A week back, I bought a new netbook, Asus Eee 1225C. Now I have tried it much, so that I can review here in depth.
Most of the traditional netbooks powered by the Intel Atom processors are primarily used for basic computing like web browsing, word processing and other light work which is justified by long battery life and ultra portability provided by the common 10.1 inch netbooks.
Asus 1225C is an Intel Atom processor based, ultra portable, extra sized netbook. The Eee brand is already a flagship of Asus when it comes to netbooks and the 1225C have much more than you can expect from any netbook.
So here is my experience of Asus 1225C
Technical Specifications
Processor: Intel Atom N2800 Cedar Trail, Dual Core , 3rd generation.
Processor Clock Speed: 1.8 GHZ
System Memory (RAM): 2 GB (Fixed, You can not upgrade it)
Screen Size : 11.8 inches
Screen Resolutions :
Screen Type : Glossy
Keyboard Type: Chicklet
USB Ports: 3 ( 3.0 x 2, 2.0 x1 )
HDMI Port : Yes 1
Eathernet Port : Yes
Bluetooth: 3.0
Memory Card Reader : Yes
Mic and Headphone Out: Yes
Battery: 6 Cell Li-Ion Battery with 8 Hrs backup
Official Technical Specifications here
Pack contents
The Netbook , Battery, Charger, Driver CD. Driver CD has all the required drivers for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, graphics, touchpad and other devices and functionality. There are additions applications given like Caps-hook, Super hybrid engine, