ASUS 1201N – Netbooks get Serious

the ASUS 1201N

I really did like my Acer One. It was the coolest little netbook I used, until now. The Asus 1201N is a little pricey for a netbook, but it’s a huge difference from the netbooks of yesterday…

Dual Core on a Netbook? I know, it sounds crazy, but yes. The Atom 330 processor is a dual core processor and while it won’t blow your hair back, it sure takes the Asus 1201N out of the realm of netbook and into the world of laptop. And it does it with style and a level of processing you don’t see in netbooks. I’m loving it!

12.1 inch screen. At only 2 inches larger than the Aspire One, it would seem the Asus 1201N wouldn’t be the much of a differnce, but it’s a huge difference – mucho! My math is rusty, but that’s about a 45% increase in screen area. It’s big enough for most uses, but small enough to be very portable.

Battery life if pretty good on the Asus 1201N even though I’ve read a lot about it being less than great, it’s better than the Aspire One battery life – that’s for sure. I am getting 3hrs+ on the battery alone and it’s good enough for me.

64bit operating systems run great on the Asus 1201N. So far, I’ve used several 64bit OS on this thing: Kubuntu, Ubuntu and Windows 7. I would normally write a how to install the OS on a netbook, but this thing is just like installing an OS on any other machine. It’s straightforward and not confusing at all. If you install Windows 7 Home Premium 64b OS, your COA number will work. You may have to call to authenticate, like I did, but it does work. You will need a 64b copy of Win7 Home Premium however. Installing from a USB took about 22 minutes – fast.

Streaming Video. This thing streams video very well, but not perfect. Despite the Nvidia ION and 4GB of RAM on a WIN7-64 OS, I can not get good performance from NetFlix streaming HD video. Regular video quality is rather good though. I don’t know if the limitation is Silverlight or not, but HD streaming video from Netlix stutters. YouTube HD looks great though, so I think the weakness is either the NetFlix codec or SilverLight.

4GB RAM. The Asus 1201N comes with 2GB of RAM, but it’s easy to upgrade to 4GB. Even thought the FFSB is only 533, the Nvidia ION can use a 800 connection to the RAM, so use 800 RAM instead of  533. You’ll be glad you did. AAnd spend the extra $15 to get the lowest latency possible.

It’s hot! Yes, the exhaust on the ASUS 1201N can be warm, to almost hot, particularly when watching streaming videos. It does get warmer at the exhaust than any other netbook or laptop I’ve used, but it’s only hot at the exhaust port and I can live with that. It won’t burn you, but you will notice it.

Overall Performance: Excellent. If you were expecting laptop performance, you’re going to be disappointed. But only a little. I’m really impressed with how much the ASUS 1201N can do. I was looking for something along the lines of the Aspire One in performance with a larger screen, but instead ended up with near laptop performance, with netbook size and weight.

Be careful when ordering. I ordered 3 Asus 1201N netbooks before I finally got the right one. That’s right, I was sent the wrong computer 3 times, by 3 different companies. Each time, I was sent the ASUS 1201PN which is a single core, single thread processor. Read the fine print and don’t be fooled.