ASUS Eee PC 1201N Review

The ASUS Eee PC 1201N is loaded with Intel's dual-core Atom as well as NVIDIA's ION. This computer falls into its own little category since it is too fast to be a netbook and not as powerful as a CULV notebook. Read our full review to find out how well this dual-core Atom machine performs and if you should get this instead of a CULV notebook.

ASUS Eee PC 1201N Specifications:

• Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit)
• Intel Atom N330 Processor 1.6GHz (533MHz FSB, 1MB Cache)
• 2GB DDR2 SDRAM (667MHz)
• 250GB 5400 rpm SATA HDD plus 500GB Online Storage
• 12.1-inch diagonal WXGA (1366x768)
• NVIDIA ION
• Realtek RTL8191SE B/G/N Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
• 4-in-1 media card slot
• 11.65 x 8.19 x 1.31
• 3lbs 3.5oz (not including weight of AC adapter)
• 6-cell Lithium-Ion battery (5600mAh, 63Wh)
• One-year standard warranty
• MSRP: $499.99

Build and Design
The ASUS Eee PC 1201N has an attractive wedge design with a very thin profile at the front that gradually thickens towards screen hinge. This shape is nice to type on when the computer is resting on a desk, since the front edge isn't too far up from the desk surface. This reduces pressure on the edge of your wrist and also helps out your hands since the keyboard is sitting in an elevated position. The glossy black finish looks great and the attention to detail is excellent. Usually notebook manufacturers don't apply a special finish to the battery when they finish a notebook and simply leave the battery looking like a big matte plastic part sitting in the middle of a perfectly glossy area. Thankfully ASUS went the extra mile and painted the top cover of the battery glossy black, which blends in very well with the top edge of the keyboard bezel.

Build quality is very good with the 1201N feeling solid and showing almost no signs of flex. The screen stays firmly shut with a good amount of tension from the screen hinges when closed. Protection from the screen cover is very good; not showing any distortions on the display with pressure to the back of the cover. Opening up the screen you can tell the hinges should hold up for a long time with strong tension that prevents the screen from flopping around once opened. The chassis seems to be well designed, keeping flex and creaking to a minimum. The palmrest stays rigid even with a very strong grip and the keyboard structure stays straight under moderate pressure. We didn't even notice any scratches on the netbook throughout the duration of our review, which usually entails quite a few cleaning sessions to keep it looking good for pictures.

Screen and Speakers
The 12.1" screen on the Eee PC 1201N is great for browsing the web, editing photos, or even watching HD movies. Color and contrast are excellent thanks to the glossy surface and LED-backlighting. Color saturation is better than average although only in a narrow viewing range. Once you start to tilt the screen forward or back the colors start to look dim or very washed out. Horizontal viewing angles were better; staying visible until roughly 60 degrees where the reflections on the screen start to overpower what is being displayed. Peak backlight brightness was fine for viewing in bright office conditions, but only when the brightness was set to 100 percent. Outdoor viewing was close to impossible unless you were in some serious shade from a tree or other structure.

The onboard speakers were lap-firing and sounded very tinny. The speakers had no low frequency response and just a small hint of midrange. This is fine for listening to streaming music or watching a YouTube clip, but not for sharing a movie in a small room. The speaker orientation did cause some problems if you had the system laying on a bed or sitting on your lap. It was easy to partially obstruct the speakers which would make them sound muffled. Overall I think a user's best option for listening to music or movies on this system would be to use a nice pair of headphones or connect it to a stereo through its HDMI-out port.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The nearly full-size keyboard on the 1201N is very comfortable to type although it still has a learning curve compared to regular sized notebooks. Most condensed keyboards don't give me too much trouble, but the smaller size and location of the shift-key on the right side kept causing typing errors. Normally I have my pinky sitting towards the outer edge of the keyboard, which is fine for most notebooks. On netbooks this puts my finger directly over the Up arrow. After a day or two my finger got used to the placement and it was less of a problem, so don't be too concerned if you experience some frustration while typing with it right out of the box. The keyboard looks and feels very well built. The keys are designed with a rough matte finish on top which helps increase fingertip traction. The keyboard itself feels very strong and doesn't flex even under strong pressure. Individual key action was smooth, giving off a quiet high-pitched click when pressed.

The touchpad on the 1201N is a Synaptics model with great sensitivity and speed. Right out of the box we did notice a slight traction problem where it was hard to slide your finger across the surface smoothly, but this could have been caused by lack of oil and residue the multi-touch sticker covering the touchpad. ASUS uses a glossy surface with small raised bumps for most of their newer netbooks and it takes a few hours of use before the surface builds up enough oil to easily slide your finger around. In our tests we didn't notice any lag or speed issues, which has been a problem for some touchpads recently. We had no trouble at all drawing perfect circles on the screen or quickly popping the mouse to opposite corners of the display. This touchpad also supports a few multitouch features which can be handy when you don't want to lift your hand off the touchpad. The 1201N offers two-finger scrolling, rotating, and pinch zoom, as well as three-finger flick and three-finger down.

