Asus N10
by on Wednesday 01 October 2008 15 Comments |
Since it’s small, light and has an Intel Atom N270 processor, we're sticking with calling the N10 a netbook, but Asus has different ideas about this entry-level model in its new N-Series range of portable PCs.
Like the three Centrino 2 models in the range, the N10 is actually the product of Asus’s laptop division rather than the one that developed the Eee PC, and so Asus is classing it as a laptop rather than a netbook.
But while there are some obvious similarities between the N10 and other netbooks, there are also some rather striking differences. If you saw our earlier hands-on video, you’ll know that perhaps the biggest is that the N10 is first ever Intel Atom-powered portable with a discrete 3D graphics chipset – the nVidia GeForce 9300M GS .
The N10 is bigger and bulkier than most netbooks, though it’s still both small and light enough to carry around all day without wondering if someone’s slipped a house brick into your hand luggage. Build quality is also a significant step up from the Eee PC range too, which isn’t to knock those netbooks, but rather to say that the N10 just look and feels much more like a traditional ultraportable.
Well, at least from the outside. The glossy finish paint job, smoothly sculpted lines and sparing use of shiny silver plastic parts make the N10 very easy on the eye, but lift the lid and there’s an odd design decision that spoils its otherwise flawless ultraportable good looks.
Despite having a diagonal measurement of just under 13 inches, the lid is home to a screen with a 10.2in diagonal, which results in a wide black bezel around all four sides. The visual effect isn’t quite as peculiar as that on the Eee PC 4G with its 7in screen, but it’s an obvious budget component on a laptop that’s otherwise devoid of cost-cutting measures.
The shrunken screen is also a little unfortunate because this could have been a great opportunity for Asus to slip in something other than a netbook-standard 1024 x 600 display. At the moment, the only netbook with any thing bigger than this is the HP Mini-Note 2133 and a similar 1280 x 768 screen would fit in very nicely with the N10. That’s not to knock the bright, vibrant LED-backlit screen Asus has opted for instead, although its glossy coating will not appeal to everyone.
Its screen may not capitalise on the increased dimensions, but the N10’s keyboard certainly does. The keyboard is around 90% of full size and together with the wide key tops, makes spells of prolonged typing a pleasure, which isn’t something you can say for many netbooks. The keys bottom-out a little too early for our taste, but that’s a minor quibble and something we suspect you’ll soon get used to. The keys are a whisker larger than those on the Asus Eee PC 1000 and are in a slightly different layout, but there are no keys in unusual places.
A Synaptics touchpad sits in the usual place, but this has two standard plastic mouse buttons rather than the unusual one-piece aluminium design found on Asus’ more recent Eee PCs. There’s a fingerprint scanner between the two buttons, too.
In addition to the usual netbook selection of ports, the N10 also has a couple of interesting extras in the shape of ExpressCard/34 slot and an HDMI. Less interesting, but just as useful is an SD Card slot, and there’s also a physical switch to disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth – though there’s still a keyboard shortcut for this.
As with every other Intel Atom-powered netbook, the N10’s graphics come courtesy of the Intel GMA 945 chipset. This is perfectly adequate for the kind of applications a netbook like this will be put to, but remember – this isn’t a netbook. So, that should make the presence of an nVidia GeForce 9300M GS graphics chipset particularly surprising – lots of laptops have discrete 3D graphics chips, after all…
A switch on the left the N10 flips between the two graphics modes, but you’ll need to reboot for the change to take effect. Of course the reason for having two graphics chipsets rather than just one 3D chipset is power-saving – the Intel chipset works best on battery power, leaving you to switch to the nVidia chipset when you’re back on mains power.
You might not expect much from the nVidia GeForce 9300M GS chipset, particularly when coupled with the 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, but the N10 performs surprisingly well with 3D games. Call of Duty 4 runs pretty well at the screen’s native 1024 x 600 resolution, though you’ll need to disable most of the visual effects to keep the frame rate going below 15fps – as this video shows.
Despite its punishing system requirements for the full visual experience, Crysis Warhead runs surprisingly well, too. Frame rates aren’t anywhere near as high as those in CoD4, but the small screen and comparatively low resolution do a good job of masking the fact that the visual detail settings all need to be set to ‘minimum’ to keep the game playable – as you can see this video.
We admit that it’s perhaps a little misleading to refer to the N10 as a ‘gaming netbook’, but make no mistake – the poky graphics chip and 250Gb hard disk mean that this little laptop is certainly up to the task, as long as you don’t mind sacrificing some image quality.
The N10’s overall performance isn’t much different to that of other Atom-powered netbooks, though. The 2Gb of RAM might be more than enough to cope with just about any task, but that 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor is not, and the N10 is no quicker than any other netbook we’ve reviewed. We were a bit surprised to discover that the N10 can’t quite play 720p QuickTime video smoothly enough for it to be watchable, in either Intel GMA 945 and nVidia GeForce 9300M GS graphics modes.
As far as battery life goes, well, we’re still in the dark. Our N10 was supplied without the six-cell battery that will ship in the UK and a spot of inclement weather in Taiwan meant that Asus wasn’t able to get one to us in time for this review (hence the big hole where the battery should be in the photographs). We expect battery life to be around the four-hour mark, but we’ll update this review with battery life figures as soon as we can.
