Introduction

Just over a year ago, ASUS made some big waves in the mobile computing world with the launch of the Eee PC. The idea was to make an ultra small laptop that could provide "enough" computing power for a very low price -- something like an oversized PDA but with a full OS and a standard user interface. The concept seems simple and obvious in retrospect, and the Eee PC has created an entirely new category of laptop: the netbook. Competition in this market that ASUS spawned has become fierce, with Dell, HP, Acer, and others now shipping netbook PCs ranging in size from the same 7" chassis as the original Eee PC up to 10" models.

One of the interesting corollaries to this whole story is the ultraportable market, typically consisting of 10" to 12" laptops designed for corporate users that want mobility and a lightweight form factor above all else. We've reviewed a few of these laptops over the years, and we always end up with the impression that, sure, these things are light and offer good battery life, but performance is often terrible and frankly the cost is often a major deterrent. It's not unusual to see prices upwards of $2000 for such a laptop, so mostly they end up in the hands of corporate employees.

So we now have the $300 to $500 netbook and the $1500+ ultraportable markets, but there's a gaping hole for those that would like a small, inexpensive PC like a netbook, but with better quality, features, and performance. Enter the ASUS N10JC, which ASUS is billing as a "corporate netbook". What makes this more of a corporate netbook than something like the Eee PC 1000? Only a few minor differences, really: an exterior that looks a little nicer, a larger battery, a fingerprint scanner, and a two-year global ASUS warranty. Those are all nice things to have, certainly, and alone they might be enough to convince people to shell out the extra money.

There's a bit more to sweeten the pot, however, like the inclusion of an NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS 256MB. The LCD panel may also be a bit better -- certainly the N10JC has a good panel, but we haven't personally used the Eee PC 1000 so we're not sure if it's the same panel or not. The entire package is still very reasonably priced too, at just $650. The interesting question is going to be how well this netbook performs in comparison to some of the ultraportables we've reviewed, like ASUS' own U2E and U6V -- both laptops that cost over twice as much.

Specifications and Features

ASUS N10JC Specifications
Processor	Intel Atom N270 (single-core 1.6GHz 512K with Hyper-Threading)
Chipset	Intel 945GSE + ICH7M-U
Memory	1x1024MB DDR2-667 (Running at 4-4-4 DDR2-533)
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GT 256MB + Intel GMA 950
Display	10.2" WSVGA (1024x600) Glossy LED Backlighting, mfg. by Chuanghwa Picture Tubes
Hard Drive	160GB 5400RPM 8MB Seagate Momentus 5400.5 3Gb/s (ST9160310AS)
Optical Drive	N/A
Networking	Integrated Gigabit Ethernet Atheros AR5007EG 802.11b/g
Audio	2-Channel HD Audio (2.0 Speakers)
Battery	6-Cell 53Whr 3-Cell optional
Front Side	Flash Reader (SD, MMC, MS, MS)
Left Side	2 x USB 2.0 HDMI WiFi On/Off Switch IGP/Discrete GPU Switch Kensington Lock Cooling Exhaust
Right Side	VGA 1 x USB 2.0 ExpressCard/34 Ethernet Power Connector Microphone and Headphone Jacks
Back Side	None
Operating System	Windows XP Home
Dimensions	10.87" x 7.68" x 1.46" (WxDxH)
Weight	3.1 lbs with 3-cell battery ~3.3 lbs with 6-cell battery
Extras	1.3MP Webcam Fingerprint Scanner Carrying Case Express Gate by SplashTop
Warranty	2-year ASUS Global 1-year Accidental Damage and Battery 30-day Zero Bright Dot LCD
Price	Starting at $633 shipped (plus tax)

We've already discussed some of the specifications on the previous page, but here's the full summary. Like many new netbooks, ASUS uses Intel's latest Atom CPU, this time the N270. This is a single-core Atom running at 1.6GHz -- or 800MHz when things aren't as busy (i.e. at idle). Note that while it's a single-core chip, Atom/N270 has the ability to run two threads simultaneously per core (i.e. Hyper-Threading), so Windows Task Manager shows two CPU graphs. The net result is that power consumption for the CPU should be much lower than that of any of the other ULV mobile CPUs like the Core 2 Duo U7500, although performance is also going to be lower. That leads to much better battery life than we've seen on any other recent notebook... but we'll get to that later.

