ASUS 10.2-inch N10 netbook priced at $849

Ah, fiddlesticks! Here we were hoping that somehow ASUS could pack a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive and NVIDIA's GeForce 9300M GS into a netbook for under half a grand, but deep down, we knew it wasn't to be. Instead, this (very) well-spec'd N10 is ringing up at $849 over at J&R's website, but that also buys you a 10.2-inch LCD, 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, a fingerprint reader, Windows Vista Business and a built-in webcam. Wondering when the charge will actually hit your card? "Coming Soon" is all we've got.

[Thanks, Rich]

[u07ch @ Sep 8th 2008 6:28AM]

at what point does a netbook become a umpc ?

[Tonicboy @ Sep 8th 2008 6:43AM]

A better question is, at what point does a netbook become an ultralight laptop?

[micrypt @ Sep 8th 2008 12:40PM]

A show of hands for everyone who's first reaction was the same as Tonicboy and u07ch's. The pricing's getting ridiculous.

[broli @ Sep 8th 2008 6:29AM]

The atom kills it.

[Homeboy @ Sep 8th 2008 6:43AM]

I concur. There no way I would pay nearly $850 for a computer sporting a 1.6 single core CPU. The only feature that makes this device stand out is the GPU compared with other netbooks. Other than that it's just an Eee disguised to look more premium.

[RyanTV @ Sep 8th 2008 9:20AM]

yah i might consider it if it had one of the new dual core atoms. not quite enough umph in the single core version. Other than that the specs look very respectable-like.

[loosely_coupled @ Sep 8th 2008 11:34PM]

+1! This would be a great notebook at the price if it actually had a Core 2 Duo ULV at roughly ~1.4.-1.6 Ghz. But an ATOM for $800???

[Adderz @ Sep 8th 2008 6:33AM]

God i hate this netbook craze.

Werent they supposed to be a cheap alternative to a notebook?

Where are the savings???? I spose they are saving on screen space and battery life....

[Adderz @ Sep 8th 2008 9:19AM]

Asus are going the wrong way. They need to go cheaper, not more expensive. Thats what Netbooks were SUPPOSED to be about. If i wanted a powerful mini notebook i would buy a Macbook Air or a Sony TZ.

Asus you stuffed this one up didnt you.

[kccboy2004 @ Sep 8th 2008 11:04AM]

@Adderz,

Can you please explain where you got that idea ?

I think that you need to re-look at your sources. Start by reading the Intel website. They are the inventors of the Netbook concept.

But let me tell you something that you don't seem to know (WARNING: I will come across as being condescending);

Before the Netbook came out, the small laptops were virtually unobtainable for less than $2000. (Check out Dell / Sony etc). The Netbook came along at the same time as projects like OLPC. The OLPC was aimed at developing countries and particularly to give children in areas without abundant electricity/teachers, the ability to educate their kids. The Netbook that is delivered to the developed world is there for a different purpose, to recognize the reason why MOST people use a computer; to surf and email. That is where the Eee PC came in..... at 7 inches, a low grade PC for a low grade purpose.

This beast is something else and clearly not for you. Get yourself an original 7 inch Eee PC . You will probably still find one at the source for the same price as a couple of good nights out (on your own). For that you will get yourself 512MB RAM, no hard drive, a tiny screen, a tiny keyboard...

I am wealthier than you (cue 'condescending') and have great needs when surfing the internet.

For my money I will get

A extra 1.5 GB RAM...

10.2" screen
Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz
250GB Hard Drive
GeForce 9300M GS
Webcam
802.11 N
Fingerprint Reader
Windows Vista Business


Lets face it... what are you going to spend the $500 on that you saved.... ( ok... cheap hookers / one mid-priced one).


Bottom line: This is not a cheap alternative to a Laptop. This is a smaller, less powerful less feature packed PC than a 14.1 Asus, but at the same time it is larger, more powerful and more feature packed than an Eee 901 PC.

You decide on your needs.

