ASUS N10JC: the Netbook Goes Corporate
by Jarred Walton on December 24, 2008 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Conclusion
Is the N10JC the greatest laptop ever made? Well, no, it's not. However, it does so many things right for the target market that we can't help but be impressed. It uses a small form factor that still manages to be large enough to make it comfortable for daily use, and it comes with a great feature set and battery life.
Just over a year ago, we took our first look at the ASUS Eee PC. While it was an interesting novelty and almost cheap enough to purchase just as an electronic toy, I personally couldn't stand actually using the Eee PC. The keyboard was far too small for me to use comfortably, the display and resolution were too small, battery life wasn't that great, and frankly I wasn't very fond of the included Linux distribution. That's not to say that some people don't absolutely love the Eee PC; it's just that I'm not one of them (particularly the original 7" model).
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The N10JC on the other hand makes for a great, inexpensive ultraportable. There are faster ultraportables, but they cost so much more that they price themselves out of contention. For under $700, you can get a 10.2" netbook that offers great battery life, a good feature set, and an excellent LCD. For some users, performance is still the critical metric, and you can certainly find a lot more power for the same price. I typically prefer to use my laptop as a portable office computer, focusing primarily on e-mail, Internet, and Microsoft Office use, and the N10JC does everything I need exceptionally well. The N10JC impressed us so much that we are presenting it with our Gold Editors' Choice award. Note that this award goes to the product line as a whole, including the N10J and the N10E; the N10J ships with 2GB RAM and Vista, while the N10E omits the 9300M -- perfect for those that don't care about HD movies or gaming.
There is plenty of competition in the netbook market compared to one year ago, but even with the heightened competition the N10JC still rises above the crowd. This is the only netbook to offer discrete graphics, enabling H.264 decoding with a lower power CPU. You also get a fingerprint scanner, a webcam, and Windows XP, which you don't find on some competing netbooks. Finally, and perhaps the real kicker, this is the best netbook LCD we've seen -- something we could easily spend an extra $100 to get -- and unlike the ASUS Eee PC line the N10JC comes with a two-year global warranty and one-year accidental damage protection. If you don't need all that, the Eee PC 1000HA shaves $200 off the price, which is certainly a viable alternative; the Acer Aspire One, Dell Mini are a couple more options. For those that prefer a bit higher quality, however, the N10JC delivers.
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Penti - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
That's mostly directed towards iFX and I do agree that they don't get much rebates on hardware (probably a lot more on software anyway which is a bigger cost then the hardware itself many times even for desktops).My point however is that you aren't reviewing the business version, not that it differs any more in hardware then I mentioned earlier in another post and you mentioned now but rather the important fact that it contains a VB OEM license as you can't include a XP H license in your volume license agreement. That's an important difference and you don't really test it for that scenario any way.
OEM's aren't much more then retailers themselves, i.e. they can't charge the costumer less then what the ODM or Taiwanese-based contract manufacturers charge them. There really isn't much for system builders to do with laptops more then order them. It's usually as you have experienced some other company that actually put the companies images of the OS/software on them. I guess there's some potential to save there if those who act as the system builders of the OEM-computers can get cheaper OEM licenses for that costumer and orders without licenses from Asus. A OEM license is always needed though. But a XP H OEM licenses is useless for them.
iFX - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
Yes, they do. I have worked in IT procurement for large, Fortune 500 companies, I speak from experience.icrf - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
Interesting addition to the netbook lot, but I'd still rather have a Samsung NC10. The discrete GPU is nice for video decoding, but if the display can't show 720p, I'm not sure what the benefit of being able to decode it is. Give me a 10" 1280x800 screen and we'll talk. Otherwise, the NC10 still has better battery life.skaaman - Sunday, December 28, 2008 - link
Totally agree. I picked one up for my better half for Christmas for $499.00. Notebook Review has an excellent write up on it. The display is beautiful (same as the ASUS I believe) and easily get 7-8 hours battery life. I accidentally stumbled on the touch pad gesturing support and it works very well.I loaded the two simple games she plays and they run fine (simple games.) While a lot of time on this board is dedicated to considering how far we can stretch a system, it would seen that this and most Netbooks would more than satisfy about 90% of the consumer market. I mean really, how many systems out there are used for nothing but Internet access, email and word processing.
Also, I think we have become spoiled with cheap memory prices. 1GB for running basic apps on XP Home should be plenty for anyone. Yes if you beed to run 10 apps or want to overclock then you want as much memory as you can get. But again, 1GB will prove more than adequate for the average user.
l00tz - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
Ahhh but you have hdmi out for 1080p goodness. The n10 works with and external bluray drive and powerdvd8 as welldrfelip - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
A user at Notebook Review forums claims to get quite good gaming performance by overclocking the Atom to 2.1 GHz, so the CPU seems to be the bottleneck.gipper - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
I have the 1000H, and I love it. However, we really need 1280x800 screens in 12" sizes. Several corporate apps like the Citrix client all but requires 1024x768 minimum resolution to run without problems.I want the 1000H in a 12" size, NOTHING changed (except maybe and even larger battery than the already ridiculously good battery it has) except for the screen. That is the perfect notebook.
strikeback03 - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
The table says 2x2048MB, but the test says 1GB.I was not aware that LED backlights contained Mercury, is there a version of the computer that uses a conventional backlight for that sticker to be on there?
JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
ASUS told me that the sticker was only on early hardware and that it's just a mistake. Good eye - I forgot to mention this, but ASUS specifically told me about the sticker when I asked if it was really an LED-lit LCD. :)JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
Oh, and the 2x2048MB was a missed copy/paste (or reuse of a table). It's fixed now.