While the Atom uses a 45nm process technology, as we've discussed previously the current iteration still teams up with an older chipset, in this case the 945GM-E. That's a 90nm chip, which means it's larger and consumes significantly more power than the N270; the final result is still good in terms of power requirements, but we can only imagine how much better things will get when we start seeing Intel's future Atom CPU/chipset platform, codenamed Moorestown -- or the 32nm Medfield Atom variant due out in 2010. Of course, CPUs and chipsets only account for a portion of the power demands, so let's look at the rest of the system.

ASUS chose to save money and increase storage capacity by including a traditional 160GB HDD. While SSDs may be all the rage these days, the fact remains that prices are much higher and capacity is much lower; a 128GB SSD would easily cost 5X as much as the 160GB Seagate HDD, and the best models that offer truly better performance cost even more money and may not even provide significant power savings. Also of note in the storage department is that there's no optical drive; that's not too surprising with the small 10.2" chassis, but it does mean you will need to use the network connection or a USB drive to install additional software.

One area that was a real sore spot with us on the original ASUS Eee PC was the tiny LCD with a low 800x480 native resolution. Simply put, there are far too many applications where you need more than 480 pixels of screen height. Later Eee PCs have addressed that by increasing the LCD size and native resolution, and the N10JC follows that trend by offering a 1024x600 LCD. That's enough to handle most of what I need to do on a laptop, but honestly it's still a painful downgrade from 24" and 30" desktop LCDs. It's fine for reading email, writing a few documents, or even watching movies in a pinch; photo editing on the other hand is something that really demands much higher resolutions. Besides the size and resolution, one interesting thing about the LCD panel is that it happens to be the brightest laptop LCD we've ever tested, topping out at nearly 300 nits! It's nice to get a good range of brightness levels, and we could use anything from about 8% brightness (minimum brightness is only suitable for use in very dark environments) up to the maximum without trouble. ASUS offers 16 steps of brightness for the LCD, and at higher settings it's bright enough that you don't even notice the reflective surface (unless you're in a very bright environment).

One component in the N10JC that may seem out of place is the inclusion of a GeForce 9300M GS discrete GPU; after all, this isn't a high-powered laptop, and it's not running Vista, so why even bother with a discrete GPU? Well, it turns out we did find one good reason for the inclusion: movie decoding, specifically watching certain H.264 content, was too much for the CPU, but the combination of the GPU with the right software handled the task with aplomb. The best part is that you can switch between the integrated GMA 950 Intel graphics and the 9300M at the flick of a switch, although a reboot is required. Battery life improves by up to 50% when the discrete GPU is disabled, so it's great to see users get both the option for GPU performance/video decoding offload as well as improved battery life. Another plus in the video department is that the N10JC includes both VGA and HDMI outputs, the latter being something you don't normally find in a netbook.

The remaining features are mostly what you'd expect: 802.11b/g WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet, USB ports, an ExpressCard/34 slot, and a flash memory reader. One item that does disappoint us is the inclusion of only 1GB of RAM. Moreover, there's only one SO-DIMM slot and the chipset only supports 1GB, so you're stuck with 1GB. If you want 2GB, you'll need to move to the more expensive N10J, which also includes Windows Vista Business -- really not a bad move. Considering the current cost of 2GB DIMMs, we would have liked to see all N10 models support and ship with 2GB RAM, even if it bumped the price up another $25 to $50.

Physical Overview

We've talked a lot about what the N10JC includes, but appearance also matters. We think the N10JC looks better than most other netbooks, which goes with the corporate target market, although it's still made out of a hard plastic so it's not going to impress as much as something like the new MacBooks.

The top of the laptop is chiefly a champagne/silver colored glossy plastic, as is the palm rest. The keyboard, LCD border, and bottom of the chassis are all black, with glossy surfacing on the LCD bezel and a matte finish elsewhere. Silver trim on the touchpad and quick access panel above the keyboard contribute to an overall attractive appearance.

