Ion netbooks head-to-head: Atom, overcharged?
By Joanna Stern 
posted December 30th 2009 3:30PM
posted December 30th 2009 3:30PM
The Contenders
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ASUS Eee PC 1201N ($499.99)
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Lenovo IdeaPad S12 ($649.00)
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HP Mini 311 ($474.99)
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Samsung N510 ($599.99)
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Round 1: Design
When it comes to aesthetics, the Lenovo, Samsung and ASUS all closely resemble their smaller netbook siblings, and their glossy, fingerprint-loving lids and black matte keyboards decks exude a pseudo-professional look. The Lenovo's light circular dot pattern gives it some difference, but overall all three look quite similar. We did appreciate the small differences though, like the tear drop power button nestled on the Samsung's hinge, and the pearl-like decoration on the Lenovo. But it's really HP that manages to hit on both portability and design. We really liked the Mini 311's subtle, swirly pattern on its white lid and the contrasting silver keyboard and palmrest. And as fingerprint-smudged lids really drive us nuts, it didn't hurt that the lid didn't leave any traces of our slimy hands.
Round 2: Keyboard, touchpad and screen
All the touchpads were comfortable. But HP continues to have an Achilles heel when it comes touchpads: the Mini 311's pad is positioned too close to the keyboard, and when we typed our palm repeatedly moved the cursor to a different location on the screen. Because you can't turn the touchpad off, we did figure out how best to angle our hands, but it was quite peeving. Both the Samsung and ASUS have multitouch pads, and we're happy to report two finger scrolling worked fine, although the single mouse buttons were lame and we preferred to double tap. In the end, Lenovo's wide pad and firm, dedicated right and left buttons provided the best all-around experience.
While the ASUS and Lenovo have 12.1-inch displays, HP and Samsung went with smaller 11.6-inchers -- though they're really not noticeably smaller to the naked eye. Lenovo's screen has a 1200 x 800 resolution, but the rest have 1366x768 resolutions, which makes viewing HD content crisp and clear. However, the glare caused by the glossy screens on the ASUS, Lenovo and HP is extremely noticeable and results in poor horizontal viewing angles when trying to share the screen with a friend. We did, however, take a liking to the viewing angles on the Samsung N510's matte screen, and the fact that we didn't have to look at our reflection every time the screen turned dark in a game or video. Though Samsung's screen was better in terms of pure quality, this round still goes to Lenovo for superb ergonomics.
Round 3: Overall performance
Okay, here's the big surprise. Though NVIDIA says Ion should have no impact on everyday performance, the Samsung, HP and the Lenovo felt slower than other Atom N270 and N280 netbooks we've tested. Though it's not really reflected in the benchmarks, we noticed it taking longer for the machines to open programs, and when working in Firefox with a handful of tabs they just lagged more than others. In an informal stopwatch test it took the Lenovo and Samsung 2.5 seconds to open Firefox with no other programs running, while it took the standard N280-based HP Mini 5101 1 second. Similarly, it took the Lenovo 8 seconds, the Samsung 6 seconds to open the same 1.5MB PDF in Adobe Acrobat 9, while both the standard HP Mini 5101 and the next-gen Atom N450-based Eee PC 1005PE opened it in 3 seconds flat.
So while Ion promised better performance, these netbooks feel more sluggish in everyday tasks. And though we've heard theories trying to explain it -- including Liliputing's about increased screen resolution causing more strain on the CPU -- all we actually know is that these results are disappointing. Sure, all these laptops will capably handle your web surfing and light application needs, but the inescapable fact is that a netbook which costs $200 less will probably do it faster.
| PDF Open Times | GIMP Open Times | |
| ASUS Eee PC 1201N (Win 7 SE) | 3.5 sec | 21 sec |
| HP Mini 311 (XP) | 5 sec | 24 sec |
| Lenovo IdeaPad S12 (Win 7 SE) | 8 sec |
42 sec |
| Samsung N510 | 6 sec | 33 sec |
| ASUS Eee PC 1005PE (Intel Atom N450)* | 3 sec | 21 sec |
| HP Mini 5101 (Intel Atom N280)* | 3 sec | 20 sec |
*Standard Intel Atom configuration
The HP, Lenovo and Samsung all may come equipped with standard, single-core Atom processors, but the Eee PC 1201N's dual-core 1.66GHz Atom N330 processor showed no hurt. And as we mentioned in our full review of the 1201N, it felt much snappier in everyday use than any of the N270 or N280 Atom netbooks we've tested, and the benchmark chart below echoes that.
