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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ATWindsor - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
Please continue to test the displays of laptops. This is very good information, and often not tested by other sites.Clauzii - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
I'd like to see the ASUS with the Mac battery. That should bring a whole day of interrupted usage to the table. Besdides that, I think I'd prefer a dual core Atom and no discrete GPU, since the dualcore Atoms CAN decode movies well.Oh, and a Merry Christmas from Denmark :)
JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
Glaedelige jul til dig ogsaa! I don't think dual-core Atom would do all that well with H.264 1080P, but it might manage. I suppose the real question is whether it would be more power efficient than the 9300M or not. No one seems to be doing Atom dual-core laptops yet (though I'm sure they're out there -- just no one has offered to send one for review). As for the Mac batteries, they're actually *smaller* than the ASUS battery in terms of capacity; OS X just seems to do better at optimizing for power as far as I can tell.therealnickdanger - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
But would you be kind enough to maybe test a couple old games like Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike Source, Halo, WoW, UT2004? Merry Christmas, AT!JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
Given the performance in UT3 and CoH, I'd expect pretty reasonable frame rates in the games you mention - maybe not at high detail, but medium shouldn't be a problem. Let me see if I can dig out HL2 and give it a run for old time's sake....therealnickdanger - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
Fair enough. Thanks for considering it! ;-)Penti - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
A XP Home laptop is not a business version, why not test the Vista Business version? Would be more interesting to see how the VB N10J-A2 fair.A VB laptop with XP Pro downgrade rights is the only thing fitting into the corporate world. What your reviewing is still a consumer laptop. With just 1GB of ram to add on top of that. Certainly the 800 dollars N10J-A2 would be more difficult to justify. And only then you can talk corporate.
ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
I thought the XP Home thing was mandated by Microsoft for netbooks. As in Microsoft will only continue selling XP in it's Home form for netbooks which only have 1GB of RAM. ASUS can't put XP Pro in since it's no longer directly available and I would guess using Vista Business by default would increase the price and of course reduce performance.strikeback03 - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
As of September, our campus computer store was still selling licenses for XP Pro to use with our Volume License media.I haven't needed one since then, but businesses with volume licenses can probably upgrade if needed.ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
That's kind of different. XP is still available for smaller OEMs, but I'm pretty sure that XP isn't available for big name companies like ASUS anymore unless they stick with the netbook restrictions.