Getting at the internals is pretty simple, and there's not a whole lot in there to mess with. A single large access panel covers a large section of the bottom of the laptop, and removing it allows you to upgrade memory or the hard drive if the need arises. The single mini PCI slot is also accessible, should you desire to upgrade the WiFi to 802.11n (other N10J models ship with 802.11n if you're interested). Upgrading the CPU or GPU generally isn't possible on netbooks, and even accessing the CPU requires you to fully dismantle the laptop chassis; we didn't do that, as there's nothing faster than the N270 supported right now.

Day-to-Day Use

As you might expect given the specs, the N10JC isn't going to be an ultra fast laptop. Instead, it competes in the realm of "fast enough" devices where other features take precedence. We grew quite fond of the laptop during our time with it; it doesn't weigh a lot or take up much space, making for a great portable PC. In addition, battery life is extremely good, helped in no small part by the Atom CPU. Loading web pages did take noticeably longer than on faster systems, but it wasn't so bad that we couldn't live with the small compromise. Besides, the N10JC still felt about as fast as the U7500 laptops we've tested and with a much more palatable price tag. We've liked the portability of other options from ASUS, Dell, Gateway, HP, etc. but always felt like we were spending a lot of money just for the privilege of owning a small laptop -- one that still ended up feeling sluggish in certain tasks.

All day computing is definitely a viable option with the N10JC, as we'll see in the battery tests. You might not be able to use the laptop for eight hours straight, but with periodic breaks and use of the sleep mode, getting over eight hours is possible -- just remember to leave the 9300M disabled or you'll get significantly less use without plugging in. Another interesting item is that cranking up the LCD brightness didn't dramatically affect battery life; we normally test with the LCD set to 100 nits to equalize things, but cranking the brightness up to the maximum ~280 nits still provided nearly five hours of continuous use.

The LCD is one of the really great parts about the N10JC. Too often we end up with inexpensive laptops that have clearly inferior displays. This may not be the best laptop LCD we've ever tested, but it does provide a great range of brightness while still providing good contrast and color accuracy. Even viewing angles are a bit better than many of the other TN panels we've used. The LCD is manufactured by Chuanghwa Picture Tubes (CPT), though we couldn't confirm the actual model; the display uses LED backlighting so it appears to be the CLAA102NA0ACW. Whatever the panel, the LCD can get very bright and still not use a whole lot of power. The glossy surface is about the only area we might complain about, but we found that cranking up the brightness did help to eliminate most reflections. We just wish we could get a 1280x800 LCD in there instead, as even at 1024x600 there's not a lot of real estate in Windows.

One major complaint we had with the original Eee PC was the small keyboard. Users with dainty hands and fingers probably don't mind the size, but for many people the keys were simply too cramped. The N10JC (and the Eee PC 1000) have addressed that issue by moving to a larger chassis. This still isn't a full size keyboard, but the alphanumeric keys are the proper size -- or at least close enough that we couldn't tell the difference. I ran through some online typing tests on the N10JC and my regular desktop with a Microsoft Natural keyboard just to see how much of a difference -- if any -- there would be. My first few tests on the N10JC were noticeably slower, coming in at just over 50 WPM compared to my normal 65-70 WPM. By the time I had used the N10JC for 15-20 minutes, however, the gap had shrunk to only a 5% difference. I still felt more fatigue from typing compared to the MS Natural, since 10" keyboards certainly don't qualify as ergonomic, but unless you're doing a whole lot of typing it shouldn't be a problem.

Our overall subjective impression of the N10JC is that this is what we really wanted from the first Eee PC. Oh, there are certainly users out there that prefer the smaller 7" to 9" netbooks, but we like to have just a bit more size for the display and keyboard. All of the other features we might want are also present, including a decent webcam, a great LCD, and a sufficient number of expansion ports. The inclusion of a discrete GPU that can boost graphics performance up to the level where low to medium detail settings in most titles are viable is merely an added bonus... and it also allowed us to play back some HD content that proved too much for the Atom CPU alone. The only minor complaints we can come up are the glossy LCD (we'd prefer a matte finish) with its low native resolution, and we wish it would have come with 2GB of RAM, though Windows XP with 1GB certainly isn't the end of the world.

