Asus N10J-A1 Netbook

Asus N10J-A1 Netbook

Published April 27, 2009 at 07:04:33 AM, by Thai Tan

Short Review: Asus N10J-A1 Netbook

Each netbook brings with it several great things and, as s form of balance (as should be in this world, given that we live in an imperfect one), some not quite nice things as well. In the Asus N10J-A1 netbook, you are likely to find both.

First, the good stuff. In a nutshell, the Asus N10J-A1 netbook has its own dedicated graphics chip which affords you the luxury of switching it off in order to extend your battery life. Second, it has a really great keyboard and several bonuses such as an HDMI port and also the ExpressCard slot. The not-so-great stuff includes a low resolution on the screen (which turns off some games) and its high price. In this sense, the Asus N10J-A1 netbook looks like a standard netbook on the outside but its uniqueness is discrete in that you have switchable graphics not commonly seen in most netbooks out on the market today. For this privilege you shell out more but then you also end up conserving your battery life too.

Not an Eee

The Asus N10J-A1 netbook is, as should be stressed, not an Eee. True, the Eee PC line has extended far beyond the ten inch devices (of which the Asus N10J-A1 netbook belongs to) but the NVidia GeForce 9300 graphics card with switch puts it in a class – and a line – all on its own. While most people actually do not need such a feature on netbooks (as netbooks were originally designed for simple and basic mobile computing while on the go), the prospect of casual gaming on your handy traveling companion is too good to resist for a lot. This is especially true if you are a game addict on the PC and can suffer through a low screen resolution and a low-power CPU to boot.

Design

Given its unique graphics card, you might think the Asus N10J-A1 netbook is on the stylish end of the rainbow. Rather, it maintains the traditional chunky features of a common netbook chassis. This simply means that the body is made from plastic and is enhanced with some metal accents. It accounts for the light weight, but trust that such a build is sturdy enough to be your roving bud. The keyboard is one of the best out there, as evidenced by its large and flat keys that make full use of as much typing surface area as possible. It doesn’t hold a candle to the excellent keyboard of the HP Mini 1000, but it definitely comes in second. More importantly, this model now has the correct right shift key – so say sayonara to accidentally pressing the up-arrow key. The 10.2 inch display at 1024 x 600, is very basic – there isn’t much to say about it besides the fact that it’s readable and bright.

With HDMI as well as an ExpressCard, this makes the Asus N10J-A1 netbook better than even the Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (with ExpressCard slot). If these two things make you feel like getting the Asus N10J-A1 netbook, then by all means you should go get one for yourself – as there aren’t any like this out there.

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Technical Specifications

• Processor: Intel Atom
• Mamory: 2 GB
• Harddrive: 160 GB
• OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
• Weight: 3.5 lbs
• Screen: 10.2 in inches
• Screen resolution: 1024 x 600