| GeekBench | PCMark05 | |
| ASUS Eee PC 1201N (Win 7 SE) | 1106 | 2208 |
| HP Mini 311 (XP) | 957 | 2016 |
| Lenovo IdeaPad S12 (Win 7 SE) | 833 | 1394 |
| Samsung N510 | 883 | 1799 |
| ASUS Eee PC 1005PE (Intel Atom N450) | 942 | 1431 |
| HP Mini 5101 (Intel Atom N280) | 920 | 1650 |
Round 4: Graphics and HD performance
Graphics and multimedia performance, on the other hand, blew us away -- Ion undoubtedly provides better multimedia handling, even if it's at the expense of everyday performance. All four of the netbooks were able to play a Blu-ray clip at a full 1080p resolution, smoothly stream a YouTube 1080p clip with Flash 10.1 installed, and handle some mainstream games -- all things we couldn't do with the HP Mini 5101 or the Pine Trail-powered MSI Wind U135. But as you'd expect, the Eee PC 1201N's stronger CPU helped it to notch better benchmarks and framerates than the other systems. Playing Batman: Arkham Asylum at 1024 x 768 resolution was noticeably speedier on the ASUS than with the Lenovo IdeaPad S12.
| 3DMark06 | WoW (FPS)* | |
| ASUS Eee PC 1201N (Win 7 SE) | 1555 | 30 |
| HP Mini 311 (XP) | 1464 | 29 |
| Lenovo IdeaPad S12 (Win 7 SE) | 1243 | 21 |
| Samsung N510 | 1271 | 25 |
| ASUS Eee PC 1005PE | 157 | --- |
| HP Mini 5101 | 128 | --- |
* World of Warcraft frames per second measured in native resolution
Quick note: the Samsung N510 and HP Mini 311 have an Ion LE chipset. The only difference between LE and regular Ion is that the LE version disables support for DirectX10, but if you're up for the challenge you could always try and hack it.
Round 5: Battery life
| Battery Life on video rundown | |
| ASUS Eee PC 1201N (Win 7 SE) | 2:26:00 |
| HP Mini 311 (XP) | 3:53:00 |
| Lenovo IdeaPad S12 (Win 7 SE) | 2:40:00 |
| Samsung N510 | 3:20:00 |
| ASUS Eee PC 1005PE | 8:10:00 |
| HP Mini 5101 | 5:45:00 |
NVIDIA claims that Ion has minimal effects on battery life; we'd beg to differ. Despite the fact that each netbook was outfitted with a higher-capacity six-cell battery, none of them lasted longer than four hours on our HD video rundown test. Both the ASUS and the Lenovo got less than three hours, which is incredibly low for a modern ultraportable or netbook. Nevertheless, the Mini 311 posted the best time at 3 hours and 51 minutes -- far short of the standard Atom-based HP Mini 5101's six hours, and not even close to the eight hours we got from the Pine Trail-equipped ASUS Eee PC 1005PE.
Overall Winner
ASUS Eee PC 1201N
We're sad to say that we're a little disappointed in this crop of Ion netbooks -- we've waited over a year for them to arrive, and, well, it's just not last year anymore. While the $499 Eee PC 1201N is our choice of the group since it doesn't sacrifice performance for added graphics, it still feels dated in some ways: Intel's next generation Pine Trail Atom has just been released and you can get a comparable ULV laptop for just a few more bucks. You'll have to ask yourself if the improved graphics and multimedia capabilities of these machines are worth the decrease in performance and battery life the Ion chipset seems to involve -- and whether that tradeoff is worth an extra $200 over a typical netbook. In the end, we just feel like this is all too little, too late, and maybe NVIDIA knows it too -- Ion 2 is supposedly right around the corner. Let's just hope we don't have to wait another year.
@nullifythenight Thanks for the review. Absolutely the HP Mini does more than a laptop from 10 years ago, but it does feels slower than some netbooks that cost $100 less. I say at the end, if graphics and some HD streaming is important to you than you can sacrifice the performance and battery life (though I do agree, the battery life on the Mini 311 isn't too bad) and go with one of these. Also, I bet you paid $399 for your Mini 311 which is a good deal, but our unit was nearly $500 when speced out.
By the way, you figure out how to use the keyboard without knocking the touchpad? Took me like 2 days to get it right.
@nullifythenight
I hear you brother.. ooOOoo the gospel speaks with you!