Performance Evaluation

We're not going to run through an extensive suite of software testing on the N10JC, as you should already know that it aims to be fast enough to be useful rather than to set any performance records. Any CPU intensive tasks are going to struggle, but normal office work and internet surfing posed no serious problem. As this is a Windows XP laptop, we do have to omit testing with PCMark Vantage and 3DMark Vantage, but we did run the older versions along with a couple other tests. Here are the results, with comparisons to other recently tested notebooks. (Sorry -- other than battery life testing on the original ASUS Eee PC, we don't have any comparison points with other networks.)

Starting with PCMark, we immediately see that overall performance is going to be quite a bit lower than modern laptops. That's the case with pretty much all of the current netbooks, but you should know going in that you are looking at performance roughly equal to a decent laptop from three years ago.

One interesting point is that the Hyper-Threading present in the Intel Atom chip appears to help a lot more than in other implementations, increasing overall performance by 53% over single threaded rendering. That still can't compete with the 80%+ improvements seen on Core 2 Duo systems, but the in-order Adam core definitely benefits more from SMT than traditional out-of-order architectures.

Overall, performance in CPU intensive tasks is very poor compared to any modern system; obviously, you shouldn't plan to run these tasks on a netbook unless you are very patient. In less strenuous applications, the CPU may not be as much of a bottleneck -- for example, office applications and web surfing were fast enough that we didn't have any serious complaints. Still, it's important to have appropriate expectations.

So if raw performance isn't one of the critical factors, what is? We would certainly rate battery life near the top of the list, so let's look at that next.

Battery Life and Power

We will start with measurements of power use with the laptop plugged into the wall. Keep in mind that some power saving features are not fully functional unless you are running on battery power, but it's still interesting to compare power requirements with other laptops under similar conditions.

We see a significant drop in power requirements relative to the ultra low voltage Core 2 Duo U9500, especially when we disabled the 9300M. In best case scenarios, we should see almost twice the battery life for the same size battery capacity, and at worst battery life using the GMA 950 should still be 50% better. Even with the discrete graphics enabled, battery life should still be better than the U2E by a decent amount.

We don't have results for all of the test systems under each test scenario, but probably the most interesting performance metric is going to be battery life while surfing the web. There we see that the N10JC just manages to edge out the new Apple MacBooks, nearly matching the U2E with a 9-cell battery. That's great for Windows performance, but unfortunately you need to keep two things in mind. First, the Apple MacBook line is still offering better battery life relative to battery capacity. Second, the same MacBooks all offer quite a bit more performance -- in most cases they're at least twice as fast as the N10JC. That's the bad news; the good news? The ASUS N10JC still costs half as much as the cheapest MacBook, which definitely works in its favor.

One other item we have to address is the video decoding performance. x264 playback totally failed to stay in sync when we tried to watch a movie using just the CPU. We still ran the 720p battery tests, but if you want to watch such content you will need to enable the 9300M. We used Media Player Classic Home Theater (WMP-HC), following this guide, and didn't experience any problems. CPU usage dropped from 80%+ with noticeably delayed video to under 20% with no discernible synchronization problems.

We should also mention that system temperatures and noise levels on the N10JC are great. Temperatures never got above 32°C during testing, and the fan rarely kicked up to higher RPMs except during extended stress testing or gaming. We could not measure noise levels above the threshold of our SPL meter (30 dB).

LCD Quality

We've already praised the LCD quite a bit during our subjective evaluation, but we also ran our standard hardware tests as well. As usual, we test with ColorEyes Display Pro with two colorimeters, the DTP-94 and the i1 Display2. Results below are for the best performance out of these two colorimeters -- in most cases the DTP-94 leads by a small margin.

Color accuracy is very good for a laptop; the N10JC places at the top of the color accuracy charts for tested laptops. Color gamut unfortunately is only middle of the road -- and we're still waiting for a laptop that can manage anything above 80% color gamut. What's really impressive to us as the brightness level, reaching nearly 300 nits! Now you're probably thinking, "Fine, but what does that do to battery life?" That's what was really surprising: power draw only increases by ~2W, and battery life dropped by less than 20 minutes. We know plenty of people that don't like reflective screens, but other than working in very bright light (i.e. outdoors in the sunshine) the high maximum brightness can generally overcome any reflections. And if you're working indoors, you can still easily turn down the display brightness to a more comfortable level.