Now we were going to end this review with a grumble about how manufacturers are starting to lose sight of the original netbook idea by cramming in ever higher specifications – but we’ll resist. Asus isn’t calling the N10 a netbook and it isn’t made by its netbook division, so we’ll be nice and pretend that it’s simply a small, cheap, ultraportable.
But that’s a bit of a problem. Yes, the N10 is small, but it isn’t really that cheap. With an expected street price of £499, the N10 costs more than many much more capable Core 2 Duo laptops. They’re not ultraportables, of course, but then technically, nor is the N10 – the Intel Atom processor is far too limited for that.
Of course, a netbook (or Atom-powered laptop…) is more than sufficient for the narrow range of tasks most people need a computer for and if you’re looking for a very portable PC with enough storage for all your stuff, a handy ExpressCard slot and the ability to satisfy your (limited) 3D gaming needs, then the N10 will suffice. If not, an MSI Wind U100 or one of its clones clone with a DIY hard drive upgrade is a cheaper option.
© Dennis Publishing
Comments
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Not a netbook, not a notebook... yet it seems strangely appealing to a person like me, who wanted a netbook, but was irked by the fact that recent games could NOT run on the with their dx7/dx8 intel chipsets.Thanks for trying Crysis out on it! I want to get one and see if it runs Spore! -
I've coined the term Not(e)book for this product! It sits on the fence I think... however it does fill a nice market niche in terms of an ultra-portable with decent gaming prowess. Will be very interested to see how it goes with battery life in general use. Nice review, and I linked to your earlier preview [url=http://www.electricvagabond.com/2008/09/asus-n10-notebook-has-respectable.html]on my site[/url]. The fingerprint scanner, large HDD and HDMI make for a nicely featured machine. However, the bevel around the screen is truly heinous and the keyboard sounds like it could be suffering a little bit from cheap-itis. I am sort of undecided about this one, on one hand I want to sell my Wind and get this, but on the other I don't want to slowly migrate to a full-sized notebook only to discover I'm about to go travelling with a brick in my bag. Anyway great review and thanks for helping with consumer decision making progress!
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Greetings: If Asus thinks they will sell the N10 at 500 pounds about $1050 Canadian, they are totaly missing the boat. Netbooks have to be priced well below $400US, or they will not sell. Regards Robert
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Maybe if asus held back launch and used the dual core atom...
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If they actually bothered to test 3dmarks like some koreans didhttp://www.notegear.com/Content/Content_View.asp?TNum=809&kind=2&gotopage=1use your own translatorbut they showed why there was a bezel, its for the wifi antennaand battery life with 3 cell around 2 hrs with normal usethey had the review out around 1 month ago
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Did I miss them or there is not a single reference to heat and noise in the whole review??I base my purchases mostly in those 2 parameters.
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I don't get it, you might want to use the nvidia 9300m all the time, and possibly have better battery life optimization and 3d capabilities. 3DMark06 Scores9200M GS:1742: [HP DV5] P7350,4GB2067: [Samsung Q310] P8400,4GB2574: [Samsung Q310] P8400,4GB, 9200M GS overclocked to Core 750MHz & Memory 750MHz9300M GS:2242: [Lenovo Thinkpad SL500] P8600,2GB1695: [Lenovo Thinkpad SL300] P8600,2GB Note: This 9300M GS is a 128MB version - explains the low score?2211: [Lenovo Thinkpad SL400] P8400,2GBamazon US had those n10j-a2 with xp downgrade as an extra CD. using vista forcing the card to run dx10, however with dx9 on xp the card will be more capable at higher fps
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yes i agree, however those 6 hour battery life on 6 cell will become 4 or 3.5. still pretty good !! some 1 will overclock this baby anyway
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do you think its possible to play starcraft 2 on this or any other netbook?
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Minimum System Requirements for Starcraft 2
Processor: 1.4 Ghz Processor
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Graphics card: 128 MB RAM video card capable of Hardware TnL. DX10 is not required, but will be supported by SC2 and Blizzard are considering adding DX10 specific effects.
Pixel Shader 2.0 (Officially Confirmed)
Just similar to warcraft3's this is not CPU intensive, u may able to get to highish settings -
so it might even work pretty good on a eee1000h?
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it can barely runs it. the onboard graphic on 1000h will run at probably the lowest setting. check this page http://www.starcraftwire.net/forums
/showthread.php?t=675
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gma 900 - 950 will probably wont run any 3d games at full speed trust me -
Hi there! nice review!
one thing that isn't commented though is that the geforce9300 chip should allow much higher screen resolution for external displays (like TFT). if N10 allows watching HD-video in 1920x1080, by turning screenres to 1920x1200 its a very good selling point. even if it dont have a optical reader, videos can be transfered to the hdd.
also photoshop and especially office applications can be worked with in high resolution.
i hope a driverpatch will be released to eee901 so that it will allow more than 1024x768 for ext screens. -
yes 9300m could do 1080p, the desktop version of 9300 has 16 unified shader, but this has 8, in theory 9300m is likely to be weaker than 8500gt desktop. with new drivers from laptopvideo2go.com 9300m should be able to decode 1080p on the fly. with nv panel u can set custom resolution anyway! (is maxed at 2048x1536)
the gma900 on the eee901, in theory gma900 supports up to 2048x1536, but wiki said 1600×1280. Does normal intel gma driver works with eee901 anyway? -
I specially like this netbook as compare to the feature. The bad part about this net book is the look. But this best foe office application's and also for gaming purposes. I rate this 8/10. The good thing about this netbook is that it's easy to update.
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