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.
This laptop manages to be both sleek, and offer considerable connectivity. You get one USB3 port, two USB2, one Ethernet, HDMI, VGA, and SD card slot. Then there is Bluetooth. That's pretty good for a cheap machine.
I purchased this for my wife, who prefers the XFCE desktop. Unfortunately, the XFCE power management seems to fight with the power management in the Unity desktop. Upgrading to XFCE 4.10 (via a PPA) seems to have helped. There have been wireless problems, but upgrading to kernel 3.2.40 seems to have helped (the latter upgrade was automatic).
When power management works, the computer suspends, but doesn't hibernate. Since the computer uses Intel's Sandy Bridge chipset, suspend uses very little power. There is also remarkably little space on the drive, given it's capacity (320 G). That can be traced to an empty, extended 105 G NTFS partition. I suppose you can mount it and put stuff there (like Windows?), or you can use GParted to resize it and the other partitions, or possibly delete it and resize the other partitions. It's a strange disk arrangement.
This is not a netbook. Yes the Asus uses a wimpy Celeron, but that Celeron is more powerful than the Intel Atom CPUs that resided in netbooks. Further, this machine comes with 4 G of RAM. Perhaps the greatest speed boost comes with the CPU's support for virtualization. That means a five fold speed increase over what an Atom based CPU can do when running Virtualbox.
The other big improvement over a netbook lies in the screen. It's bigger (11.6", instead of 10.1") and sports a higher resolution 1366x768. This is a resolution found in all sorts of cheap laptops. The difference here is that such a resolution looks good at 11.6".
Battery life is something better than 4 hours. You can't swap the battery, because it's built in. The keyboard works, and has the typical, poor Asus layout. There was room for dedicated PgUp-PgDn, Home-End keys, but Asus chose to ignore this and make them all function key based. On the plus side, the touch is OK, and there in no keyboard "bounce."
What you get is a cheap machine with no "crapware," update capabilities that are second to none, and that runs quickly. That said, since it is running Linux, it will continue to run quickly.
Update 3 Apr. 2013: Issues with power management on XFCE when installed after Ubuntu's Unity interface persisted, so I installed Debian. This marked my first 64 bit install, and my first install on a UEFI machine (all the previous machines had a BIOS). I burned a Debian Wheezy netinstall disk to CD, and rebooted. Holding the ESC key when booting brings up the UEFI menu. There were two CD boot options, one that listed my drive, and the other that listed it with UEFI. You want the latter, trust me. ;)
If you want to add Skype, or any other 32 bit only software, the command given as root, "dpkg --add-architecture i386", is your friend.
What did I loose by going to Debian? The screen brightness and touchpad disable function keys. I typically set up the touchpad with Synclient, and add palm detection, so the touchpad toggle is no great loss, but the screen brightness is. The package xfce4-power-manager-plugins adds a slick widget you can add to your panel (taskbar) that lets you adjust the brightness.
What did I gain? Speed. As usual, Debian is a lighter weight distribution by default. I gained a more intelligent partitioning, with about another 100 G for data. I also gained the ability to hibernate the machine.
To sum up, I'm still scratching my head over some of Asus' choices when offering this machine. Why they included an unused, 100 G NTFS formated partition escapes me. Also, I'm not sure why they did not include hibernation support. In general, Ubuntu, even with their long term releases is buggier than Debian, but if you don't like to "play" with your machine, and you are satisfied with the Unity interface, this remains a good buy.
Update 14 April, 2013: An update to Debian Wheezy has fixed the screen brightness keys.
Update 15 May, 2013: Received a second unit to set up for another person. Part of the setup included a Debian install with most of the drive encrypted. I used an encrypted LVM (logical volume manager), and it went fairly smoothly, except when the installer announced it was erasing the drive. It was an extremely thorough erasure, as it took 18 hours. Only then did the installer proceed with partitioning the drive.
The encryption is largely transparent in operation. The only time you realize you are running an encrypted disk is when booting, or resuming from hibernation.
Update 1 July, 2013: A third unit developed wireless connection issues. These included difficulty connecting, spontaneous disconnects, and strongly fluctuating signal levels. I finally removed the back of the unit, and discovered a loose antenna wire. The plug used (I'm assuming it's an industry standard) is extremely small, and hard to line up properly, but once properly plugged in, all issues went away.
