This is an overall great machine. The case design is sleek and stylish. The full size keyboard feels great and is easy to type on. It actually has speakers (most smaller 10” netbooks do not) and they have a good strong volume range to them. The touchpad feels nice with its raised dots and the multi-touch works well. The included bluetooth and wireless N is also a welcome addition not typically seen in this price range and size of PC.

The Netbook performs very well overall thanks to its dual core Atom CPU and the powerful Nvidia ION Graphics GPU with 2GB of Dual Channel DDR2 800 RAM (2×1GB DIMMS 0 Free).

On this Netbook I can run Adobe CS4, watch HD Video, even play games like “The Orange Box” or WoW on Medium settings and 768p res and get a an avg of 35 fps.

However it does have some negative aspects:

The battery life on avg is about 3.5-4 Hrs (with wireless on/ balanced power setting / web browsing) and it takes about 3 hrs if your using it to get a full charge back.

The trackpads single button is not the best, It can be noisy and usually misses my clicks (left or right) about 10% of the time. (good thing you can use tapping or a bluetooth wireless mouse)

The glossy finish is virtually impossible to keep clean it shows smudges and dirt easy.

Although this does have a dual core Atom CPU it is still the systems weakest component and it shows when trying to do CPU heavy tasks such as install/uninstall or extract a file. Windows Experience Index gives this PC a 3.3 with the CPU being the lowest sub score, gaming graphics at 5.3 and the Hdd at 5.9.

Overall it is a great machine with only a few compromises. I would give this product more accurately a 4.5/5 stars.

The keyboard is good, I can type relatively fast on it but let’s not pretend it’s up to snuff for someone who types a lot on full size keyboards. Likewise, the trackpad is a bit small but it is accurate enough.

The wifi with the bundled Windows 7 works great – even better than my wife’s Macbook. Connects quickly and has very strong reception.

The screen is gorgeous, especially for a netbook, though the glossy aspect is a turnoff for me – glare city. I’ve learned to live with it but a matte version would definitely be an improvement IMO.

The addition of an HDMI port is a nice touch, though I’m yet to try it.

My only other criticism would be that the battery life, while never advertised to be on par with other netbooks, is even lower than expected – my battery meter claims 3 hours on a full charge, though it’s probably a bit longer. But no way is it the advertised 5 hours, even if you’re not watching any video at all. Still, you have you realize what you’re getting into with this machine – it’s very powerful for something its size, and that power comes at a price. So if you need marathon battery life, I wouldn’t recommend this one. But if you want a powerful netbook that can play HD video (and is reasonably peppy besides, though not up to say, ULV standards), this is a very solid choice.

So if I could, I’d give it 4.5 stars.

However, the slow hard drive is noticeable and “Super Performance” mode still doesn’t cut it (my wife’s ASUS 1005HA is faster). 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.

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, to be exact) 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.

Sure wish I’d found that forum BEFORE I bought the ASUS 1201N because my decision would have been different. Hope maybe this review helps someone else.

I found this worked right out the box with absolutely no problems, an expereince I haven’t had since I bought my first iPod. At home, I can effortlessly and wirelessly screen movies stored on my Mac (of course, Macs have done this for years, but it’s nice), and connect to my wireless printer.

Out in the real world, I was able to easily grab a public wifi signal and watch live olympic hockey on [...] (Silverlight’s not so bad, either), watch Hulu and other streaming sites and skype with someone who was in an airplane (don’t tell the FAA).

If you need a netbook, this is truly the one to get, for now, as long as your mobile needs consist of basic office applications, web browsing and video watching.

I don’t know what people are complaining about, when they talk about the noise? Only unless you’re starting up massive, multiple programs, you wouldn’t hear it. It’s quiet as a mouse. Oh yea, and spring for the extra $20 and get the Silver. Not only is it more sleek, but it won’t show fingerprints (only on the border of the screen) Trust me, it gets annoying.

To sum up… Buy this netbook! It’s worth it.

ps, if you’re curious about the customer service, the shipment was delayed for 48 hours. No one told me why it never shipped, but 2 days later it showed up on my doorstep. I’m assuming they didn’t reply back, because they were on top of it. I’ll let it slide this time

The camera and microphone are totally acceptable for what they are and Skyping is easy with it. There is a VGA out and also an HDMI and both work really nicely. It easily handled my 1440×900 monitor with Maya 2010 fullscreen and firefox open on the laptop screen simultaneously. Great for video or music playback if you have headphones too.

I really like the feel of the keyboard and it’s a great size then again this is personal preference. The touch pad does have 2 finger response for scrolling etc. although it’s a little tricky to use, the touch pad itself however is great. Some reviewers complained about the left and right click being combined into one long button but I have no problems with it.

I find the battery life very reasonable giving usually about 4 hours doing things like programming, word processing, web surfing and 3D modelling, also it’s extremely quiet, pretty much silent for all intents and purposes. The weight is good too as I ride a bike and find it no trouble to carry with the power cable and a mouse.

My main gripe with the netbook is the reflective screen. I have come to expect this annoyance from notebook manufacturers, they don’t seem to understand that you can’t close the curtains if you’re outside. The case is a bit plasticy and doesn’t seem like it would withstand too much of a fall and since it’s reflective it’s a fingerprint magnet and needs constant wiping to stop it looking unclean. Also a minor annoyance is that if you rotate the power cable it pops out due to the design but just make sure you’re aware of this and don’t rotate it.

Overall a very nice netbook, definitely the best I’ve used and comparable to a lot of notebooks out there.

1) it supports 802.11n… but not on the 5GHz band. Sorry people, it’s 2.4GHz only.

2) ethernet port is only 10/100.

3) this thing is a finger print magnet, and the glossy screen makes is almost useless when used outdoors during the day.

4) Screen only folds back maybe 120 degrees, so you can’t use certain laptop stands that have you fold the laptop nearly flat.

5) gets great windows index scores… except for the processor which is holding everything back with a weak score of 3.3.

The good parts is this is the best netbook I’ve ever used; it can even play World of Warcraft on low settings, so I’m quite impressed.

Pros:

- Beautiful 12inch screen. Does not cause eye fatigue

- Light weight

- HDMI output

- Dual core processor ensures you have enough power for the basics and a little more

- The ION GPU is terrific for almost all the HD video I have used it for

- Nice keyboard

Cons:

- Battery life. If I unplug the computer, I can just about watch 2 full length movies while streaming to my TV. This is roughly 3 hours. I wish I had a little more battery life

- The track pad is not the greatest, although its not awful.

- Hulu skips a little bit when using firefox. I don’t know why. Its better with IE. But all other sites such as Youtube, fancast, etc. are perfect.

I would highly recommend this machine. If you can wait a little bit, the 1201PN will be out in a couple of months. Check that one out.

Overall, I couldn’t have been happier with this netbook.

My only complaint is the track pad and button. The button is a single bar and you click on each for left and right clicks. You have to push pretty hard and on the outer edges for it to click and found it easier to just tap the trackpad for clicking.

Also, the little bumps on the trackpad were annoying to me, and irritated my finger after prolonged usage.

It was delivered to me within 2 days of ordering it through Amazon, which was a terrific surprise