@Joanna Stern
I agree with most of what you said, and I actually had a long discussion with friends about how smaller Atom based laptops shouldn't carry the "netbook" moniker. However, I disagree with this:
"For what a netbook is designed to do, the HP Mini 311 is a dream. It doesn't matter to me if "x" app starts 2 seconds slower than "y" netbook. That's trivial."
When you are comparing similar devices, this sort of thing is totally important! Of course, you have to take everything into the decision that you make, but for me, the speed of opening programs and how quickly the respond is incredibly important. It's the only reason I upgraded to a 3Gs. You make good points in that "netbooks" should really serve minimalist computing purposes, but with any piece of computer technology that I buy, responsiveness is within the top few items on my list to cross off before I move on to the nest one.
@nullifythenight
Nullify, I'm not sure what year you're living in but it is almost 2010. Happy New Year! Just because you remember when you had to pay $3000 for a laptop doesn't make you qualified to appreciate where technology is today. You seem to be stuck behind in times as well (and you, for example, couldn't sell me your supposed $3,500 workstation). Because no one with such a workstation would even waste his or her time on a netbook for videogames. Absolutely no one.
And your pathetic and naive plug about "consumer greed" actually makes me wonder where you were even raised. Do you even know what shareholders are? I doubt it.
Why don't you tell us what you use your $3,500 desktop workstation for? And why you feel it is worth so much to you?
Someone here may believe you.
@ARM vs Intel
@ARM vs Intel
You crack me up.
WHAT QUALIFIES ME TO COMMENT ON TECHNOLOGY?
For one thing, my apartment is outfitted with a 10 node network. Each PC node has been built, configured, and optimized all by me. My "supposed" $3,500 workstation is just one of the PCs.
HOW COULD I JUSTIFY A NETWORK & WHY WOULD I NEED ONE?
Perhaps it has to do with my profession. I'm a visual effects professional. My areas of concentration are character modeling/animation and architectural visualization.
I'm 35 years old and have been self-employed for a little over 16 years. I require my own render farm because I often have to prepare high quality visuals for clients. The deadlines are usually tight and the individual project specs are typically high end.
SEEING AS HOW YOU'RE SO CONCERNED ABOUT MY UPBRINGING AND INTELLECT....
- I'm a New Yorker, born & raised.
- I learned to program computers at age 8. I started with C64 BASIC & ASM. I worked my way up to x86 ASM, Pascal, & C/C++.
- As a child, I was prep school educated. While there, I was the president of the Electronic's Club, Strategic Games, & Young Republicans.
- As a young adult, I attended Fordham University. I was also accepted at Colgate, MIT, RPI, Columbia, Manahttan College, & Hartwick. I chose Fordham because of an academic scholarship and because it was closer to my family.
- By highschool graduation, I already completed 3 years of college level calculus & 2 years of college level physics.
- At age 18, I taught a year long Physics 101 course to 6th graders
- My younger sibs attended Cornell & Wesleyan.
- I went to college intending to major in Physics, but ended up as a CompSci major with a 3.8 GPA and multiple dean's list awards.
- At college, I wrote complex psycial simulation for a theoretical magnetoplasmadynamic propulsion system.
- I started doing CG when I was 15 years old and only started to earn a buck from it when I was 19 and in college.
- I'm the oldest of 3 children and uncle to a cute 2 year old nephew.
- I'm a 4th generation American of Puerto Rican descent.
- I don't speak Spanish. However, I studied Latin for 6 years, ancient Greek for 2 years, & Italian for 2 years.
- In high school, I varsity lettered on the wrestling & fencing teams. I fenced sabre.
- I have owned somewhere around 40 computers since the age of 7. Maybe more. I lost count. I've built quite a number of them.
- I like video games and own a... Wii, PS3, 360, PS2, PSX, GameCube, N64, SNES, NES, PSP, an original B&W GameBoy, Gameboy Color, a 1st Gen Gameboy Advance, a 1st Gen NDS, a NDS Lite, an old Commodore 64, an Intellivision, and a dedicated 1970s Pong machine.
- Not including my PC TV tuners, I own 3 TVs: One 52" Sony Bravia & Two samsung Syncmaster T240HDs
- On my desktop machine, my current apps of choice are Maxon Cinema 4D Studio R11, Adobe Photoshop CS3, After Effects, Pixologic ZBrush, & Pilgway 3D-Coat. (All legit licenses before you cast stones.)
