Hi everyone and welcome to our first review. The first netbook that entered our test labs is the Asus Eee PC 1201HA. In the next few lines we will dissect it for you, we will see what the package contains, we will tell you about its design and technical characteristics, performance, autonomy, noise, and more ending with conclusions. We hope that by the end of this article you’d get a bigger picture about it and enjoy reading.
First of all let’s see what we will find inside the box, nothing special except the usual cables needed so you can use the device and after that we will talk more about it.
From the images above you can notice that the Eee PC 1201HA comes with an adaptor (for the main outlet) with more power-plugs for Europe, UK and USA, and with its warranty certificate. Asus Eee PC 1201HA comes with preloaded Windows 7 Home Premium operating system and all the drivers included. The notebook and its accessories come in a small box that has a handle, making it easier to transport.
The looks of Asus Eee PC 1201HA
First impression you get about a product is by its looks and the first thing you do when you unbox it, you watch it. At first glance, the “shell” seems interesting, nice to touch, has a black glossy case, the ideal surface to stamp your fingerprints. This may bother some of you, but this isn’t the case with us.
On the outside, the Asus Eee PC 1201HA looks quite good having a simple and stylish design. The power and touchpad enable/disable buttons gave us some problems, they need to be pressed really hard, but we managed to pull it off. The touchpad itself isn’t delimitated by its surroundings, is just a rougher surface and the buttons need to be convinced to work, also pressing them harder. The netbook has an ergonomic keyboard with well sized keys and far enough one from each other to prevent accidental neighbor key strokes while typing.
Technical specifications
Asus Eee PC 1201HA is the weakest model from the 1201 series accordingly to its technical specifications and comes with an Intel Atom Z520 processor running at 1.33Ghz. The bigger brothers of Asus Eee PC 1201HA are 1021T and 1201N, both being equipped with more powerful platforms. Asus Eee PC 1201T is based on AMD’s Congo platform being equipped with an AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 processor running at 1.6GHz and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3200 graphics processor, and Asus Eee PC 1201N is build around Nvidia’s Ion platform. Both of these systems are able to run 1080p video and flash content, same goes for 1201HA but with a different approach, we’ll talk more of this in more detail a few lines below.
| Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium |
| Display | 12.1 inch LED Backlight WXGA Screen (1366×768) powered by Intel GMA 500 |
| Intel CPU & Chipset | Intel® Atom™ Z520 – 1.33Ghz Intel® Poulsbo US15W |
| Memory | 2GB DDR2 SO-DIMM |
| Wireless Data Network | WLAN 802.11b/g/n @2.4GHz Bluetooth2.1 + EDR (optional) |
| Storage | 250GB HDD Hitachi or 500GB*Can vary by country. |
| Webcam | 0.3MP |
| Audio | Hi-Definition Audio CODEC Stereo Speaker Digital Mic. |
| Input / Output | 1 x VGA Connector 3 x USB 2.0 1 x LAN RJ-45 2 x Audio Jack (Head Phone / Mic-in) Card Reader: MMC/ SD(SDHC) |
| Battery | 6 celule Li-ion Battery Pack, autonomy up to 8.5 h – 47W/h
*Varies depending on configuration and usage. |
| Dimensions | 296×208×27.3~33.3mm (w/ 6-cell battery) |
| Weight | 1.38Kg (w/ 6-cell battery) |
| Colors | Black, Blue, Red, Silver
|
Performance and features
The Asus Eee PC 1201HA has the right assets to be an almost ideal device. For instance is small having the following dimensions 296×208×27.3~33.3mm and is light, weighting only 1.38kg (the 6-cell battery included). If on the outside the netbook looks elegant and proves to be quite portable, we are disappointed by the processors performance. We were able to watch 720p and 1080p HD video movies on it using Media Player Classic – Home Cinema edition, but we can’t say the same for 720p and 1080p flash content as of yet, we hope in the next releases of Flash the graphics card will be included. Attempting to play 720p and 1080p only using the processor failed because its power wasn’t enough for this kind of task.
Asus Eee PC 1201HA netbook is destined to be used at office, internet or on the run and we reached this conclusions after we’ve spend some time using it as any of you would have. The netbook can easily run office, internet and simple multimedia application. It takes some time for the applications to start and you have to be patient while they are loading. We’ve found it to be exceptionally great in Office, Internet browsing using various browsers like Explorer 8, Firefox 3.5, Opera 10, Chrome and so forth. We’ve used it to chat over Yahoo’s Messenger while using the integrated 0.3MP webcam, listened to music and watched SD YouTube movies over the Internet. Twitter, Facebook, hi5 all run without any problems and for some this are very important, maybe not enough to buy a netbook, but if you don’t need more than this, is good to know.
We find ourselves pretty content with the integrated WLAN 802.11b/g/n solution and we’ve managed to reach a 1.9MB/s download speed which is good by the way. As long as we’ve used it there were no fluctuations or any other connectivity problems, it worked like a charm. The netbook comes with two speakers that don’t prove to have a high sound fidelity, they do the work, but there’s place for improvement. Using the SRS SandBox software we were able to improve it and this might be a first step for any netbook out there.
Autonomy, noise and temperature
Even though we’ve used it continuously for several hours, the Asus Eee PC 1201HA proved us that it has no problem when it comes to the cooling system. It has a silent cooling system that kept a constant temperature while we performed tests on it. As you can see in the images below, the netbook has several ventilation slots on the bottom and on its left side. We are happy to say that its noise level is very low and it won’t bother you at all.
When it comes to the battery usage we speak highly of it. The 6-cell battery gives 8.5 hours of autonomy if used in economical mode, but may vary depending on usage and brightness level of display. At least it lasted about 6 hours and 20 minutes in “high performance” mode and continuously used for web browsing, yahoo messenger, and watching movies on YouTube.
Pros and Cons
Asus Eee PC 1201HA like any other product out there has pluses and minuses. With this netbook Asus attacked a specific niche and persuaded a target customer class. Eee PC 1201HA has a good price at 12-inch category, very good autonomy, but in the same time is quite slow. We can’t have them all, at least not at this price point.
Asus Eee PC 1201HA’s strengths:
- Portability
- Quiet cooling system
- Autonomy
- Connectivity
- HD decoding – using the combination of integrated graphic card and Media Player Classic Home Cinema
Asus Eee PC 1201HA’s weaknesses:
- Slow processor – Windows 7 rated it with 1.9 points
- No HDMI-out
Conclusions and availability
Asus Eee PC 1201HA is the perfect choice for those that want to buy a 12.1-inch netbook with a great autonomy, portability, suited for office work, college, in the park, etc. all at a very good price. This model is available on the market since end of November 2009 at a price around $330, but the price varies accordingly to amount of memory and battery user has chosen.
Popularity: 7% [?]
