Asus N10J-A1 Gaming Netbook Review
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Netbooks are designed for emailing and web browsing. If you check under the hood, you’ll see an Intel Atom processor, which is intended for low-power apps like smart phones and ultra-mobile PCs.
Because of this, it’s a wonder to see the Asus N10J-A1 advertised as a gaming netbook.
Sure, it does have a dedicated graphics chip. It even has HDMI. But does slapping on these doohickeys make the Asus N10J-A1 a gaming netbook?
Perhaps. After all, it can play Unreal Tournament III, a game released in 2007, at “acceptable” framerates. According to CNET, the netbook cranked out 29 frames per second, but the detail level had to stay at medium and resolution had to be toned down from the netbook’s native 1024×600 to 800×600. The native resolution seems a bit inappropriate for gaming anyways.
However, the CNET editor didn’t say if he tweaked with the N10J-A1’s Power-Mizer settings, which could affect performance significantly. Of course, disabling Power-Mizer would decrease run time.
A YouTube user posted a video of N10J-A1 running Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare:
Not very good, as you can see. The game didn’t perform very well either. Here are the settings used: resolution was set at 1024×600; anti-aliasing was off; shadows were turned on; while model detail and water were low.
The strangest design decision behind the N10J-A1 is its use of Windows Vista. Maybe it’s just me but, perhaps it would be more suitable for the netbook to use XP instead? Remember, it uses a low-power Atom processor so the OS that we use should maximize the netbook’s capabilities, not weigh it down.
If you know your tech, then you’re probably aware that it’s generally-accepted knowledge that XP trumps Vista in performance, particularly in gaming. Let’s not forget that Vista also uses the Aero interface, which requires use of a dedicated graphics card (or chip), and not integrated graphics.
So why did Asus put Vista in N10J-A1? Beats me. One thing’s sure: this netbook would have been much better and cheaper if it used XP.
Related posts:
- Asus N10 Review
- Acer Aspire Vs Asus EeePC
- What games can you play on a standard netbook?
- Samsung NC10 Netbook Review – Samsung 10″ Netbook
- Asus Eee PC 1000HE Review
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