Buy ASUS X201E-DH01 11.6-Inch Laptop (Black) Now
The Good:
+ Low Cost
+ Easy Setup
+ Fast Boot
+ Lightweight
+ Ample Hard Drive
+ Decent Keyboard
The Bad:
Wonky Trackpad
Popular Streaming Services Require Workarounds
Spotty Printer Support
No Exchange Sync (At Least For My Company)
Erratic Bluetooth Performance
Poor Android 4.1 Support
Overall: While it is not perfect, the ASUS X201E-DH01 is an excellent Windows and Chromebook alternative.
Background: I was looking for something more portable than my 15.6" Windows laptop and more work oriented than my Android tablet. I've actually soured a bit on the tablet experience, and I'm trying to decide if I need or even want one. I was actually looking at the Acer C710-2055 when I stumbled across this model from ASUS. The specs are quite similar with the exception of the OS (Ubuntu Linux vs. Chrome). For the extra $20, I decided to get a machine with a full-fledged OS that works offline by design.
Setup: Unlike what some others have reported, my X201E came with Ubuntu 12.04 pre-installed. When I powered it on, there wasn't a whole lot to do. However, the initial boot does take a while. It guides you through a simple process collecting some basic information such as language, time zone, etc. It also asked me to create a user account with a password, which is easy enough. From there, I was ready to roll after a reboot. I had no problem adding my wireless network (or subsequent networks). I have connected to hidden and enterprise networks without issue. As long as you know the settings, you get in. If setup were the only consideration, I would say that this laptop is for any user level.
User Input: The keyboard of the X201E has the common "chicklet" style keyboard, and it feels good to type with. It has enough resistance so that it doesn't feel bouncy. However, it is not overly stiff either. The layout is pretty good, yet some may find the lack of dedicated page up, down, etc. buttons a disappointment. They are available through the function key, but I do find that I miss them on long web pages. The trackpad, on the other hand, has fewer positives. Actually, it is really no worse than most trackpads, and I really think these were invented to promote mouse sales. The trackpad doesn't have separate buttons, and it just doesn't feel comfortable. However, my biggest gripe (with trackpads in general) is the accidental touch during typing that sends your cursor to some distant place on the page away from where you intended to type. For serious typing sessions, I use a mouse and disable to trackpad. This does create a tradeoff for portable use. Do I fight through the wonky trackpad or take a mouse with me from conference room to conference room?
Web Browsing: Unless you are a die-hard IE fan, you have good options for browsing the web. The X201E has Firefox installed by default, but I preferred Chrome. It was easy to download and install from Google's site. With limited exceptions (that I will note in a later section), it is indistinguishable from using Chrome on a Windows machine. It is here that I access both my Gmail and Corporate email, and I also use Evernote to go paperless in meetings.
Office Software: Ubuntu comes with LibreOffice installed by default (although there are a couple of other options to try if it is missing your favorite features). Here's the bottom line, though. No matter what you choose, nothing is going to work seamlessly with docx, xlsx, pptx, etc. files. Microsoft doesn't want this to happen, and they have done a good job of keeping things this way. For my purposes, however, I generally only need to be able to view documents on the go, and any MS Office alternative does a good enough job. One last note item in this area is e-mail. There is not an Outlook equivalent in any of the other office suites, and Thunderbird is the default email client. I looked for Exchange support, and found that a Thunderbird plug-in was supposed to work with Exchange Web Services (EWS). I installed the plug-in, but I could never get it working. This may have as much to do with how my company has exchange setup, but the lack of support for corporate email is nonetheless disappointing.
Media: As I mentioned earlier, I have my entire music collection copied to my X201E. The default music player for Ubuntu is Rhythmbox, and it is sufficient for my needs. You do have to go through some extra steps to enable mp3 decoding because this requires proprietary drivers. This is a Linux philosophical issue, and true open source distributions do not enable proprietary software out of the box. This is the first feature that is likely to trip up the Linux novice. Googling reveals easy to follow steps, but the X201E just became work for the lay user. Video playback is another story. Both Netflix and Amazon Instant Video streaming are non-functioning out of the box. There are workarounds for these, but I was only able to get Amazon Instant Video working in Firefox. My Netflix has sound but no picture, and this was after a lot of work. Even with Amazon Instant Video, it doesn't look good when maximized. The streaming quality seems to be set for the "in browser" sized video. YouTube works well enough. I don't really watch stored videos, but support for this is available through clients like VLC. However, as with mp3 formats, you may need to install proprietary software in order to watch a particular format. This will definitely be the case if you connect an external DVD/Blu-Ray player. Perhaps video (streaming at least) is something better left to the likes of a Kindle Fire HD.
