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
As I said before you wrote your post is that Vista Business includes downgrade rights (without volume license so small businesses can use it too even if they don't want to purchase SA via some license agreement).So there is a Asus N10 laptop for corporate use that has Vista business on it, the N10J-A2 I mentioned. A business version of the same netbook. So it has nothing to do with restriction but rather that this is a consumer variant / version of the somewhat business-oriented N10-series. It can have XP Pro preinstalled it's just that you need a VB license COA. And that it costs about 100 dollars more then XP Home for low end netbooks. It's cheaper then to get a retail (FPP) copy of XP Pro or Vista though. That would cost more then most netbooks. XP H can't be included in volume licenses.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
ASUS is the one stating it's a "corporate" netbook, and outside of XP Home instead of Pro I think it succeeds well enough. It's not a corporate *laptop* by any means, but it can do what many traveling people would do. I went on a trip a week ago and used this laptop on the road; it was great to work in the airport for two hours (delayed flight) and then catch a two hour plane ride and still end up with nearly 50% battery remaining.MonkeyPaw - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
I use my Eee 701 for "business" all the time, and I use Ubuntu + Open Office. Basically, I need it for viewing excel spreadsheets and hitting the internet in a pinch. It works well enough, and any critical documents stay on a thumb drive for easy moving about. I find there's no substitute for a full PC-interface when it comes to some things, and this Eee has served me well. In fact, I just read this entire article and posted this comment on my 701. Thanks, Anandtech, for a low-res-friendly website!skaaman - Sunday, December 28, 2008 - link
I think the point to be made here is that XP Home can't connect to a domain and therefore isn't an option in a corporate environment or small business environments. As was noted Vista business includes downgrade rights to XP Pro and therefore would fit the bill.Penti - Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - link
Well it's still a consumer netbook and not a "corporate netbook" if it hasn't VB (the only way to run XP Pro at home today apart from in the business). It's still the same hardware as their corporate version though, just that it has 1GB and 160GB instead of 2GB of ram and 320GB drive. You can't connect to a corporate network without at least XP Pro. Of course it lacks security features such as TPM/Bitlocker too. But truecrypt is always an alternative. Of course lacking built in 3G modem is also a downside on business stuff. I wouldn't buy one without, using it as a terminal would be what it's used for and useful for. You don't need more performance to run RDP / Citrix.