ASUS X201E-DH01 11.6-Inch Laptop (Black)
Product Feature
- Intel Celeron 847 (1.1GHz) Sandy Bridge
- 4 GB DDR3
- 320 GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive
- 11.6-Inch Screen, Intel GMA HD
Product Description
Black / 11.6-Inch HD (1366*768) LED / Intel Celeron B847 (1.1GHz) Sandy Bridge / 4GB DDR3 / Intel GMA HD / 320GB 5400RPM / No Optical Drive / Ubuntu / 802.11ABGN / 0.3MP / Bluetooth 4.0 / 38WHrs 2s1p 2-cell Li-ion Polymer Battery Pack with up to 5 hours life / Chiclet Style / 1YR International/1YR Accidental Damage/30-Day Zero Bright Dot/2-way FREE shipping/24-7 tech supportASUS X201E-DH01 11.6-Inch Laptop (Black) Review
Ratings Summary: 4-Stars for the technically capable. 1-Star for the novice.The ASUS X201E is like, what I call, an Ultra-Chromebook. It is in the price range of a Google Chromebook notebook computer. I bought mine for $299 with free shipping. There are indeed some serious issues with the stock product that required an easy solution by a technically capable person. However, this product is a poor release with abysmal product testing with regard to WIFI connectivity. ASUS should have caught and resolved some serious software problems prior to being available for sale.
The big problem: WIFI
I struggled with WIFI on this computer with the stock Ubuntu 10.04 release. The WIFI took a long time to connect, and then it would 'hang' periodically. The remedy that worked: A stock install of Ubuntu 12.10. So, the WIFI issue has been resolved with a fresh install of the latest Ubuntu OS.
It has now been two weeks, and I still am working well with the WIFI solution that worked for me.
Performance: "Great!" (for it's intended purpose)
This computer is like a Chromebook or the class of computers formally known as a Netbook. That means you can use it to perform nicely for you for office work, web developer work, travel, communications, music, and watching videos. If you want to play any 3D FPS games, don't even go there. It is not meant for 3D FPS games or video editing. But that is not why I want a highly portable notebook computer.
My real-world (well, sort of) performance tests:
I played 4 videos simultaneously with a dozen open browser windows and tabs. I had a couple of games (Sodoku and Mahjongg) opened, and I had one browser window playing a YouTube video. I also had one Virtualbox open with windows Vista in it with a browser opened (I am a web developer so, I do need to test on IE browsers). Overall, that's way more going on than I will typically be doing at any given moment by far.
With all of that my CPUs were maxiing out at 90% of capacity, and my memory was about 2GB of the 4GB available. The computer still performed satisfactorily, and I could move about with almost no noticeable issues (the YouTube (flash) video did have a few problems competing for it's time-share slot).
In a more realistic tests of the somewhat troublesome YouTube playback in the "stress test", I closed everything except a couple of browser windows. One played a YouTube video, and it did so without flaw.
Battery Life: pretty good
I get about 4.5 hours of real world usage on the battery. Overall, that meets my requirements. My typical use without plugged in power is a meeting at a coffee shop or something for an hour. So, it the less-than stellar battery life is well within my operational needs.
When I am on a plane, I really only use my Nexus 7 tablet for reading, audio books, videos, and games. The tablet is much better for a plane than even a small computer like this, IMHO.
Ports and Connectors: Two USB 2.0 ports; One USB 3.0 (sweet!); One HDMI (full sized); One VGA; Multi-card reader; Ethernet! Combo headphone / mic
Other very good qualities:
* The case is very nice, with a textured feel that is nice
* The keyboard and track-pad work very nicely, and the large track-pad worked perfectly
*The sound system is very loud. This is far superior to many notebook computers I have owned. It is a bit wanting in the base, but there is no problem with the volume .. I think it goes to 11.
*The screen is excellent for viewing straight on, or on there lateral periphery. It gets washed out in the tilt quite a bit, but I wouldn't use it that way any way.
This Computer is Good For:
*General office work: word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, browsing, etc
* Developer: web-development, edit source code, browsing, browsing in virtual box (like Vista, Win7, XP, ...)
* Server: Apache server with PHP, etc; local storage server, music server, video server, etc.
* Travel: lightweight enough at 3 pounds; power adapter is multi-voltage/freq, SD slot for camera photos, USB-3.0 for fast external storage; wifi a/b/g/n + ethernet. And with a "Chromebook" cost of under $300 not too painful if it were lost or stolen.
* Simple non-3D FPS games: Solitaire, Mahjongg, Sudoko, etc.
Simple to moderate image processing. Excellent for casual user for editing travel photos
* Nice for listening to music with the speakers. No need for an external set like many laptops
* Videos play flawlessly from the hard drive, and streaming video worked without any hiccups or problems
* Google-Earth - no graphics problems - the rendering of the 3D images worked well
Not Good For:
* Gaming of any type where 3D and FPS is important at all
* Video editing
* Serious/Professional Photoshop work
Ratings for the market this notebook serves (5-Star scale):
Design: 5 Stars: nice size, nice feel to cover
Portability: 4 Stars: under 3 pounds is great (2.5 would be better!)
Build quality: 5 Stars: it feels pretty solid
Keyboard & Trackpad: 4 Stars: keys feel good, trackpad works nicely. It would have been nice to have a back-lit keyboard
OS and Software: 5 Stars: I augment my Ubuntu experience with the Cinnamon desktop, but that's the beauty of Linux: "to each their own".
Overall:
FAIL: 1 Star Overall Rating for a Novice computer user because of the out of the box WIFI issue. This product meant to work out-of-the-box and it didn't. All you will do with this abysmal failure is turn people off to Ubuntu. Shame on you ASUS!
For me, and any technically capable person, it is a solid 4-Star device. But I thought since it came stock with Ubuntu, this would be the first time I wouldn't need to tweak a computer to get it working for me. This was a disappointment.
In the end, I am satisfied. Frankly, I wish it would have come installed with a minimal crippled version of Windows-8. That way, I would have simply installed Ubuntu 12.10 from the start, and I wouldn't have had any WIFI problems. However, with the savings of the "Windows Tax", I can use that money to buy my lift ticket at Mt. Bachelor today.
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