My Asus Eee PC 1201N unboxing w/ pictures

Hey guys. I just received my Eee PC 1201N today, and I thought I'd take some photos along the process of opening it and setting it up to share with you guys. This isn't much of a review, more of a photo gallery than anything else. I'll get to a proper review when I spend some more time with this. Note: all photos are thumbnailed. Click on them to view them in full size.

First up, I'll start where I started: the packaging. The box doesn't really identify it as a model 1201N anywhere, curiously, just an Eee PC:



Here's the box opened up. You can see the netbook itself in the protective padding, and a bit of the power cord:



With the netbook removed, you can see the rest of the contents. Nothing out of the ordinary; just the power cord and adapter, battery, manual and driver disk:



Finally, the 1201N itself. I got the silver color, as you can see; my last notebook was glossy black, and it was a mistake I promised myself I would never make again. There is some slight frost where I gripped the netbook; it was quite cold, as I had just brought it off the front porch from delivery, so moisture condensed on contact. Also, note that they've finally switched from that silly Eee logo to a cool-looking Asus logo.



Here's the left side of the 1201N. You can see (in order) the VGA port, power input jack, a fan exhaust vent, USB, and HDMI port.



This is the right side. Also in order, you can see the SD card reader (with plastic placeholder inserted), a USB port, 3.5mm audio out and microphone jacks, another USB port, Ethernet, and a Kensington lock slot.



A shot of the 1201N opened up, and before I waged war on the sticker adhesives. On the left side there's the generic Intel Atom and Windows 7 stickers, along with the slightly more eye-catching nVidia ION sticker. The right side stickers are Asus-specific, briefly describing some of the 1201N's features. On the top left side, above the keyboard, there is a button to disable the integrated touchpad. Opposite that, on the right, is the power button. It's also a good view of the chiclet-style keyboard, which is surprisingly comfortable with my gorilla-hands.



Same shot, without flash. You can see the touchpad more clearly. Note that it's the same elevation as the rest of the palmrest, just with tiny plastic texturing bubbles on the area that it covers.



Powered on, and loaded to the Windows 7 Home Premium desktop. This should give you a rough idea of how big icons and stuff are by default.



Like I said, this isn't really a review so much as a random assortment of photos. If there's any other angles you want me to get, or anything else, feel free to let me know and I'll have them up by tomorrow.

So far, I'm liking the 1201N. I haven't done much of anything very stressful, but it's been pretty quick and responsive, probably helped by the dual core Atom 330.

A more complete list of my specs:

• Intel Atom 330 (1.6GHz x2/533MHz FSB/1MB L2)
• 4GB DDR2-800MHz memory (shipped with 2GB of the same, I installed the 4GB myself)
• nVidia ION graphics (9400M-based) w/ VGA and HDMI out
• 12.1" WLED 720p (1366x768) LCD
• Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit (I intend to go to 64 bit once I get an external DVD drive)
• Synaptics multitouch trackpad
• Chiclet keyboard

 

Nice pics, Mastershroom.

I'm surprised Asus didn't include a neoprene sleeve since they usually do with their EeePC. Just curious, where did you purchase your 1201N?

 

Amazon, brand new for $484.

 

Looks good, how would your rate the screen on the netbook? Hows does it compare to say a 1005HE or a 1000HA ?

Also can you try a movie via the HDMI? How does that look?

 

Thanks for the impressions!
I have added the thread to the Info Booth and to the Reviews and Owners' Lounges Index.

E.B.E.

 

Much obliged, E.B.E.

I mentioned it in the other thread, but I'll bring it up here as well: gaming performance.

Long story short, it doesn't do too bad, although performance suffers somewhat in CPU-bound games, like most Source engine games (CS:S, TF2, L4D, HL2 etc.), forcing me to run them in very low resolution and minimum settings to get playable frame rates. Other older games, like Halo: Combat Evolved (2003) run perfectly maxed out at native resolution. I'm currently downloading some other games for testing.

Also, I was amused to discover that the Atom 330 has Hyper-Threading, so the two physical CPU cores show up as 4 to the operating system. Do single-core Atoms have this?

 

Thanks for the post, yes my 1000HA does this. Shows the atom CPU twice, two threads.

 

How's battery time?
and playing HD videos?

 

I'm getting around 5 and a half hours out of the battery from a full charge, on the Power Saver profile in Windows 7, with WiFi on, and Microsoft Word and Mozilla Firefox up and running, with the display on the second-lowest brightness setting, which is quite readable in the dark and in the brightly lit classroom in which I take notes on this thing. It survives through my 2-hour chemistry lecture and 3-hour psychology lecture with some time to spare.

As for HD videos, it handles Youtube HD just fine. I haven't really tried Blu-Ray movies or other HD rips yet. I also haven't tried HDMI, as I don't own an HDTV.

 

Thanks for the infor Mastershroom! if it plays HD video of youtube ok it should handle HD rips just fine I guess. If there were troubles they usually showed up with the YT videos.