[loosely_coupled @ Sep 8th 2008 11:38PM]

@kccboy2004

Your comment is as worthless as this netbook. The netbook market was intended for small, cheap secondary laptops for basic tasks. If you want a powerful subnotebook, get a 10", 11", or 12" Toshiba, Panasonic or Sony with a Core 2 DUO, high-resolution screen, etc.

[Steve Paine @ Sep 11th 2008 10:55AM]

Netbook is just a marketing term.

If all you want is a pile of huge specs for little money then go ahead.

If you have a requirement and can justify the cost, you'll get your money's worth.
Start looking at your own needs, match them to a device and you'll be on your way to not having to worry about marketing terms. (methinks!)

Me, I like this device. Class. Great features. (6-cell, Fingerprint reader is worth a lot in my book) and a little bit of exclusivity. 1.6Ghz Atom does everything I want in a an effiicient way so i'd consider this device. Value, for me, seems good on this device.

I doubt ASUS are aiming for a million per month sales on this but if they can convert just 10% of the 901 or 1000H market, they'll probably be happy.

[Major4Play @ Sep 8th 2008 6:36AM]

Windows Vista on an Atom, no thanks ! Are Atom based computers not supposed to be cheap ? I'd rather have a ULV Core CPU for this money.

[Chris @ Sep 8th 2008 7:28AM]

I put Vista on my MSI Wind.

Not that you care, you just wanted to troll. It's ok, we've all been there man.

[Tonicboy @ Sep 8th 2008 8:08AM]

@Chris

Troll? You mean, kinda like how you just did?

[kccboy2004 @ Sep 8th 2008 11:11AM]

I agree with Chris.

I have 2 Atom based PC's running Vista Premium, perfectly well, with Aero. When I am hacking around with Multiple linked s/sheets with Macro's and Vlookup's running 10's of thousands of rows deep..... I use my AMD Phenom X3 with 4GB RAM 640GB 7200 F1 Spinpoint HDD on Vista (Desktop... - my desk is where I work, in a darkened room - no padding).

My Netbook is something that I get out of my purse when I need to do stuff on the fly.

[Josh @ Sep 18th 2008 6:37AM]

Try the 1.2Ghz Via C7 on the HP 2133, with Vista..

[BOGRASH @ Sep 8th 2008 6:40AM]

the eee 1000h should have had this gfx chip at no premium

[Meth @ Sep 8th 2008 7:24AM]

Hmm $300-$350 more than the already overpriced Eee 1000H JUST for a 9300M chipset. Seems a crappy deal to me. Much as I would like a "gaming netbook" this is just greedy and stupidly priced. Not buying this. Opportunity for a "MSI Wind Gamers Edition"

[L @ Sep 8th 2008 6:49AM]

Um, for that price it really should have a larger screen - there's definitely enough room for that with that huge ugly shining bezel...

[Ricardo @ Sep 8th 2008 6:50AM]

What's with the huge glossy bezel?

[dervheid @ Sep 8th 2008 6:58AM]

Seems to me there are a few people out there with the same question as me.
Already the screen sizes are creeping upwards, as are the storage capacities etc. For the sort of cash they're asking for some 'netbooks', you can get a fairly well spec'd 'full size' (15") laptop.
I'm with the "ain't netbooks supposed to be cheaper, smaller and handier than a laptop?" brigade.

[substance90 @ Sep 8th 2008 7:16AM]

If it had the dual core Atom...

[oneofmany @ Sep 8th 2008 7:31AM]

well ... here we go again. Another one of Asus' bastard children ... what pisses me off is that Asus seems to get away with about the dumbest engineering decisions. This is hardly the first time that they completely botch up a laptop design. The diy latops anyone?

[JAmerican @ Sep 8th 2008 7:36AM]

Now I see why ASUS made the EEE PC its own line. That way, they could take the same product, add a few things and charge more on the ASUS side. The LCD panel is the same exact one on the EEE 1000H.

