ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1201N-PU17-BK 12.1-Inch Black Netbook – 5 Hours of Battery Life

5 Comments

1. Senor Zoidbergo says:

   May 31, 2010 at 11:58 pm

   Review by Senor Zoidbergo for ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1201N-PU17-BK 12.1-Inch Black Netbook – 5 Hours of Battery Life
   Rating:
   As of the date of this review, the ASUS-1201N is the best netbook on the market today. This is my first netbook purchase, and I wanted a machine with the following characteristics;

   - at least 2 GB of RAM
   
   - graphics processor capable of playing 1080P media
   
   - decent battery life (willing to sacrifice battery life for performance, since I’m usually close to a wall socket)
   
   - Windows 7 Premium (offers improved battery life over Windows 7 Starter)
   
   - 11.6″ to 12.1″ size
   
   - 1366 x 768 resolution
   
   - At least a 100 GB hard drive (SSD still too pricey and swapping out drives voids warranty)

   First, a little background information. Thanks to restrictions by Intel and Microsoft, the number of high performance netbooks is quite small. The vast majority of netbooks have just 1 GB of ram, and are too small in size (most are in the 9-10″ range). However, I settled on 4 possibilities, the ASUS EEE PC 1201N, Lenovo IdeaPad S12, HP Mini 311, and the Samsung N510. I immediately discounted the Samsung because of the high pricetag ($600). The remaining three all lacked one feature of the 1201N; dual core processors. The Asus is the only netbook to currently feature 1.6GHz Dual Core Intel Atom 330s. In general, the order of netbook processors is as follows;

   Dual Core Atom 330s (found mostly on nettops) >> Atom N450 > Atom N280 > Atom N270 > Atom Z520

   Since the Mini 311, Lenovo, and Asus were all comparably priced, I decided to go with the newer and more powerful Asus. I should also note that the HP Mini 311 only has the Nvidia Ion LE chipset, which is not DirectX 10 compatible, although it can be hacked to full Ion compatibility. However, I suspect that mainstream users are not interested in hacking their netbooks. I had also considered waiting until CES 2010 finished to get a glimpse of future netbooks. But, based on what has been revealed so far at CES, most of the future offerings will be just 10″ netbooks with a single core N450, 1 GB RAM and a new Crystal HD Broadcom chip. At best, on parity with the 1201N, and probably marked into the $400 range when all optioned out. Ultimately, I decided that I wanted a netbook larger than 10″.

   The Amazon price for the 1201N was $482, which is at the high end of the netbook market. Why should I get this 1201N, when I can easily get a comparably priced CULV (Intel’s Core 2 Ultra Low Voltage) light notebook with superior performance you ask? Well, the CULV performance is only superior with regard to the processor; GPU-wise, CULV equipped notebooks with Intel’s integrated graphics GMA3150/4500MHD solutions are actually worse than the Nvidia Ion equipped 1201N. A CULV notebook with higher performance GPU would run you in the $800-1000 range. Asus has a CULV with Intel 4500MHD for about $600, but the Intel integrated graphics leaves much to be desired. As far as I know, there is no sub-$800 CULV with 9400M that weighs less than 4 lbs and is less than 13″ and is ultra-mobile. The 1201N fills that gap.

   Nvidia Ion (GeForce 9400M) >> Intel GMA3150 (PineTrail) and 4500MHD > Intel GMA950 >> Intel GMA500

   I also thought about waiting for Nvidia’s Ion2 platform to hit the market, but considering that it took Nvidia and the computer manufacturers close to one year to output a netbook to take advantage of the Ion, I decided to go ahead and make the purchase. The Ion gives you the capability to play *some* games; it definitely won’t play Crysis! You’ll most likely have to play at 800 x 600 resolution to get any sort of decent performance, but at least there’s a capability. You probably won’t be able to get past the loading screen on other netbooks. While Ion dings battery life, it in combination with the dual Atoms allows you to watch 1080P content while multi-tasking on the 1201N, previously unheard of in a netbook.