Ports and Features
Port selection on the Eee PC 1201N is pretty good for a netbook, offering three USB ports, HDMI-out, VGA, LAN, and audio jacks. It also features a SDHC-card slot for expanding internal storage or just loading images off your camera while traveling. The only negative aspect of the connections on this Eee PC is the super-tiny AC adapter plug. Compared to any other notebook or netbook (and even some cellphones) it is smaller and potentially weaker. It is hard to speculate on long term reliability, but I don't see how it could hold up as well as more robust connectors.

Front View: Activity lights

Rear View: Battery and screen hinges

Left Side View: VGA-out, AC-power, one USB port, HDMI-out

Right Side View: SDHC-card slot, two USB ports, audio jacks, LAN, Kensington lock slot

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Performance and Benchmarks
The dual-core Atom processor paired with NVIDIA's ION puts the ASUS Eee PC 1201N somewhere in-between the performance level of a netbook and CULV notebook. In overall system performance we didn't see a huge bump compared to other Atom netbooks, but it was still slower than CULV systems. The one test we saw a huge bump in performance was wPrime, which got half the time as a single-core Atom. Even with the processor advantage it didn't feel much faster than a regular netbook. The NVIDIA ION did help the 1201N decode 720P and 1080P video, but users would see the same thing from a single-core Atom and NVIDIA's ION. After spending some time working on the issue, HD flash playback was flawless in YouTube for both 720P and 1080P content ... but that was ION helping, not the processor. With Internet Explorer, you may not be able to enter GPU-accelerated playback mode on many clips that naturally start in 854x mode. As a workaround, append "&amp;fmt=22" to the end of 720p clip URLs and &amp;fmt=37 to the end of 1080p clip URLs. The videos will then play in GPU-accelerated HD mode. Nvidia expects this problem to be fixed either with an updated NVIDIA driver or newer Flash Player 10.1 beta release in the coming months.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

3DMark06 comparison results against netbooks @ 1024 x 768 resolution (higher scores mean better performance):

HDTune hard drive performance test:

Heat and Noise
Under stress the Intel Atom N330 and NVIDIA ION raised the outside case temperature of the 1201N into the "warm but just under being uncomfortable" category. After 15 minutes with both the CPU and GPU stressed, some parts of the reached temperatures as high as 96 degrees Fahrenheit. Under normal conditions at or near idle the same spots were about 10 degrees cooler. The system fan worked harder in this netbook compared to models we have tested without the NVIDIA ION or dual-core Atom, but it still stayed within reasonable sound levels. While at or close to idle the fan noise would be comparable to a very quiet whisper and under load would be a slightly louder whisper.

Battery Life
The ASUS Eee PC 1201N has a dual-core Intel Atom processor and NVIDIA ION graphics both working against it when it comes to battery life. In our tests we saw power consumption figures around 12-14 watts ... which is what we generally see in full-size notebooks instead of a 12.1" netbook. In our tests with the screen brightness set to 70%, wireless active, and Windows 7 set to the Balanced profile, the ASUS 1201N stayed on for 4 hours and 24 minutes. This is almost two hours less than the HP 311 with a single-core Atom and NVIDIA ION.

Conclusion
I think the ASUS Eee PC 1201N was designed to fit a market segment that didn't really need to be filled. It has the CPU performance of a CULV notebook but without the power efficiency or higher performing chipset. A basic CULV notebook still beats it in overall system performance and if a CULV notebook was configured with dedicated graphics, instead of the usual Intel X4500 integrated graphics, it would beat the 1201N in 3D performance as well. Battery life is significantly under other ION systems that don't use the dual-core Atom and well below most CULV notebooks. The biggest reason I can see users wanting to buy the Eee PC 1201N is they want something better than a netbook but don't want to make the step up to a CULV notebook.

Pros:

• Great build quality
• Responsive touchpad
• Nice display

Cons:

• Only slightly faster single core Atom with NVIDIA ION
• Poor battery life compared to single core netbooks

Related Articles:

• ASUS Eee PC 1101HA Review
• Review Update: ASUS Eee PC 1008HA with Windows 7

 

I believe Kevin is right on this one. The dual core Atom, at least the N330 on this, is most likely more of a "eh..." and not a "WOW!" upgrade, and thus is reflected in the price. I have been eyeing the Toshiba T135 as it is a CULV dual core, and it's only $100 more than the 1201N, and the *only* thing that the 1201N might be able to do better is probably graphics, and for most people, graphics is a small portion of their everyday use.

