Price: £414.99
Asus 1201N 12-inch Netbook (Intel Atom N330 1.6GHz + ION, 2 GB RAM, 250 GB HDD, 6 cell battery, WLAN, Bluetooth, Webcam, Windows 7 Home Premium, Black)
User Reviews
Although this is billed as a Netbook, this laptop is slightly larger and heavier than your average netbook. However, it's all the better for it. The larger size means that it has a decent screen size and resolution of 1366x768. The weight is good at under 1.4kg, again heavier than most netbooks, but still acceptable. Battery life is around 3hrs, but with the Asus super Hybrid engine, it's easy to instantly adjust settings to save battery life by reducing processing power and features. The slightly beefier specs mean that Windows 7 premium works like a dream, whereas most netbooks are restricted to the cut down home edition, or even XP. In summary, if you need more power and spec than a netbook, but don't want to carry around a full-blown beast, this is a great compromise between the two. -- A great compromise between netbook and notebook
Simply the best Netbook. Can't fault it. Go buy one. That's it. -- Asus 1201N 12- inch Netbook
I bought this to replace an aging Samsung Q35 laptop. This is smaller and lighter and has a decent if not enormous battery life of between 3 and 4 hours. Where it scores though is in graphics ability, since it sports an Intel Ion GPU. This not only allows me to use some software that would not run on my previous machine but also considerably speeds up the graphics on existing software.
I occasionally do some video conversion with TMPGEnc Express and was pleased to see that it supports CUDA, available on the ION GPU. However, you need to install the Nvidia driver to make that available, not wonderfully easy as I had to choose one of four drivers after installation, all helpfully described as "Nvidia ION!" By trial and error I got there and now my video conversion times should be slashed.
The machine uses a dual core Atom processor and supports 64-bit Windows 7 but is supplied with the 32-bit OS pre-installed. I will live with that for a while before taking the plunge. I will then add another 2Gb of RAM. The Asus website only advertises 32-bit drivers but 64-bit drivers are available online.
I did a lot of research before choosing this netbook and the general opinion was that it was best-in-class but without the 10 hour battery life you can expect with other netbooks. That is the cost of a faster processor and GPU though.
Overall, if you want a high powered netbook then there is no beating this model, so take my advice and buy one! -- The best netbook you can buy!
Upgraded from asus eee pc 1000. 1201 is a great netbook. works fine. good screen. equally comfortable to carry around as the 1000, but with the bigger screen is much better. before I got 1201, I worked on a 15' laptop at home, and on eee pc 1000 while travelling. Now I use 1201 most of the time, including at home. two drawback: it gets really hot when it works. and the mousepad is not among the best. but otherwise pretty happy with the choice. + i also use the grey version. -- great netbook
very good stuff beyond my consideration. it works perfectly with HDMI cable connected to a 22 inch LCD monitor -- very good stuff