   FIRST IMPRESSIONS of the 1201N: The size is perfect! I’m glad I didn’t get a 10″ netbook. It arrived pretty barebones; netbook, battery, charger, and a few software CDs. Initial impressions were very good; the glossy black cover actually seems pretty fingerprint resistant. Overall construction is very solid, be careful once you insert the battery pack, because it tips the center of mass very sharply. Make sure you have a tight grip- mine nearly slipped out of my hand. In addition, I thought the Velcro straps on the battery cords were a nice touch; they keep the wires tucked away more neatly than plastic zip ties. Some also complained of the hard drive being too noisy- I didn’t notice anything unusual, just the steady hum of the hard drive that was mildly audible only if I placed my ear right on top of the keyboard. Air flow seems fine- after several hours of usage, the keyboard was still the same temperature, and the bottom was warm, but not hot.

   KEYBOARD/TOUCHPAD: I really like the keyboard, and note, it is a full-size keyboard. Some online review sites thought it flexed a bit too much, but I didn’t notice any flexing. The chiclet style keyboard appears to be very solidly made. I do have one minor complaint, whilst typing, my greasy wrists tend to leave imprints all over the nice glossy plastic wrist-rest. I have never used a dimpled one-button touchpad before, but it seems to work well. While the touchpad only has a single button/bar, it has independent left-and-right hand sides that can be depressed, effectively making it a 2-button touchpad. Those of you who don’t like touchpads may want to invest in a USB mouse for convenience.

   WINDOWS 7: Initial setup of Windows 7 took about 30-40 minutes; thereafter, boot time is about 30 seconds. There’s not much bloatware pre-installed; basically only MS Works, Trend Micro Anti-Virus, MS Office Starter, Acrobat Reader, and a media-player. Response to keyboard and mouse inputs seems fast, I didn’t notice any lagging. Minor quibble- how do I get the Windows Classic look in Windows 7?!

   DISPLAY: As for the display, I like the glossy screen, it looks fantastic, and text is clear, sharp, and very legible. Before I purchased the netbook, I was bothered by the screen not being flush with the bezel in various promotional images. Now with the unit actually in hand, I don’t really notice any aesthetic issues. The whole seashell design is very nicely done.

   OTHER OBSERVATIONS: Maximum battery time with a full charge is about 5-6.5 hours, but that’s with LCD brightness at 50%, battery saver, and very little user activity. The battery saver settings are easy to toggle, simply pressing Fn + spacebar cycles through the different choices. The hard drive is oddly partitioned into a c: drive with about 100 GB and a d: drive with about 125 GB. Note that Nvidia’s ION chipset takes 250 MB of the 2 GB of RAM for its own usage.

   1080P MEDIA: Aha, here’s the juicy part! So I installed CoreAVC Professional, and disabled deblocking (which helped to offset some of the CPU load). I played a 1080P music video, and opened up Windows task manager. CPU utilization was at just 60%, and I was also able to open a MS Powerpoint file, an MS Word file, and play a 3D Chess game. The 1080P file played fine, with no hiccups. I was quite impressed by the multi-tasking in the 1201N. Battery life decreased a bit to roughly 4 hours, but I wasn’t continuously playing high definition media.

   Also, I can’t stress how important it is to use CoreAVC Pro for decoding High Definition H.264 media; the 1201N can handle 1080P without CoreAVC (using ffdshow), but CPU utilization shoots up to ~ 90%. With CoreAVC and deblocking turned off, it goes down to 60%. CoreAVC really helps boost the 1201N’s multi-tasking abilities, it’s also not too expensive. I think Core AVC 2.0 is selling for about $8-$10.

   Sorry ladies and gents, haven’t gotten around to testing games on it yet.

   OTHER THOUGHTS: Reliability wise, all the netbooks are about the same, which is to say, not very reliable. Well, at least ASUS isn’t as bad as HP. I decided to do myself a favor and buy a Squaretrade Extended warranty for peace of mind.

   CONCLUSION: In summary, should you get this 1201N? Well, it depends on your needs. But if having 8 hour+ battery performance isn’t terribly important, and you want a well performing netbook with decent battery life, superior multimedia capabilities, and some gaming performance, then I strongly recommend the 1201N.

   I want to also add that purchasing from Amazon for $480 with no tax and free shipping makes this deal much hotter than buying from newegg, wherein tax tips the price over $500.

   UPDATE (01/25/10): Engadget released their review today of the Dell Mini 10 with Broadcom Crystal HD hardware based accelerated netbook. All optioned out, with 1366×768 screen, the Dell Mini 10 comes to $425, which is actually quite close to the 1201N price-point. They noted that the Broadcom Crystal HD is ONLY capable of playing back 1080P WMV files media using Windows Media Player 11. For those of you who wish to use Quicktime, VLC, WMP Classic, or Flash 10.1 you’re out of luck. MKV (matroskas), MOV, BLU-RAY DISCS, are **NOT** supported by the Broadcom Crystal HD chip, go figure. I know several other netbook manufacturers were considering using the Broadcom Crystal chip as well. The Dell Mini 10 also does not have an HDMI out, and the size is 2″ smaller than the 1201N. Here, size makes a big difference.

