care, I am just telling people what I did to mine, and what a wonderful small computer it is now. Especially with that fast 7200RPM Western Digital Scorpio Black SATA II 3GB/sec HD! (5-year warranty on it too!) That is a fantastic addition to this computer, and I'd do it again, over and over I would, if I had the choice to fix it up or not. Yup, every time!

The two HD partitions plus Recovery Partition also make no sense at all to me...I emphasize that you can leave yours stock, and it will be OK, but why do you need two partitions, plus Recovery Partition in a 250GB HD? What is the point, you're not going to dual-boot the 1201N. You're not going to make a RAID system...when I have a small HD like comes in a notebook computer I want contiguous space for the HD, just one big partition, and the Recovery Partition (of course, No. 2 partition), and that is it!

Any good partition managing utility will take care of that 'problem' as I see it anyway, and BAM! You're stylin' with one fast partition for the OS and anything else you want, easy to keep track of, defragmentation is faster and easier with a single partition on the small HD's, there are lots of reasons to eliminate a 122GB partition on a 250GB HD!

Overall, I say BUY THIS THING! It Rocks! I give it Wavey Davey's 5-Star Gold Seal of approval, even box stock, don't get me wrong with my criticisms of the 1201N. Overall, it's hard to fault, I just made mine PERFECT, that is all! You can buy one and leave it alone, and you'll be fine...but what good is that, what fun is that?

I believe in fixing what isn't broke and making it a better machine, if you can, and that is what I did with this silver beauty that I am typing on right now...just about at that 100wpm figure as I finish up this review quickly so I can get on to bigger and better things...

Enjoy the 1201N, it's a winner!

I debated for about six months on what Netbook to pick up. My wife was using an Acer 8.9" 270n version with the 1024x600 res. and she loves it. I was sick of lugging around my 15.4" HP Laptop that is a powerhouse but a pain to take back and forth to work everyday. With an upcoming trip planned I had my excuse to buy a netbook and I found myself waiting and waiting for the next upgrade.

My Big Concerns were Screen Resolution and Battery Life. I have learned slowly over my last 8 laptops what I tend to prioritize in my use of them. At this stage in the game those are my big ones. I had narrowed my choices down to Asus Eee PC 1005HA-PU17-BU 10.1-Inch Intel Atom Netbook Computer and the ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1201N-PU17-BK 12.1-Inch.

Initially I was PRO 1005HA because i felt the physical size of 10.1" and under 3 Lbs and still getting the 10.5 hr battery life seem like a phenomenal mix, But it only had a 1024x600 resolution and 1 GB of RAM. If there is one thing I have learned it is to pay attention to resolution because you can change it... RAM is an easy upgrade, just factor it into your cost analysis. I liked the N280 Chip in the 1005HA and of course drooled over the 10.5 hrs of purported battery life.

When I found the 1201N I fell in love with the 1366x768 res. I like to multitask and the ability to have multiple windows open side by side or easily manipulated means a lot to me. I also work with spreadsheets and its nice to be able to see most of a spreadsheet when working on it... This option started looking better when I saw that it already came with 2GB of RAM and a large hard drive. Incorporating the modern 802.11N and Bluetooth seem like a no brainer must these days. The 5hr battery life was a bit of a turn off when comparing it to 1005HA. Then I weighed in the Dual Core Processor and thought that for the type of multitasking I like to do this seems far more advantageous. I was coming from a 2hr battery life on my big laptop which made the power cord a must to have around all of the time. So 5 hrs still seemed pretty good to me.

I Bought the 1201N
The plane trips were broken into 4-8 hr segments with 3-5 hour layovers (I flew to Malaysia) totaling 16-18hrs of travel and I found this was great I could watch a movie (using my bluetooth head set) and do some work, then sleep a little; Plug in on my layover and charge up for the next leg with no trouble. While at my conference I was one of few who didn't have to plug in their laptops which made it easier for me to show up and leave without any hassles. The netbook had no trouble running Adobe Acrobat Pro with about 10 windows open, several power points up and logged into facebook... I ran some simple photoshop work and excel work with no significant delays. Currently at work I can bring my netbook and don't have to lug anything around besides the netbook itself (I do leave the power adapter in the car just in case). I average 4.5hrs of battery on and off for a 10.5 hr day before suspending and keep it at full brightness all the time.

My Conclusion now that I have had it for a couple of months and took my big business trip with it: I Love It - a Must Buy.
Summary
Keyboard - My big hands love it!
Screen - Resolution and quality are superb
WiFi & Bluetooth - Work like they should :)
Video Playback - Came with some enhancement software but didn't work with many of my files- VLC Rules and Video is awesome
HDD - 250GB - game me plenty of room to rip some movies and have tons of space left :) 5 stars
RAM - 2GB work great and in this day and age i wouldn't use any less.
Touchpad - I was a little apprehensive at first but I found that I love it and miss it when I use my other laptop.
Processor/Computer Speed - I love it - I am Able to over task it but it performs better than I expect any Netbook to do.
Webcam - I don't really know, I skyped once but its not my thing and cant really judge- but it worked perfect for me.
Speakers - ONLY CON- this is the only thing I wish was better - They just don't get quite loud enough
Battery Life - 4.5hrs regularly - I use it on and off all day long with no trouble it does get a little short when doing straight video playback for several hours I don't plan on watching two 2hr movies but maybe two 1.5hr movies.
Multitasking - No problems for Business Class multitasking
Gaming - Put on some games I got for the wife like the Tycoon Sims and they played fine, didn't get to try anything serious yet.
Overall- 4.9 Stars with the only thing lacking in this Netbook being the speaker quality.