[noname @ Sep 8th 2008 10:42AM]

i do not have much problem with the price - i would buy such device imediatelly, if it would have what I think a good netbook should have:
- small size
- tiny weight
- low temperatures, no noise

The problem is, that if the picture shows the real picture, than the framearound the lcd is so big, that it would be as big as some 14'' notebooks. I guess that the weight will be bigger then e.g. 13'3 big Air. And it seems it will have a fan, and so also higher temperatures.

I am still waiting for my netbooks of dreams:
- small size but with maximal LCD (best would be 13'' with almost no frame)
- weight bellow 1.5 kg
- no fan and low temperature (even with some "slow mode" option, for webpage editing, i do not need power)
- SSD (32 GB is enough)
- price bellow 1000$ is advantage

Today the only devices which fits most of those needs are air and vaio, both for around 2500$, but with too hot processors, so i cant't keep them on my knees.

[KilgoreTrout @ Sep 9th 2008 1:41PM]

look no further than the MSI wind, or if you're lucky enough the Medion miniAkoya.
Gigabyte's 10" convertible tablet PC would be an option too. Panasonic makes the R7 to answer to your needs and now LG released a 12" whose name I can't recall.
But after much research I (and many others beside me) came to conclusion that 10" is the sweet spot if the screen is of the right quality:9" being just too small, and 12" a waste.
Therefore the MSI wind (possibly the first batch) is by far the best available choice, if, as is probable, you cannot get a Medion mini Akoya which is based on the first batch of Atom/winXP , MSI Wind and added a few tricks and better looks.
I have found my white one on eBay and maybe you can get lucky too.

[Almadi @ Sep 8th 2008 7:54AM]

Does optical media have a restraining order against ASUS or something, cuz these eees keep getting bigger but I don't see no drive, and that aient no jive.

[Rick @ Sep 8th 2008 8:26AM]

There are two other cheaper versions of this to be sold across the pond as well.

[KilgoreTrout @ Sep 8th 2008 8:45AM]

No one with a functioning brain is gonna buy this thing.
I love netbooks, and I would buy one even if the price would be (nearly ) the same as that of a 13" or 15" lappie coz I belong to the unfortunate class of working men who actually has to lug his lappie across airports, countries,continents, and corridors; but since Asus has been beaten at its own game by the MSI wind and the Medion miniAkoya , they must offer something truly revolutionary or truly cheap to return to be players in the netbook game.
WTF is this thing Asus???

[KilgoreTrout @ Sep 8th 2008 8:45AM]

No one with a functioning brain is gonna buy this thing.
I love netbooks, and I would buy one even if the price would be (nearly ) the same as that of a 13" or 15" lappie coz I belong to the unfortunate class of working men who actually has to lug his lappie across airports, countries,continents, and corridors; but since Asus has been beaten at its own game by the MSI wind and the Medion miniAkoya , they must offer something truly revolutionary or truly cheap to return to be players in the netbook game.
WTF is this thing Asus???

[Cookie @ Sep 10th 2008 10:48AM]

I dont get you ASUS whats with your bezels on small netbooks o.o?

[IsleOfMan @ Sep 8th 2008 9:17AM]

There are plenty of cheap netbooks out there... it seems everyone here wants a 10" screen, 9 cell battery, 2gb of ram, and 64gb SSD for $300... that's not going to happen any time soon.

That said, I can easily see this as a less expensive alternative to the IBM X200s of the world, especially for business-travelers who don't venture very far outside of MSOffice. The price-point is a bit high, but I wouldn't be surprised to see these as low as $700 in a few months. At $700, I would consider this over the 1000h... and when the dual-core Atom is introduced, this could be a frugal business-traveler's dream machine.

[albtms @ Sep 8th 2008 10:40AM]

Am I the only one who finds interesting? The last UMPC I had an 800 MHz Intel (A110) and the GMA 950. CPU was tolerable, but any app that needed even a modicum of graphics performance basically killed it. It also generated what I thought was quite a lot of heat for a relatively slow CPU.