We would still love to see a high color gamut LCD in a laptop -- and something other than a TN panel would be awesome -- but outside of that the display on the N10JC is about as good as it gets. We also noted that vertical viewing angles were much better than any of the other TN panel laptops we have around. Hopefully we can start to see other laptops with similar quality displays, only with higher resolution, larger LCD panels.

Graphics Performance

We also ran some graphics performance tests for quick reference. We don't have any comparable gaming results at 1024x600 for other laptops, so we're comparing the N10JC to itself, with and without the 9300M. For 3DMark, we used an external display in order to test at the standard resolutions.

ASUS N10JC Gaming Performance @ 1024x600 Low Quality
GPU	9300M	GMA 950
Company of Heroes	40.4	8.4
Unreal Tournament 3	30.41	Fail!

Obviously this is not going to be a gaming powerhouse, but at the native 1024x600 resolution the GeForce 9300M is capable of running many games at low to medium detail. Note that the slow CPU is also going to be a bottleneck in certain titles; unreal tournament for example scored the same at 800x600 as at 1024x600, indicating a CPU bottleneck. The 9300M certainly won't set any performance records, but it does offer nearly 5 times the performance of the GMA 950. It also allows you to offload video decoding, which is definitely required for high definition content -- the Atom N270 completely choked on any H.264 content without GPU assistance.

Something else the 9300M brings to the table is compatibility. You will notice that we put "fail" under Unreal Tournament 3 with the GMA 950. There will certainly be plenty of other games that won't run on the integrated graphics, so it's nice to be able to flip a switch, reboot the system, and meet the necessary GPU requirements. It would be even better if we didn't have to reboot the system, but it's not something we envision ourselves doing so frequently that it's a critical flaw on this type of laptop. Also remember that while the GPU does support DirectX 10, you will need to install and run Windows Vista to enable those features. Considering the GPU performance on tap, however, Windows XP and DX9 are a safer bet.

Conclusion

Is the N10JC the greatest laptop ever made? Well, no, it's not. However, it does so many things right for the target market that we can't help but be impressed. It uses a small form factor that still manages to be large enough to make it comfortable for daily use, and it comes with a great feature set and battery life.

Just over a year ago, we took our first look at the ASUS Eee PC. While it was an interesting novelty and almost cheap enough to purchase just as an electronic toy, I personally couldn't stand actually using the Eee PC. The keyboard was far too small for me to use comfortably, the display and resolution were too small, battery life wasn't that great, and frankly I wasn't very fond of the included Linux distribution. That's not to say that some people don't absolutely love the Eee PC; it's just that I'm not one of them (particularly the original 7" model).

The N10JC on the other hand makes for a great, inexpensive ultraportable. There are faster ultraportables, but they cost so much more that they price themselves out of contention. For under $700, you can get a 10.2" netbook that offers great battery life, a good feature set, and an excellent LCD. For some users, performance is still the critical metric, and you can certainly find a lot more power for the same price. I typically prefer to use my laptop as a portable office computer, focusing primarily on e-mail, Internet, and Microsoft Office use, and the N10JC does everything I need exceptionally well. The N10JC impressed us so much that we are presenting it with our Gold Editors' Choice award. Note that this award goes to the product line as a whole, including the N10J and the N10E; the N10J ships with 2GB RAM and Vista, while the N10E omits the 9300M -- perfect for those that don't care about HD movies or gaming.

There is plenty of competition in the netbook market compared to one year ago, but even with the heightened competition the N10JC still rises above the crowd. This is the only netbook to offer discrete graphics, enabling H.264 decoding with a lower power CPU. You also get a fingerprint scanner, a webcam, and Windows XP, which you don't find on some competing netbooks. Finally, and perhaps the real kicker, this is the best netbook LCD we've seen -- something we could easily spend an extra $100 to get -- and unlike the ASUS Eee PC line the N10JC comes with a two-year global warranty and one-year accidental damage protection. If you don't need all that, the Eee PC 1000HA shaves $200 off the price, which is certainly a viable alternative; the Acer Aspire One, Dell Mini are a couple more options. For those that prefer a bit higher quality, however, the N10JC delivers.