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Asus N10 Netbook
About the Asus N10:
When considering a netbook several important factors come to mind:
- Battery Life
- Portability (weight)
- Usability
- Screen Readability
- Functionality
The Asus N10 excels in each of these "important" categories almost without any drawbacks. Lets examine the categories further:
Battery Life:
The N10 comes with both onboard Intel GMA 950 graphics care of the 945 chipset as well as Nvidia 9300M GS graphics. The two can be selected with the flick of a switch and a restart of the laptop. At some point the engineers will figure out how to make such graphics selectable without a restart but for now we have to wait.
- Our battery life test consisted of standard browsing the web and light use of MS Office 2007 with the following settings:
- Screen Brightness: 100%
- Bluetooth: On
- Wireless: On
- Power Profile: High Performance
- Intel GMA 950 - 4 Hours 30 Minutes
- Nvidia 9300M - 3 Hours 38 Minutes
The Asus N10 was allowed to discharge to 30% battery life and then plugged in to measure the charge time and power usage. While plugged in to the AC adapter the N10 initially drew 51W from the AC adapter, as it charged the AC adapter drew less and less and came to idle at a mere 18W when fully charged.
Considering the less than one hour difference between battery lifetimes the performance is remarkable. The inclusion of the Nvidia 9300 is an excellent choice for users seeking a bit more power to do some light gaming or other run other 3D applications. The N10 comes with Windows Vista Business utilizing the Aero interface which takes full advantage of the 9300M without any OS slowdown. Users of the high end N10J-A2 can of course opt to use the included downgrade option to run Windows XP Pro instead and take advantage of the resulting OS speedup.
Portability:
Portability is a subjective analysis of the laptop and an overall result of several factors we considered important.
- Weight
- Bulkiness
- Construction
- Battery Life
With these factors as considerations the N10 comes up surprisingly positive. It is relatively light at 1.4 kg (3.1 lbs) though not anywhere near the lightest Asus has to offer, nor the lightest in the industry. You should remember that Asus does not market the N10 as a netbook but at a notebook, and with that in mind the N10 is a feather weight. As for bulkiness the N10 is designed very slim and streamlined. It seems that Asus has the rest of the Netbook/Notebook market won hand down for excellence in design (save for the Macbook Air). The bottom of the laptop is nearly flat and all other surfaces are coated with a beautiful high gloss that does unfortunately attract fingerprints. The only other netbook that exceeds the design/appeal of the N10 is the HP 2133 (Our review of which can be found here) which sports an all aluminum chassis and outstanding looks as well as design. The N10 does however sport much more performance and features. In terms of battery life the N10 packs enough life into the 6 cell battery to last a user the full duration of a flight from Orlando to New York without worrying about recharging (integrated graphics).
Usability:
Usability like portability is a subjective measurement that consists of the following factors:
- Battery Life
- Features
- Keyboard
As we just mentioned the N10's battery life is acceptable while not excellent. The N10 really shines in its included features which eclipse any other netbook/notebook in its size currently available. These features include:
- Integrated dual selectable graphics
- Biometrics
- Wireless N
- 320GB Hard Drive
- Express Card slot
- HDMI
- Wireless on/off switch
- 3 USB 2.0 ports
- 1.3MP Webcam
- Selectable Power Profiles at the push of a button (Power 4 Gear)
- Multi card reader slot
- BLUE LED'S
- Extremely solid power jack laptop port
- Small, Lightweight AC power adapter
Screen Quality/Readability:
The screen of the Asus N10 is a mixed bag and is perhaps the only drawback of the system. Unpacking the N10 the first thing we noticed was the overly large bezel surrounding the screen. This initially reminded us of the HP 2133 and early EeePC's. While we understand the decision to integrate a 10.2 inch LCD into a frame which could easily accomodate an 11 inch or larger screen was most likely a cost factor we would readily pay for the larger screen. After using the laptop for a few days we found that the bezel became unnoticable and the overall readability of the screen is excellent. The maximum resolution supported is 1024 x 600 which provides for most webpages being displayed perfectly. Additionally we prefer the glossy screen which produces very sharp, clear images and is optimal for viewing movies in-flight.
If Asus' history is any indicator of future behavoir we may even look forward to an N10 released with a larger screen. What can adding another model to Asus' already huge lineup of netbooks/notebooks hurt.
Functionality:
The reason this factor is last is due to it being a summation of all the previous factors. This is another subjective measurement but we are confident that by now you have come to the same conclusion we did. And that is that the N10 is very user friendly has plenty of expandability and tons of features and is thus a highly functional product. We allowed several professionals to take the N10 for a spin for a day and 4 out of 4 users all wanted to order one at the end of their day.
Lets take a look at our 7 days with the Asus N10:
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