A netbook/laptop like this seems attractive to me because not only is the CPU "fast enough," but it also has a discrete GPU that covers the CPU's shortcomings for those certain apps that need them. The Atom could already playback 720p and 1080i material (excepting that test by VIA themselves, and obviously not h.264 and other high-end stuff), so with the inclusion of a halfway decent GPU, I'd imagine it'd be more than adequate. With its HDMI output, I may have that dual-purpose portable laptop/media center PC I've been looking for. It's also nice that it can switch between the discrete and integrated graphics.

By the way, a Google search for this computer (look on the right) shows another seller that lists similar models at $750 and $650. For $100 less than this, you lose 90 GB of HD space, which actually sounds more appealing, as I could use that extra money and get myself an external disc drive for playing DVDs, or simply buy another 250 GB HD. However, the $650 version loses the GPU, and at that point I simply don't see the point.

I'll have to wait for the benchmarking nuts to get their hands on this one first before I can see if its performance is indeed up to par with my requirements, though -- those reqs being SIZE, heat, battery life (with GPU off when on the move), and better media performance than current netbooks. If not, well, I'll just get one of ASUS' larger laptops for only a bit more.

[Jash Sayani @ Sep 8th 2008 11:18AM]

Finally. I had been waiting for ASUS N10 posts. I was really waiting to hear about this one as I really like it and am planing to buy it. Just wanted to know the approx. weight of it. Is it more than a kg ?
Secondly, any website where I can see a 3D model of it and see it from all the angles. ?

[Ryan Kortmann @ Sep 8th 2008 5:34PM]

I read somewhere that it is about 3.5lbs.

[Jason Ebacher @ Sep 8th 2008 9:40PM]

OK, first to define a netbook, In my opinion Netbooks consist of really small form factor (like a regular book) and have Solid State harddrives, no CDrom no mechanical disk based harddisks.. I consider the apple air with SSD a netbook, however its quite large sized for one. As for a ultra mobile that what this is and any other small laptop that has a harddisk, The Apple air is more a ultra mobile than a netbook but has traits of a netbook, like the SSD.

Now Solid state is the way of the future , but Asus set the standard for netbooks with the eee, small, solid state ruff and ready basic computing needs. However they failed on the 7" screen.. looked like a V-tec kids laptop, However with Dells entrie into this market there getting to be look at as serious devices. The Dell Mini has been compaired to the macbook air for build quality and looks.. very PRO, not toy looking.

As for this laptop, $800+ for a atom based laptop?, I'd get a Dell 13" inspiron with a Intel Core 2 Duo and get a optical drive to boot for less money..

Really the netbook idea is great but a netbook isn't a laptop and the lines between them are melding fast.. however I hope that the netbook standard is held to the smallest devices before hitting the MID class of cell phone sized devices like the iphone and N810.

This device in my opinion is a small underpowered single spindle laptop.

[Nimblesquirrel @ Sep 9th 2008 4:38PM]

Subnotebooks are a category that describes really small form factor laptops, typically without bulkier features of larger laptops (such as optical drives or floppy drives). The MacBook Air is a subnotebook in comparison to the rest of the MacBook line, much like the Powerbook Duo was a subnotebook to the Powerbook line in the 90s.

Netbooks, as Intel described them, are a class within the subnotebook category that are designed to be far more affordable. SSDs are not a requirement for netbooks, as there are plenty of netbooks out there with HDDs.

[Steve Paine @ Sep 11th 2008 10:59AM]

Dont do it guys. Pigeonholeing is for marketing people.
Define your requriements and find a device that matches and dont be pushed into a bracket. Brackets are only there to protect segments in a market from killing each other and create long pointless comment threads ;-)

Chippy

[Nimblesquirrel @ Sep 8th 2008 5:53PM]

@kccboy2004

You really were condescending, and for all the wrong reasons.