Bluetooth: This is not a core feature requirement for me, but I decided to test it out and report my findings. First, I tried my pairing with my HTC Rezound. Things started out rocky, and they never really got better. My first attempts at pairing were unsuccessful as neither device could see the other after making them both visible. I tried again on a subsequent session, and I was able to pair the devices. However, they didn't agree on the profiles that their pairing supported. My Rezound wanted to send phone and media audio to the X201E while the X201E wanted to send and receive files. As you might expect, ne'er the twain shall meet.
Other: So far, this might not sound like much of a differentiator from the Chromebook, but there are other uses beyond my core requirements that others a likely to find appealing. Linux has a good array of photo and video editing software that the Chrome OS just can't come close to matching. It would also be trivial to grab Eclipse and other Java development tools although I'm not sure how these would perform on the limited hardware. The point is that have a full-fledged OS gives you a lot of options. There are also a fair number of games, but that is not really my area of expertise.
Overall: This ASUS X201E is a unique device. It is one of two current laptops (the other is from Dell targeted at software developers) from major manufacturers that comes with Linux installed. Depending on your needs, this might be the perfect low cost, portable alternative to Windows that you are looking for. Potential Chromebook users should definitely give it a look.
Read Best Reviews of ASUS X201E-DH01 11.6-Inch Laptop (Black) Here
This is not a laptop to do heavy lifting with, but for web surfing, a pretty close to perfect ssh terminal thin client.
BIOS can be upgraded without needing any boot CDs or Windows installs, which is nice.
Laptop came with Ubuntu 12.10 [nothing wrong with it], but I removed it right away and put Fedora 18 on it. The only thing that doesn't work 'out of the box' is the gigabit ethernet, but the driver can be easily compiled and loaded by following these directions:
One heads up, even though the title says 'Grey Aluminum' the body is made out of plastic, but it is very sturdy, much better quality than HP Pavilions as an example.
The two cell battery can be a bit a of an issue to some, but I have gotten 2+ hours on it so far, even though I am not on battery power a lot.
The only downside I've had with it so far is that Suspend/Resume [on Fedora] is still a bit buggy, it works sometimes, but sometimes it failts to suspend... I have a hunch it may be related to the gigabit ethernet extra kernel module, but haven't fully tested yet.
Anyway... I much rather spend $325 or so on this machine than on a tablet, much more useful. There are ways to watch Netflix on Fedora [google for it], and it works OK.
Pretty happy with the purchase.
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Everything worked right out of the box. Came with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and after initial user account creation it downloaded some 350+ updates and legacy driver for the wireless card and things were much smoother. I have a Ubuntu machine running my HTPC so I am familiar with the OS. The screen is perfect for web browsing, email and word processing and presentation. Spreadsheet work can be a pain die to 11inch screen. Small package, solid feel, no flex, the hinges are sturdy and have no play. Overall real good construction. Was not expecting a stellar screen at this price but even in lowest brightness setting it is not a problem to work indoors.
Took off one star for photoshopped product pictures posted everywhere. All product pictures are taken from a high angle that hides the thickness and makes it look slimmer than it really is. I am not complaining that it is thick but simply stating that the images are a deliberate attempt to make it look slimmer.
I am getting battery life of 3-3.5hrs at lowest brightness setting with web browsing and no flash video playback. This could be a Ubuntu issue as Ubuntu battery optimization is not as good as windows or Mac. Will have to load WinXP or Win7 to test that. However you will need a $10-15 external DVD drive to load any other OS, unless you are good in doing it off a USB drive.
Overall I am happy with what i got at the price I paid.
Update: April 14th 2013
The wireless connection was not reliable and it would just loose connection without reason. So I upgraded the OS to Ubuntu 12.10 from within 12.04. Wireless problem got fixed and battery life looks like it improved a tad to 4-4.5hrs. Also installed a power management software.
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Laptop arrived on time, it setup easily. Very light, looks super. I haven't tested battery life yet since I haven't been on the road much, but the one time I was out for a few hours and it was still going strong well over 50% of battery life left. I have no complaints at this point.