A CULV with discrete graphics, such as the ASUS UL30Vt definitely might do the trick for those looking for a thin, balanced small laptop (such as myself . . . ) that still packs some punch despite its petite size (would be slightly faster with a SU9600 instead of the SU7300 also)

 

Interesting concept, but came out to late to be honest. With CULV already hitting the same price area as some netbooks, this extra-priced netbook has nothing to offer that you would go to say "I want this"

 

I also agree that the culv cpu's are the best deal money and performance wise out there right now.

 

Will ASUS be releasing a UL20vt? That truly would be a netbook on steroids. It would cost $200 more than the 1201N, but would be far superior in every way.

 

I seen gaming benchmarks where they compared the Atom 270 with Ion that the Asus Eee PC 1201N usually had more fps and made gaming possible.

But thanks for a nicely written review.

 

We were thinking the same thing as indicated with our 3D results comparing the 1201N to the 311. The problem we had though is it is entirely driver related if the system sees the Ion platform as "Ion" or "Ion Le". If the 311 was updated with the newer drivers it would probably get similar 3D performance.

 

It is doable, requires modding an INF from what the thread says. http://myhpmini.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=2571

 

I think the NBR guys dont have the 311 still there...but it could be possible

 

Probably Intel finally realized nettop really doesn't have mass market appeal so they decide to dump them out in any possible form, even when its own CULV clearly owns N330 on everything but price.

 

Yet for the price difference the CULV is a better solution than the Atom, and it is worth. Some cases prices are the same. CULV is superior and more capable.

 

this netbook is very nice, but doesn't make much sense it terms of price.

I don't understand why they din't put an hdmi port on the ul20. that would have been the best ultra portable for me. it would easily get twice the runtime with the same battery capacity.

 

You can get Acer AS1410's with an SU2300 CULV, 720p display, LED, HDMI, 6 hours battery life, etc, for $400... so I'm not really seeing the market for this.

 

I agree, but in terms of design the Acer looks cheap compared to this. Asus makes a silver version of this netbook which is much nicer than the glossy black IMO. the thing I don't like about the Acer is the keyboard, the screen is not that nice, but I agree it feels nicely built.

Asus should have put an su2300 in this and sell it close to the Acer price. even at 500$ with su2300, this thing would be much better than Acer if you look at the total package.

 

Except Ion is for Atom only.

 

yes I know. it would have an intel 4500mhd. for gaming it would not be good , but watching movies , etc... no problem. I don't game so its all good.

 

I really like the recent Acer 1410/1810 and the Gateway rebranded EC1400/1800. The main draw with this Asus is the dedicated graphics. If the Acer/Gateway could get it, I've have no reason to consider this Asus.

The Asus UL series may be a tad too large for me, I'd love to have a 12" or smaller CULV notebook with even low-end dedicated graphics.

 

I'm right there with you, Rahul. I want something small, but I can't spend a fortune and I can't bear to compromise with bad graphics. This looks to be a winner, but I have my eye on the MSI U230 as well. It won't be out until January, but then these will not be widely available until then either.

 

Biggest weakness I see is... 7 Starter. Hell, my as1410 has 4 HP. They need to replace Starter with HB or people are going to get PO'ed when they use this.

 

What about the nvidia 105m the HP DM3 has.

 

That's technically not ION, is it?

 

The 1210N pre-orders on Amazon list 7 Home Premium 32-bit as the included operating system.

I think I actually will pre-order one of these. ^_^

 

No the HP DM3 he asking about is not an ION.
The HP DM3T does have a option for a CULV and Nvidia 105M that would offer much better performance than the ASUS 1201N but at almost twice the price.
Great review but I think I might have expected to much from the 1201N and the ATOM is still a bottleneck for this system no matter how good it looks.

 

No, unless that is a re-branded update of the 9400. I ask because serg said Ion is Atom only so why not then pair CULV cpu with something like the 105m in the 11in-12in.

 

Because of the G105's consumption perhaps? Design constraints normally where heat, performance, consumption and size all play on the CULV laptops especially.

I remember being corrected there, since ION is not only Atom, as the MBP would be ION too, but I am not sure on that one, never heard a MBP called ION-based ever...

I would very much go with Danube, 4200HD and a 5450HD inside a thin and light laptop...

 

There's an AMD Congo version of this ASUS due out...the 1201T....though it only uses the single core Neo MV40.

 

There are three of these models, I cant recall the third but Phinnagle is right, there is the Congo based one, the dual Atom and ION and there was another one...

 

1201HA has the Z520 Atom and GMA500.

 

Thats the one! Thanks! Ugh..it is even worse...

 

Great review Kevin!

A strange thing-all tech sites give different battery times for this notebook!

 

thats true. the thing is that the notebook in this review has 7 starter which aparently is not as eficient for battery life as the 7 home premium.