   So if you want any sort of 1080P playback utilizing a large range of input files while also maintaining multi-tasking at a sub-$500 price with reasonable battery life, the 1201N is the best option!

   UPDATE (03/01/10): Engadget has reported on an updated, next-gen 1201PN model at this year’s CeBIT. The Dual Atom 330s may be substituted with a single Atom N450, but the Ion replaced with Ion 2, which features switchable graphics and up to 10 hours of battery life. It appears that even with the single and weaker Atom N450, the 1201PN can still handle 1080P media. Everything else is the same. The 1201PN improves 3DMark scores by 33%; 1503 compared to 2000, in recent tests. My thoughts are that overall performance wise, the 1201N with its Dual Core Atoms still trumps the upcoming 1201PN. The 1201PN’s lone single core N450 is going to be the big bottleneck. The only area where the 1201PN is superior, is in the battery life department, with its Ion2 capabilities.

   UPDATE (03/12/10): Intel has announced that they will release a future dual-core N500 chip, based on the D510 chips currently used in nettop systems. If Asus were to release an N500 netbook with Ion2 graphics, then I think that will be my next netbook.
2. SJR says:

   June 1, 2010 at 12:34 am

   Review by SJR for ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1201N-PU17-BK 12.1-Inch Black Netbook – 5 Hours of Battery Life
   Rating:
   I am a huge gadget person and own numerous portable devices. This is my 4th laptop that I have owned and it is the perfect blend of portability and performance. All of my past laptops have been Dell Inspirons 15 inch machines that have treated me well, but I wanted something that I could carry around without the hassle of it taking up my entire travel bag. I played around with other 10.1 inch nebooks, but found them to be too small and not worth the hassle, especially since I have a Blackberry smartphone which can pretty much do everything a typical netbook can do. I looked at the HP Mini that offered the Ion Nvidia graphic card and had a slightly bigger 11.6 screen and almost purchased that device until I saw the Asus 1201N in a website’s review. I noticed the Asus had a dual core atom and included all the upgrades of an HP 311 mini. I immediately found this Asus being sold on another vendor site (would have definitely bought from Amazon cause I have never been dissatisfied with this site, but it wasn’t available yet) and purchased. I have not regretted the decision. The dual atom processor and the ION NVIDIA graphic card means you don’t sacrifice as much functionality as you would with your typical netbook. I basically use it to do office work, light gaming and multimedia stuff like iTunes and watching movies (via web and locally) and have not disappointed. Below, in summary, are some of the pros and cons:

   Pros:

   - Outstanding screen resolution – high definition and crystal clear.
   
   - perfect size – compared to the Dell mini, which is 10.1 the Asus 1201N machine is not that much bigger in size when folded, yet the screen offers a lot more view ability with 12.1 inches than a 10.1 inch screen.
   
   - Plays multimedia pretty well. I have noticed some slowness with Hulu, but I have read this is a problem with Flash that is supposed to eventually be worked out.
   
   - Windows 7 Home Premium included. The HP Mini I was looking at had XP Home on it for the same price (assuming the other features included).
   
   - Pretty quick loading up – less than a minute to fully boot and be ready to roll.
   
   - stays pretty cool other than a small area on the left that disperses the heat.
   
   - Various power modes you can set to balance efficiency versus performance.
   
   - Very competitive price given HDD size and all the included features like Bluetooth and SD media reader.

   Cons:

   - Battery only goes for about 4.5 hours at best and takes awhile to charge (this also might be because I am using high performance mode at the least so to be fair there is a power saving mode I have not tried).
   
   - Keyboard sometimes is a little less responsive than typical keyboard. Half keystrokes don’t necessarily work when typing quickly. This is not a big issue.