You also need to check your sources. Intel didn't invent the concept, they merely coined the term 'netbook'. Intel's own website is hardly going to be an unbiased source there. Intel introduced the term (in its current form) in Feb 2008, well after the ASUS EeePC success in 2007. Subnotebooks have also been around for quite some time before the EeePC, and while many were tiny like the Toshiba Libretto, they were also expensive. The Compaq Contura Aero, in the 90s, was intended to be really affordable, and it was for the time. To me this is the long lost ancestor to the 'netbook'. Intel didn't invent the 'super affordable' concept either, that was done by the OLPC project that Intel was a member of before leaving to make the ClassmatePC. The ASUS EeePC was supposed to be ASUS's answer to the OLPC and although it was more expensive, it was available to the general public (and long before the OLPC shipped too).

It is nice to see that you're willing to spend the extra $500 for a graphics chip, a fingerprint scanner, Windows Vista, and an upgraded WiFi module while getting stuck with a single core Atom. To me that isn't value for money.

For the same money, I'll be going with the Raon Everun Note. It's dual core processor easily trounces the single core Atom. Its graphics may be intergrated, but the chipset has a real GPU core and it has good 3D performance. It has a touchscreen, webcam, blutooth (and, as rumour has it, 3G capability). It does have a smaller screen, but the smaller form factor makes it much easier to travel with. It also doesn't have Vista, and to me that is a plus.

Adderz was right. Netbooks were supposed to be low cost (and even Intel emphasied the low cost part), and ASUS is going the wrong way with this. It seems that they are trying to edge into the subnotebook market, but with specs barely above the average netbook they are going to have a hard time.

[GoonieGooGoo @ Sep 19th 2008 2:36PM]

I don't know if the upgrades on this warrant the cost premium as the ASUS EEE PC 1000H with a 2GB Ram Upgrade is running at about 520$........Sure you get the discrete graphics....but the purpose of a netbook doesn't command high quality graphics.

As you are using a netbook for basic daily activities and browsing the web. YouTUBE doesnt really require a graphic powerhouse.

[Tom @ Sep 29th 2008 6:00AM]

I've seen this live.

It's very beautiful. The body looks tough and very masculine. This looks so much like a business computer. The graphics are incredible and of course, the key is the fingerprint ID. That itself costs 150 bucks.

Everything is the same, save for the Windows Vistas. Netbooks may go the Vistas way and jack up the price. That's another $100 bucks.

250 MB is a LOT. I don't know why anyone would want so much room in his or her computer, but my advice is to back it up at a external HD. Virus and all. The more junk in your computer, the more places to infect/hide.

It's Heavy. Trust me when I say this computer is truly heavier than the other netbooks. Again, businessmen would love this as it looks and feels tough. $825 is the price (in Asia).

You look at it, you'd fall in love with it. At that price, the speed, the softwares, and the graphics would "warrant" the price. But if you want a netbook just for a netbook's price, this is way overpriced. But it's justified and it's for those who want a netbook that is closer to the traditional notebook. Pros and cons. I like it. But I wouldn't buy it after thinking about it for a day or two.

[ebelle @ Oct 1st 2008 9:19PM]

Has anyone from AU ASUS ever actually called this a netbook? Is it meant to be positioned as a Netbook?
Maybe this is why ASUS has their own Eee- family?

[shanX @ Oct 12th 2008 9:49AM]

Y z the display sooo small compared to other netbooks??

[Stefan @ Oct 30th 2008 8:58AM]

I would sooo love it if it had dual atom processors that would be soo awesome, but the people who say they need to cut down in prise, well if you cut down on the length and breadth of a laptop it makes it what a laptop is meant to achieve, portability. So I think it is a reasonable price to pay especially seeing if they might have this and thats theyre only computer, you want it to be fast.

Also I've seen this running COD4, which is pretty cool (unfortunatley around 17 FPS, but still running it), although with an extra processor it would be pretty awesome. Could you imagine beautiful graphis and speed in a book sized computer?