- My input method of choice for art is my Wacom Cintiq 12wx touch screen tablet. It's a bit on the small side, but still more portable than the big boy.
- My hobbies include sculpting, painting, fitness, writing, video games, circuit design, & programming.
Anything else you need to know? IQ? (147) My height & weight? (5'8" & 160-lb) How much I bench, squat, or run? (225-lb, 310-lb, 5 miles) How many girlfriends over the years? (6)
SHEEEEEESH!!!
Simply because you and I don't agree doesn't mean that you have to make assumptions about my knowledge, upbringing, or naivete.
WHY WOULD I OWN A NETBOOK WHEN I OWN SO MANY DESKTOP MACHINES?
The 311 is a lightweight alternative to my current HP 17" notebook. It is easier for me to lug a 3lb netook on the subway for client meetings. Ride NYC subways and you'll understand why a netbook is easier to transport than a regular laptop
Second, I can sit down with a client & demo my WIPs or finished works to them in a meeting. 90% of the time, I'm demoing stills, pre-rendered works, & comps to them. Very little of what my clients need is of a real-time nature. The HP doesn't have to be fast. It just has to get the job done.
WHY WOULD I PLAY GAMES ON A NETBOOK?
WTF else am I going to do on an hour long trip into the city. No cell reception in the tunnels. Too much rocking to type. I might as well pop in one of my old favorite games to kill time. It's a nice time waster on a long trip. For the most part, most of my gaming is done on my consoles.
AM I UP TO DATE ON PC HARDWARE?
Eh.... I try to be. I tend to upgrade/replace my hardware every 18-24 months. Naturally, with 10 PCs, I can't afford to swap out all at once. I usually do about 3 at a time. Some are actually due for replacement this June. I generally spend somewhere in the realm of $10k-$20k a year in hardware and software.
In case you're curious, it's easy to rack up so much money in one year on hardware & software. For 2009 alone....
- $3,500 for a new fresh Cinema4D Studio r11 license
- $2,000 for a laptop to replace me dead Toshiba
- $3,500 for a new HP desktop
- $1,000 for my Wacom Cintiq 12wx, to replace my 12x19 Intuos3
- $600 for a fresh ZBrush 3.5 license
- $235 for a 3D-Coat license
- $1,000 for a JVC HD camcorder to replace my GZMG255, which I use for motion referencing as part of my character animation work
- $500 for a new Olympus digital camera to replace my old Canon, which I use mostly for texture & anatomical/location referencing
That's ~12k for the 1st half of 2009 alone. See how it adds up quickly?
Naturally, the hardware pays for itself since an archvis job can easily earn me $5k-$7k for 2 weeks of work.
MY PRIMARY WORKSTATION
- Intel Quad Core @ 2.83GHz
- 12GB RAM
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
- 3.5TB Storage (2.5TB of which is external: 1TB Simpletech, 1TB Lacie, & 500GB Maxtor)
- A Samsung syncMaster T220 in a dual monitor configuration with my Wacom Cintiq 12wx
Again, just because you don't agree with me doesn't mean that you have to invalidate my OPINION.
@Joanna Stern
It only took me maybe 5 or 10 minutes to sort out the touchpad issue. Mostly Googling. I swapped out the default ALPS drivers for another non-HP related set. That did it.
Yeah. I paid $399. I wouldn't spend more, given that I have other, larger machines for other tasks.
Does it feel slower than some other netbooks that cost less? Hard to tell. Synthetic benchmarks only tell part of the story. Real world handling is often different. A lot of stuff can ultimately affect performance, especially software side configuration. A modern PC can perform like junk pile 286 of yesteryear if it is poorly configured, maintained, or admined.
In the end, I think that the 311 _feels_ peppy enough for what it is. The Win7 version I demoed felt sluggish. The XP one was more zippy. The OS seemed to have been a factor here, imho.
@nullifythenight
Actually, nullify, your opinion is mostly invalid whether you're qualified to make a comment on it or not. You're one of the very few people I've ever seen repeatedly compare a netbook to a modern $3500 desktop.
You're of Puerto Rican descent, yet you've learned useless Greek and Latin over Spanish (lol). Why is that? ...I speak Spanish, by the way.
Oh! And by the way... your IQ is nothing at all impressive to me either. You're shorter and you've had far less girlfriends than I (you're doing pretty good for an engineer though). And judging by your resume, I will even assume that your artistry is inferior as well.
Please keep your penis down next time, tiger! Before I cut it off.