   Overall I am very satisfied with this netbook. I did quite a bit of research and was between a high power netbook like this one, a ULV (ultra low voltage), or a smaller laptop. In the end I felt this machine was the best option for the price. This machine seemed more powerful than any ULV in the same price range (when considering the ION Nvidia graphic card) and when you started going into higher price ranges, you were almost better off with a low end laptop. The battery is definitely not going to provide your typical 5-10 hrs of time other netbooks/ULVs provide, but with more performance power, you are going to sacrifice a little battery life. The way I look at it, I can always buy another battery to carry around, but I can’t just turn other netbooks into higher performance machines, when I need it.

   ****UPDATE****

   I’ve gotten to play around with this netbook a little more since my initial review and I am happy to report that the 1080p on this unit is amazing given it is only a “netbook”. I was able to hook it up to both a 40 inch and 65 inch TV using an HDMI cable and the unit was immediately displaying on the screen in full HD without a hitch. In addition, I joined Netflixs and was able to run movies seamlessly from their Streaming Internet Movies On Demand application. Hulu is still a little choppy, but given Netflixs works great, I now have some sort of proof it is the Flash application Hulu is using and not the hardware causing any problems.
   
3. skyward01 says:

   June 1, 2010 at 1:03 am

   Review by skyward01 for ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1201N-PU17-BK 12.1-Inch Black Netbook – 5 Hours of Battery Life
   Rating:
   Like many who have reviewed before me I chose the ASUS 1201N based on the positive feedback from buyers. I also read a glowing recommendation from Laptop Magazine. The size is perfect and the ASUS 1201N is a nice, slim design.

   However, the slow hard drive is noticeable and “Super Performance” mode still doesn’t cut it (my wife’s ASUS 1005HA is more responsive). I see that several buyers upgraded to a 7200rpm drive. I have already purchased and upgraded the RAM to 4GB (this does nothing for speed but it allows me to have a whole lot more going on at one time). So perhaps a hard drive upgrade is in order but spending $200 to upgrade memory and hard drive on a $500 machine puts it in another product class and kind of defeats the purpose of buying at this price point to start with.

   First, however, I have to see about a new problem that has arisen recently.

   About a week after receiving my ASUS 1201N it started “randomly” shutting off. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason. It could be running on AC or battery and I might have five applications open or none. The machine is vented well.

   So I Googled “asus 1201n shuts off” and selected the ASUSTek Computer Inc. Forum link. For the next half hour my stomach lurched as I read report after report (seven pages at the time) of buyers having the same problem. Sometimes the issue seemed related to the USB mouse driver, other times to overheating because the cooling fan failed to start after awaking from sleep mode. At the time I am writing this review ASUS does not seem to have a solution and buyers had started returning their 1201Ns.

   So I will give this another week or so and see if the problem can be resolved with a BIOS fix or software patch and then I’ll decide if I will return the machine.

   UPDATE: March 21, 2010 – ASUS released a BIOS upgrade that seems to have fixed the shutdown problem. I’ve been running almost two weeks now without a blue screen or any of the other annoying shutdown problems. Have decided to keep this machine and upgrade my rating to four stars. Still wish the machine was a little more responsive.
4. Rounin says:

   June 1, 2010 at 1:59 am

   Review by Rounin for ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1201N-PU17-BK 12.1-Inch Black Netbook – 5 Hours of Battery Life
   Rating:
   Thought a netbook could not handle the new games? Well wrong. The ASUS Eee PC 1201N is just what any avid gamer wants while traveling light. Granted the AUS Eee PC 1201N does not have the horse power to run CPU intensive apps … but who wants that when you are on the go. Email, Web Surfing, Blogging, Tweeting, IM’ing and Video Chat are what you basically want to run in a netbook; and GAMES for those looking to frag and pwn whenever they can. A lot of folks tout about battery life. I’m getting approx 3-4hrs on the 1201n not the best, but I’m never too far from an power outlet.

   Little know fact: The 1201n can support 64bit os (i.e., window 7 64bit) This allows you to take advantage of memory over 3.5GB (up to 8GB). By default you get Window 7 32bit and 2GB or RAM (not too shabby). Also, the Atom 330N can be over-clocked .. I’ll just leave it at that.

