ASUS N10JC: the Netbook Goes Corporate

Day-to-Day Use

As you might expect given the specs, the N10JC isn't going to be an ultra fast laptop. Instead, it competes in the realm of "fast enough" devices where other features take precedence. We grew quite fond of the laptop during our time with it; it doesn't weigh a lot or take up much space, making for a great portable PC. In addition, battery life is extremely good, helped in no small part by the Atom CPU. Loading web pages did take noticeably longer than on faster systems, but it wasn't so bad that we couldn't live with the small compromise. Besides, the N10JC still felt about as fast as the U7500 laptops we've tested and with a much more palatable price tag. We've liked the portability of other options from ASUS, Dell, Gateway, HP, etc. but always felt like we were spending a lot of money just for the privilege of owning a small laptop -- one that still ended up feeling sluggish in certain tasks.

All day computing is definitely a viable option with the N10JC, as we'll see in the battery tests. You might not be able to use the laptop for eight hours straight, but with periodic breaks and use of the sleep mode, getting over eight hours is possible -- just remember to leave the 9300M disabled or you'll get significantly less use without plugging in. Another interesting item is that cranking up the LCD brightness didn't dramatically affect battery life; we normally test with the LCD set to 100 nits to equalize things, but cranking the brightness up to the maximum ~280 nits still provided nearly five hours of continuous use.

The LCD is one of the really great parts about the N10JC. Too often we end up with inexpensive laptops that have clearly inferior displays. This may not be the best laptop LCD we've ever tested, but it does provide a great range of brightness while still providing good contrast and color accuracy. Even viewing angles are a bit better than many of the other TN panels we've used. The LCD is manufactured by Chuanghwa Picture Tubes (CPT), though we couldn't confirm the actual model; the display uses LED backlighting so it appears to be the CLAA102NA0ACW. Whatever the panel, the LCD can get very bright and still not use a whole lot of power. The glossy surface is about the only area we might complain about, but we found that cranking up the brightness did help to eliminate most reflections. We just wish we could get a 1280x800 LCD in there instead, as even at 1024x600 there's not a lot of real estate in Windows.

One major complaint we had with the original Eee PC was the small keyboard. Users with dainty hands and fingers probably don't mind the size, but for many people the keys were simply too cramped. The N10JC (and the Eee PC 1000) have addressed that issue by moving to a larger chassis. This still isn't a full size keyboard, but the alphanumeric keys are the proper size -- or at least close enough that we couldn't tell the difference. I ran through some online typing tests on the N10JC and my regular desktop with a Microsoft Natural keyboard just to see how much of a difference -- if any -- there would be. My first few tests on the N10JC were noticeably slower, coming in at just over 50 WPM compared to my normal 65-70 WPM. By the time I had used the N10JC for 15-20 minutes, however, the gap had shrunk to only a 5% difference. I still felt more fatigue from typing compared to the MS Natural, since 10" keyboards certainly don't qualify as ergonomic, but unless you're doing a whole lot of typing it shouldn't be a problem.

Our overall subjective impression of the N10JC is that this is what we really wanted from the first Eee PC. Oh, there are certainly users out there that prefer the smaller 7" to 9" netbooks, but we like to have just a bit more size for the display and keyboard. All of the other features we might want are also present, including a decent webcam, a great LCD, and a sufficient number of expansion ports. The inclusion of a discrete GPU that can boost graphics performance up to the level where low to medium detail settings in most titles are viable is merely an added bonus... and it also allowed us to play back some HD content that proved too much for the Atom CPU alone. The only minor complaints we can come up are the glossy LCD (we'd prefer a matte finish) with its low native resolution, and we wish it would have come with 2GB of RAM, though Windows XP with 1GB certainly isn't the end of the world.