Ok, the title is actually Asus's motto.

Basically, I love this computer so far.

I have a larger Dell 17" laptop but was looking for something with close to laptop power, but a smaller form factor and waited 3 months for the 1201n to be released based on it's dual processor and nVidia graphics chip.

People ugrading their own Netbook maybe a bit put off by it's slightly larger size and reduced battery life. However, if you are like me (larger laptop that you do more office and work and video watching on), you'll appreciate this machine.

It handles MS Office without breaking a sweat as well as internet browsing. Also, I was able to playback a full length movie off Hulu with only a couple hiccups here and there at full screen. Nice.

Another bonus of the 1201 n is that it can handle up to 8 gb of RAM. Of course, only Windows x64 OS can recognize past 4 gb of RAM, and this machine comes preinstalled with Win7 x32 which it runs smoothly.

If your sensitive about the "fingerprint magnet" comments you see in every single one of the reviews of this machine, buy it in Silver, not Black.

The only drawback for me is the glossiness of the screen. While the LED display is super bright and sharp (the brighter, the shorter your battery life), I found myself adjusting the angle to remove reflecting lighting behind me.

In all, it's the perfect hybrid between portability and *near* full laptop power.

June 16, 2010 Update (1201N > 1201PN and 1201T)

So, disappointment of ASUS next generated EEE PC 1201PN. The processor isn't D510 or D525. It's N450 (Single Core Atom).
Atom N450 benchmark score is "320" per Passmark, which is way low comparing with 330 (Score 632) or D510 (Score 656).
(Atom N270 (Score 304), N280 (Score 314)......

I would say EEE PC 1201N is way better comparing with next generated 1201PN.

Let's also talk about EEE PC 1201T, which is AMD base.
You can tell what happened from windows 7 rating.

Processor: 3.2 (1201N), 3.2 (1201T)
Memory: 4.6 (1201N), 4.9 (1201T)
Graphic: 4.3 (1201N), 3.2 (1201T)
3D: 5.3 (1201N), 4.7 (1201T)
Hard drive: 5.7(1201N), 5.8 (1201T)

Processor, Memory, and Hard drive performance are similar.
However, 1201N has way better Graphic and 3D performance comparing with 1201T.

Personlly, 1201N is still the best choice if you want a portable 12.1" netbook for casual gaming and business trip if 12.1" with screen resolution 1366x768 is better for you and you aren't looking smaller EEE PC 1015N with screen resolution 1024x600.

I totally have no idea why ASUS product management team selected 1201PN and 1201T as next generation.

Feel luck to buy ASUS EEE PC 1201N in the begining of this year, and I don't feel any ASUS EEE PC or netbook can catch my eyes during 2010.


Conclusion: GO for EEE PC 1201N now before it's gone and replaced per EEE PC 1201PN and 1201T.



---------------------------------------------------------------------- May 6, 2010 Review

Should I buy Asus EEE PC 1201N (Atom 330 + ION) instead of waiting for Asus EEE PC 1201PN (D510 + NM10 + ION2)?

The answer is YES! Don't wait! BUY EEE PC 1201N now!


nVidia anounces ION 2 for Intel D510 processor, so Asus also have next generated EEE PC 1201PN with this combincation.

I were planed to wait for it, but I recently changed my mind and purchased EEE PC 1201N due to below reasons.

Atom 330 + MPC790 (ION = Chipset + nVidia 9400m)
Atom D510 + NM10 + ION 2

You can see the different part that ION is chipset plus graphic card, but ION 2 is graphic. So, ION 2 has to combine with original Intel chipset.

1. From power consumption.
Atom 330 (8W) + ION (Around 26W) = 34W
Atom D510 (13W) + NM10 (15W) + ION 2 = 28W + ION 2 (Possible less than 6W???)

2. From CPU performance (PassMark testing result)
Atom 330 = 632
Atom D510 = 656 (Good, but it's just A LITTLE!)

3. From memory controller
ION MPC790 = DDR3 1066 or DDR2 800 (Well, Asus picks up DDR2 800)
NM10 = DDR2 800

So, there is no difference.

4. From Graphic performance (PassMark + web info search)
ION 2 = 1.35 x ION, so 35% increasing. It doesn't have that much meaning for gaming because the orignal ION based on 107. ION 2 only jumps from 107 to 144.

ATI 5730 index is 666 (620% of ION performance)

I don't want the big monster such as Asus N61 series even it has powerful graphic. D510 plus ION doesn't provide that much exciting improvement for me. Asus 1201N is ok to play Dragon Age Origins as wild screen (1366x768) and Mass Effect 2 under (800x600) even mass fight with laggy due to processing power (D510 should be the same).

End out, I paid for $484 + $46 x 2 (2 x 2GB DDR2 800) for Amazon to get this netbook.

Cheer!