   Now, there are lots of reviews on the ASUS 1201N on the net (mostly positive, so you don’t need me to convince you.) I you are looking for a netbook that does the basic w/o the need of game and HD-media, you can get any cheap $200-300 netbooks (sub $200 if you search hard enough.) However if you are in the hankering for gaming and HD-meida, you’ll need either a netbook or notebook with a pretty powerful graphic. The Asus 1201n has the Nvidia ION, which out-powers any other integrated chipset in the netbook and low-end notebook market. If you were to look for a good video chipset in a Notebook, expect to spend close to (and even over) $1K. So, the fact that the ASUS 1201n is sub $500 to me is a good deal. Now mind you, if want to wait … there will always be better, powerful and probably cheaper netbook coming around the corner. My personal advice on waiting is: You’ll grow old waiting before you’ll buy one because there’ll always a better one down the road and so on. The decision is ultimately yours. Think what you what and how you will use it; not occasionally, but seriously. You will not regret your decision.

   All in all, I love this little netbook, it’s doing exactly what I wanted when I’m on the move … wish it was a bit smaller still though :p

   Hope this review helps.
5. Carel Miske says:

   June 1, 2010 at 2:13 am

   Review by Carel Miske for ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1201N-PU17-BK 12.1-Inch Black Netbook – 5 Hours of Battery Life
   Rating:
   I’m an MIS (Management Information Systems) student. I needed a laptop or netbook I could take with me to the labs that was capable of decently matching the power of a desktop system and that didn’t weigh 10+ pounds and break my student-sized budget. The ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1201N met and far exceeded my needs and expectations.

   The straight out of the box Windows Performance Rating and Information:
   
   Base Score: 3.3
   
   Processor: 3.3
   
   Memory: 4.6 (2 GB)
   
   Graphics: 4.2
   
   Gaming Graphics: 5.2
   
   Primary Hard Disk: 5.9
   
   System type: 32-bit operating system
   
   64-bit capable: Yes
   
   Processor cores: 2

   Graphics:
   
   NVIDIA ION
   
   Dedicated graphics memory: 256 MB
   
   Dedicated system memory: 64 MB
   
   Shared system memory: 575 MB
   
   Total available graphics memory: 895 MB
   
   Primary monitor resolution: 1366 x 768
   
   Direct X version: DirectX 10

   The hard drive is partitioned into two drives (100 GB and 123 GB). I actually prefer to install all of my software on one drive/partition and save all my work on another. So, I like the fact that this arrangement is already setup and running when the machine arrives. You also get a year of access to a 500 GB virtual drive. The virtual drive seems to work well, but, if I need more space, I’ll purchase an external drive so that access to my work doesn’t rely on an internet connection.

   Without making any changes, I hooked up an external optical drive and installed Adobe Design Premium Creative Suite 4 and gave the system a workout by doing a homework assignment on it. I had Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Word 2007, Firefox, and Internet Explorer all running at the same time. It met my demands and far exceeded my expectations. Among other things, I have since added the standard Apache server (for PHP and mySQL development), Flex 3, and Microsoft Office Professional and SQL Server. This powerful little netbook does everything I ask it to do and seems ready for more. It’s a great system for designers, developers and business professionals.

   As is standard with Atom processors, the processor is the bottleneck for the system performance. Except for about a 5-15% lag when doing intensive processing, I haven’t noticed a real performance dip when comparing this netbook to my desktop systems (Dell Inspiron and Dell XPS). Adding an extra 2 GB of RAM would improve the system performance and is something I plan to do very soon.

   The touchpad is very responsive and, unlike many systems, it doesn’t pick up my wrist movement very often (I touch type). It also has a function switch to quickly turn off the touchpad when needed. The keyboard keys are well spaced and it took me very little effort to adjust to the layout. The lack of a number pad bothers me a bit, but it is understandably necessary on this size of a system.

   I prefer matte screens and was a bit worried about the glossy screen giving me literal and physical headaches. The screen glare is minimal even when I have a lamp behind me or beside me. Glare might be a problem if I sat with my back to an open window with streaming sunlight pouring in. But, it handles standard room lighting well.

   I haven’t tried any 3D games on it, so I can’t say how powerful it would be as a gaming machine. It works for standard casual games and should run most 3D games on lower settings. I feel more limited by the 12.1″ screen size than the processor and graphics card when it comes to gaming: I prefer games on a 20+ inch screen.

   Cons: The transformer box on the power cable gets hot enough that it’s painful to touch. The power cord attachment is also a bit loose and has disconnected a few times when I moved the machine. The vent on the left also gets hot enough that it might be uncomfortable for a left-handed person to use an external mouse positioned near it. The sound from the speakers is a bit tinny, but fantastic through headphones. It needs a more powerful battery as I only get about 2 to 3.5 hours of battery life before it needs a charge.