Asus Eee PC 1201N 12.1 inch Netbook (Intel Atom N330 1.6GHz + ION, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, Up to 8.5hrs battery life, WLAN, Bluetooth, Webcam, Windows 7 Home Premium) - Black

I have been using the EEe PC 701 for a while now as it has tremendous battery life and is small enough to fit into my bag, but the restrictions of tiny hard drive, incredibly long load times and the inability to run most of the programs I wanted made me want to upgrade. I have a desktop but need something powerful and easy to carry for work.

I have been looking at a range of Netbooks and eventually settled on the Samsung N210 or N220 (the same computer with a metallic finish and a subwoofer). These come in around £300 and have 11 hours battery life. So I started reading the reviews online and on Amazon and the overall view is that the computer needs a RAM upgrade to 2Gb RAM and then needs an upgrade from Windows 7 Starter which seems universally loathed, to Windows Home Premium. By the time you do this the computer weighs in at over £400.

So I looked at computers for around £400 to compare and found this one. It has 2gb of RAM, a multi-core Atom processor, and lovely screen and the new Nvidia ION graphics card. This is spec for spec considerably more powerful than the usual netbook which does have a knock on effect though on the battery. This is the only real drawback of the machine. It is supposed to run for about 5 hours and for the times I have used it on battery I have had about 4 to 5 hours out of it depending on what I am doing. Luckily the power supply is very small and light if you need to take it with you.

The computer uses a dual core Atom processor and this really makes a difference. But I think the biggest difference is the Nvidia ION graphics card. I decided for fun to download World of Warcraft onto it and it not only plays it but can do it at 25-30fps. I was amazed. I am sure something like Crysis would kill it dead but for a Netbook to be able to play games is a huge advance in my mind.

It uses Windows 7 Home Premium which is an excellent operating system. It opens files and programmes extremely quickly. Sound is very good for such a small machine and the screen looks fantastic. It streams HD video fluidly with no hiccups or drop out whatsoever. It also has a good range of ports like HDMI out if you want to present or watch a film on a bigger screen. The screen on the computer is very directional. If you are off centre it looks milky and it is also highly reflective. Another small drawback.

It has a good range of ports, 3 USB on the sides, HDMI out, VGA out and headphone and microphone ports. It has a decent enough webcam as well and comes installed with Skype. And it has Bluetooth and WiFi as well. The keyboard is also nicely made and spaced and much easier to type on than my old Eee PC.

To summarise I have ended up thinking of this machine as a decent laptop rather than a netbook. It doesn't have a DVD drive but so far that has been fine for me as I have been downloading the programs I need from the web and then using my activation keys from the purchased product which has been fine. But for the price this is a highly capable ultra portable machine. Yes, you take a hit on the battery for the performance but I would rather have the power and ease of use than the longer battery.

Pros:
Immensely powerful for such a small computer
Price for such power
Dual core processor
Excellent NVidia Ion graphics which can even run games like Warcraft
Decent 250gb hard drive
Lots of ports including USB and HDMI out
Good video streaming, nice screen and not bad sound
Lightweight and easy to use
Excellent keyboard
Windows 7 Home Premium

Cons:
Short battery life for a netbook at between 3 - 5 hours
No DVD drive (although no Netbooks have one)
Very directional screen, you need to be head on to it or it looks milky
The shiny body is a finger print magnet and shows scratches easily

That's it. Overall a really lovely little machine. Fast, powerful and compact

I bought this to replace an aging Samsung Q35 laptop. This is smaller and lighter and has a decent if not enormous battery life of between 3 and 4 hours. Where it scores though is in graphics ability, since it sports an Intel Ion GPU. This not only allows me to use some software that would not run on my previous machine but also considerably speeds up the graphics on existing software.

I occasionally do some video conversion with TMPGEnc Express and was pleased to see that it supports CUDA, available on the ION GPU. However, you need to install the Nvidia driver to make that available, not wonderfully easy as I had to choose one of four drivers after installation, all helpfully described as "Nvidia ION!" By trial and error I got there and now my video conversion times should be slashed.

The machine uses a dual core Atom processor and supports 64-bit Windows 7 but is supplied with the 32-bit OS pre-installed. I will live with that for a while before taking the plunge. I will then add another 2Gb of RAM. The Asus website only advertises 32-bit drivers but 64-bit drivers are available online.

I did a lot of research before choosing this netbook and the general opinion was that it was best-in-class but without the 10 hour battery life you can expect with other netbooks. That is the cost of a faster processor and GPU though.

Overall, if you want a high powered netbook then there is no beating this model, so take my advice and buy one!

I was looking for a very lightweight computer to be able to watch movies, access email, maybe do some photo editing and this stands out above the crowd. There's lots of discussion about whether this really is a netbook or a small laptop but to be honest I think it's a mute point - the reality is it's somewhere inbetween and while that means it won't necessarily meet everyone's needs it's a clever niche for those who need or want it - so similar to most new products/gadgets. Let me explain a bit more...

The biggest advantage of a laptop over a netbook is performance (more processor power, bigger screen, better graphics, more storage, more memory); conversely the biggest advantage of a netbook over a laptop is portability (less weight, less power usage). For me, the 1201n meets the middle ground perfectly - the screen (12" nVidia ION) is superb and has no problem playing HD videos full screen; the memory is good (2gb) and the hard drive fine (250gb). The processor is the dual core Atom 330 which has hyper threading... in practice this means it works as 4 processors although without the grunt of the higher end Intel Core processors. The weight is just over a kilo and I had no probs carrying it in a camera rucksack with some camera... a whole lot lighter than a normal laptop.

I've been using it to view movies (iPlayer and Sky Player) as well as editing photos with Photoshop Elements (I didn't try installing Photoshop CS4) and while not as fast as a desktop it's okay. Windows 7 is included which has lots of Asus addons (most quite annoying but the power management and webcam software is good).

The build quality is okay (a bit plasticy but reasonable) and the mousepad a bit irritating (the left and right mouse buttons are two ends of a bar so you can't easily press both at once to simulate a middle mouse button). The power connector is tiny (and I expect will get damaged)

One little gem though is the HDMI output - I've used this to output the movies from the netbook to a 1280p TV and the image (and sound quite surprisingly) is excellent.

I cannot recommend this machine enough... I know there will be many more entrants in this space and I'm sure it's going to get competitive. At circa £400 the price isn't bad either when you consider what you get for £300-£350