The french tester on blogeee.net noticed that the more he used the battery , the more it gave him battery life so he had to redo his battery test and came up with this result.



mini311 xp pro sp3



laptopmag hp 311 7 home premium



laptopmag hp 311 xp pro



thats not bad really especially comparing it to the hp 311 with 7 home premium which scored 4h52 on laptopmag. as you can see the tester on blogeee used 100% screen so with 50% you could easily get another 20 min maybe. I'm also pretty sure that if you install xp pro on the asus , the time is gonna go up similar to the hp 311 , like 50min more battery. And the computer is gonna run faster too
Another thing to notice is that the french tester was running the high performance profile all the time , so I expect balance or power saver to give you much more for when your just surfing the web.

 

I double checked again and it is Home Premium. I corrected it in the review. Starter was on another Eee in the office.

Many tech sites all follow different battery testing guidelines. Some like it test the notebook at lower screen brightnesses, some like to test while playing movies, some test it under strong CPU load. So depending on which site you read you will get differing values on battery tests. We try to recreate the average day for most people (surfing the web, typing documents). What readers have to understand is outside of performance benchmarks that use standard testing applications, comparison figures are only useful to compare against other reviews that site has done.

 

If interested you can still get this laptop from PortableOne

http://www.laptopsinc.com/_e/loc/pr...1201N_12_1_Atom_N330_250GB_Up_to_8GB_RAM_.htm

Says out of stock but they have some call to check. It does say at the bottom available. I received mine yesterday.

 

would this netbook be perfect for me?

I like doing the following
playing music, mixing music, making ringtones etc... (with audacity)
watching movies (saved to the HD in avi format)
Maybe a little world of warcraft.
browsing the web, watching videos. (youtube, hulu..)

I like the size, being 12.1, I'm not a fan of the 10 inch netbooks. I like the 11.6 ones, but this one is larger.

so is it a good buy? or should I wait til jan and see what new products may come out?


thanks in advance

 

The Asus UL20, or Acer 1410 with dual core cpu's maybe better for hulu viewing.

 

I'm sure he's gonna be find watching hulu on it. 720p wmv and h264 using the cpu is under 50% use. 1080p using the ion is around 10-20%

http://hothardware.com/Articles/Asus-IonPowered-Eee-PC-1201N-Review/?page=7

 

This is a great looking notebook for the price.

Ion helps out a lot as well.

 

Hulu is Flash right? That review doesn't seem to cover Flash.

I can't check Hulu because Europeans don't get access.

 

with flash 10.1 and new drivers from nvidia + dual core = not a problem for this netbook. It will handle youtube hd , hulu like a breeze.

 

But, I thought this wasn't a true dual core, and though I read some where that it barely could do youtube HD, not sure if it was on flash 10.0 or 10.1 beta.

 

Its not a true dual core, it is two N330's stuck together. The new D510 which replaces it is a true dual core though.

 

I knew it wasn't but I thought since it wasn't a true dual core flash HD would be an issue for it(at least with 10.0). No?

 

true core or not it still has 2 cores on the chip and is more than twice as powerful as the n270.

check out this video from the blogeee test on the 1201n.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2VYJZzEwII&feature=player_embedded

first vid is the trailer 300 in 720p, second I am legend in 1080p, Dr. house is an Xvid so you can see the cores working more since its entirely decoded by the atom chip. It still does a great job. then comes an HD vimeo video and world of warcraft in youtube HD 1080.

Looks pretty good to me. We dont see the processor activity when running the youtube HD , but i'm pretty sure its around 20% since the ion helps.

 

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

The whole point of Netbooks is price. Forget comparing $800-$1000 small CULVs or whatever.

Like comparing a Corolla to a BMW 3.

 

Yeah except you can get a CULV Acer 1410 with a better dual core Celeron, and better intel 4500(vs the gma at least) for around $400 in the US, which about the same cost as a netbook, but you are getting a slightly larger 11.6in vs a 10in most netbooks.

 

Can someone else confirm that the 1201n plays 1080p Flash with 20% CPU?

I thought Flash GPU acceleration is not that good yet.

 

I didn't notice someone stated it was 20% because that is much lower than what I get playing 1080P flash.

 

I din't say it was 20%. I'm supposing it is by looking at how it handles regular 1080p video

I just sent a message to the french tester so he can tell me what was the % looking at youtube HD 1080p. will let you know

 

correct you said: "i'm pretty sure its around 20%".

Can you ask him to use this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zvCUmeoHpw

It's one of the heaviest, especially after 1:10.

 

I get like 44%-51% cpu usage out of my SU9300 dual core with flash 10.0. I would be really surprised if a dual core atom, and ION with flash 10.0 or even 10.1 is lower than what I get.