Asus N10

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As far as battery life goes, well, we’re still in the dark. Our N10 was supplied without the six-cell battery that will ship in the UK and a spot of inclement weather in Taiwan meant that Asus wasn’t able to get one to us in time for this review (hence the big hole where the battery should be in the photographs). We expect battery life to be around the four-hour mark, but we’ll update this review with battery life figures as soon as we can.

Now we were going to end this review with a grumble about how manufacturers are starting to lose sight of the original netbook idea by cramming in ever higher specifications – but we’ll resist. Asus isn’t calling the N10 a netbook and it isn’t made by its netbook division, so we’ll be nice and pretend that it’s simply a small, cheap, ultraportable.

But that’s a bit of a problem. Yes, the N10 is small, but it isn’t really that cheap. With an expected street price of £499, the N10 costs more than many much more capable Core 2 Duo laptops. They’re not ultraportables, of course, but then technically, nor is the N10 – the Intel Atom processor is far too limited for that.

Of course, a netbook (or Atom-powered laptop…) is more than sufficient for the narrow range of tasks most people need a computer for and if you’re looking for a very portable PC with enough storage for all your stuff, a handy ExpressCard slot and the ability to satisfy your (limited) 3D gaming needs, then the N10 will suffice. If not, an MSI Wind U100 or one of its clones clone with a DIY hard drive upgrade is a cheaper option.

Asus N10J-HV011E

Price: £499 inc VAT
Rating: 4 out of 6
Good: Well-specified (for a netbook); great graphics; small & light
Bad: Too expensive for a netbook; to puny for an ultraportable
Verdict: An interesting technological exercise, but the Atom processor was never intended for anything other than a netbook and the N10 is a curiously mismatched portable as a result.
Manufacturer: Asus
Buy from: TBC

Specifications

Processor: Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz)
Memory: 2Gb DDRII (667MHz)
Graphics: Intel GMA 945 / nVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS (256Mb)
Hard disk: 250GB (5400rpm)
Optical drive: Optional external USB-powered DVD-writer
Floppy drive: NA
Screen: 10.2in LED-backlit (1024 x 600)
Connectivity: 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth, Ethernet, VGA, ExpressCard/34, USB 2.0 x 3, HDMI, 3.55mm mic, headphone, SD Card
Other: Webcam, fingerprint scanner
Operating system: Windows Vista Business (downgradeable to Windows XP Professional)
Size: 276 x 195 x 37.1mm
Weight: 1.4kg with 3-cell battery (6-cell battery supplied)
Battery life: TBC
Warranty: 2 year global

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Comments (14) add comment

Nice!
written by Mike , October 01, 2008

Not a netbook, not a notebook... yet it seems strangely appealing to a person like me, who wanted a netbook, but was irked by the fact that recent games could NOT run on the with their dx7/dx8 intel chipsets.

Thanks for trying Crysis out on it! I want to get one and see if it runs Spore!

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Not(e)book
written by Electric Vagabond , October 01, 2008

I've coined the term Not(e)book for this product! It sits on the fence I think... however it does fill a nice market niche in terms of an ultra-portable with decent gaming prowess. Will be very interested to see how it goes with battery life in general use. Nice review, and I linked to your earlier preview on my site.

The fingerprint scanner, large HDD and HDMI make for a nicely featured machine. However, the bevel around the screen is truly heinous and the keyboard sounds like it could be suffering a little bit from cheap-itis. I am sort of undecided about this one, on one hand I want to sell my Wind and get this, but on the other I don't want to slowly migrate to a full-sized notebook only to discover I'm about to go travelling with a brick in my bag.

Anyway great review and thanks for helping with consumer decision making progress!

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Asus will not sell at that price
written by Robert , October 01, 2008

Greetings:

If Asus thinks they will sell the N10 at 500 pounds about $1050 Canadian, they are totaly missing the boat.
Netbooks have to be priced well below $400US, or they will not sell.
Regards Robert

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maybe with a dual core i\'ll swallow that price...
written by Rocky , October 02, 2008

Maybe if asus held back launch and used the dual core atom...

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Real review (korean)
written by bung hols , October 02, 2008

If they actually bothered to test 3dmarks like some koreans did
http://www.notegear.com/Conten...otopage=1

use your own translator
but they showed why there was a bezel, its for the wifi antenna
and battery life with 3 cell around 2 hrs with normal use

they had the review out around 1 month ago

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Heat and noise??
written by Lardo , October 02, 2008

Did I miss them or there is not a single reference to heat and noise in the whole review??

I base my purchases mostly in those 2 parameters.

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...
written by aaa , October 12, 2008

I don't get it, you might want to use the nvidia 9300m all the time, and possibly have better battery life optimization and 3d capabilities.
3DMark06 Scores

9200M GS:
1742: [HP DV5] P7350,4GB
2067: [Samsung Q310] P8400,4GB
2574: [Samsung Q310] P8400,4GB, 9200M GS overclocked to Core 750MHz & Memory 750MHz

9300M GS:
2242: [Lenovo Thinkpad SL500] P8600,2GB
1695: [Lenovo Thinkpad SL300] P8600,2GB Note: This 9300M GS is a 128MB version - explains the low score?
2211: [Lenovo Thinkpad SL400] P8400,2GB

amazon US had those n10j-a2 with xp downgrade as an extra CD. using vista forcing the card to run dx10, however with dx9 on xp the card will be more capable at higher fps

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written by aaa , October 12, 2008

yes i agree, however those 6 hour battery life on 6 cell will become 4 or 3.5. still pretty good !! some 1 will overclock this baby anyway

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starcraft 2
written by victor , October 29, 2008

do you think its possible to play starcraft 2 on this or any other netbook?

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...
written by aaa , October 29, 2008

Minimum System Requirements for Starcraft 2
Processor: 1.4 Ghz Processor
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Graphics card: 128 MB RAM video card capable of Hardware TnL. DX10 is not required, but will be supported by SC2 and Blizzard are considering adding DX10 specific effects.
Pixel Shader 2.0 (Officially Confirmed)

Just similar to warcraft3's this is not CPU intensive, u may able to get to highish settings

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written by victor , October 29, 2008

so it might even work pretty good on a eee1000h?

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written by aaa , October 29, 2008

it can barely runs it. the onboard graphic on 1000h will run at probably the lowest setting. check this page http://www.starcraftwire.net/forums
/showthread.php?t=675
#
gma 900 - 950 will probably wont run any 3d games at full speed trust me

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written by Simon , October 30, 2008

Hi there! nice review!

one thing that isn't commented though is that the geforce9300 chip should allow much higher screen resolution for external displays (like TFT). if N10 allows watching HD-video in 1920x1080, by turning screenres to 1920x1200 its a very good selling point. even if it dont have a optical reader, videos can be transfered to the hdd.

also photoshop and especially office applications can be worked with in high resolution.

i hope a driverpatch will be released to eee901 so that it will allow more than 1024x768 for ext screens.

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written by aaa , October 31, 2008

yes 9300m could do 1080p, the desktop version of 9300 has 16 unified shader, but this has 8, in theory 9300m is likely to be weaker than 8500gt desktop. with new drivers from laptopvideo2go.com 9300m should be able to decode 1080p on the fly. with nv panel u can set custom resolution anyway! (is maxed at 2048x1536)
the gma900 on the eee901, in theory gma900 supports up to 2048x1536, but wiki said 16001280. Does normal intel gma driver works with eee901 anyway?

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