Asus N10 notebook-not-netbook

Best of both worlds - or the worst?

By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

10th November 2008 13:02 GMT

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Compare the N10 to netbooks, and the contest is more even, though it's by no means the pick of the crop. Our real-word Gimp test, however, shows it's no slouch when compared to other netbooks.

The Gimp Results

Time in seconds
Shorter bars are better

We don't usually run 3DMark on netbooks but we tried it with the N10 and were surprised to see it shoot ahead of the Dell Latitude by a factor of around 50 per cent. We also put in a run using the N10's integrated GPU, just to show you why we don't run this benchmark on netbooks.

3DMark06 Results

Longer bars are better

The N10 comes with a two-year worldwide warranty, though that doesn't apply to the battery, we suspect, which here is a six-cell, 4800mAh job that clips onto the back of the laptop. Being a six-cell unit rather than a three-cell one, it pokes out but not so much that it spoils the N10's lines.

The combination of a six-cell battery, power-saving modes and the Atom CPU should make for a good off-the-mains runtime. Countering these is the use of a hard drive and a discrete GPU. But here's a bonus: a small switch on the N10's side switches off the GPU and activates the integrated graphics instead.