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Analysis and Conclusion:
So what we have here is a netbook that is targeted towards a high end consumer. Someone focused upon looks and form more than function. The S101 certainly has all of the functionality of 90% of other netbooks on the market, indeed including some added extras that all others don't have. While the S101 may be the thinnest, lightest, and best looking netbook we have ever laid hands on the S101 falls short of other netbooks in some departments.
In short we contacted Asus and asked for an explanation of the peculiar behavior seen in the included SSD drive with the S101 and received no answer. Either Asus has no comment (which isin't good), they know they have a problem (which isin't good), or they dropped the ball and didn't respond (which isisn't good). After several weeks of use, and through the test of fire (CES Daily Use), I determined that the S101 has a few fatal flaws. All of them related to the SSD which unfortunately is slow, lags quite a bit, and often just pauses for no good reason.
After hands on use the S101 comes down to a nice looking but fails in real world use product. The new S101H promises to change that with the inclusion of an actual HD with a minimal increase of the overall thickness of the netbook. The included HD is a 1.8" drive which generally do not perform as well as standard 2.5" drives and this may lead to a degradation in performance. We will bring you testing and results of this latest release as soon as we receive a sample.
Pros:
- Thinnest, lightest, and most well designed netbook on the market.
- Keyboard is amazing to use and look at.
- Touchpad is the largest and easiest to use of all netbooks currently available.
- Its Beautiful!
- Amazingly fast boot time!
Cons:
- The 64GB SSD equipped version not available in the US.
- Perplexing and spotty SSD performance.
- Only average battery life at 4.5 hours.
- LCD is relatively dim compared to other netbooks.
- Expensive
Ultimately the deciding factor for the S101 comes down to whether or not you find the added benefits of the S101's presentation worth your money. If you want to turn heads then you can't go wrong with the S101. If you are looking for a good performance netbook thats cheaper as well as thin and light where looks is secondary then you might want to check out the EeePC 1002HA instead.
REALTIME PRICING ON THE ASUS S101