@nullifythenight Smart on the touchpad solution. I send these things back after testing them so I don't have that much time to figure that stuff out. As for the OS, I totally agree with you!
I just ordered an Asus 1201N through work. I am planning on using it as a netbook to run Fedora Core 12 on for everyday tasks where an under-powered computer is useful. Otherwise I have other computers at my disposal. Being 6'5" tall and having larger hands I found it necessary to have a little more space to work. Performance will be great for all of those HD movies too. ;)
In my opinion, only a fool would buy these overpriced so-called netbooks.
I'm sure they will saturate the clearance aisle soon.
I'm actually convinced that netbook manufacturers (as well as Intel and MS, etc.) are hiking the prices of their outdated junk products to squeeze as much profit as they can before ARM netbooks set them straight.
They will get away with whatever you guys allow them to.
The end, however, of their overpricing schemes is coming. And I can't wait to switch over to Linux primarily and bootleg everything Windows from then on (to run programs on XP or 7).
I will be doing this out of sheer principle and am looking forward to it.
I'm glad that I got the Thinkpad x200 a 6 months ago instead of waiting for the Ion netbooks. It's only 3 pounds with the 6 cell, lasts 5 hours on a charge, has a 2.4ghz core 2 duo, and has a full-sized keyboard with trackpoint.
I have the first-gen Asus 7" eeePC. You'd think that I'd be the first in line to replace the thing with a big screen (relatively), better keyboard, bigger HDD, longer battery life machine. Nope. Mine is 1kg, super tiny. I *have* a computer (a few, actually). My Asus is a NETBOOK. The progression reminds me of automobiles - many start as efficient, effective devices for their class. Then, manufacturers try to increase market share by adding more feature, making them incrementally bigger (with every model change) and, pretty soon, that compact Accord is a full-size sedan. I carry my netbook where I wouldn't carry a larger device. And, as they say in photography, the best camera is the one you have with you. Just say no to $500, 12" screen 2 kg 'netbooks'. Those are laptops, but underpowered - nothing more, nothing less.
Good article. I thoug miss some points about size and weight comparison, because i.m.o. thats the main focuspoint for me about a netbook.
The new ones ar moving closer to 1.5 Kg. but i would like to see more choises in the 1Kg or even sub 1kg range.
Agreed. How far have we strayed from the original vision: 8-10", instant on, simple use cases, solid state internals... Oh hey, that's the Chromium OS profile.
@teradome (1) that was supposed to be a reply; nice to see that some things never get fixed around here (2) and PRICE, obviously. These things should *not* be more than $400, ever.
Thanks for the review Engadget.
I disagree with those who argue that Netbooks shouldn't exceed a certain price range ($500). Price has nothing to do with a class of portable computers, just like compact cars can have various range of prices.
I think the fundamental aspect of Netbooks should be their compact size and versatility. I just don't think they should exceed 10 inches.
I have no qualms about stuffing a powerful GPU in a Netbook, but it shouldn't compromise the life of the battery. I would think the minimum battery life of Netbooks should be no less than a 1/3 of a day (8 hours), yet most the over-sized Netbooks barely get 4 hours.
I also have no problems with companies making 12 inch laptops, but they gotta stop calling them Netbooks.
Engadget would do well to come up with their own classifications for these laptops. I suppose we can borrow from the auto industry and call them:
11-13 inches - compact
14-16 inches - Midsize
17 and up - Fullsize
I think I may get the Eee PC 1201N. It is true that you can ULV notebooks for just another 100 or so, but most of the ones I have seen in this price range don't have very decent graphics capabilities.
gonna wait for pinetrail AND ion on a single netbook
A little baffled as to how in the world you came to the conclusion that the Asus was the best one here. That battery life is inexcusably low. Very poor justification of your verdict.
Not to mention that you inexplicably chose the XP version of the HP Mini instead of going with the Win7 version to even the playing field. Also, most people purchasing an ION netbook would end up adding more RAM, which definitely improves performance and potentially makes a lot of your conclusions invalid.
Finally, if you had bothered to look it up, you would have very easily found that installing a newer ALPS driver on the Mini would give you a host of features including disabling the trackpad while typing or completely disabling it when a USB mouse is connected.
There should also be a comparison with european prices in view too.
Usually Asus wins there, the eee PC for example costs 415eur (taxes included) while the HP Compaq Mini 311 (same as HP Mini but with N270 and only 160GB HD) goes for 399eur (taxes included).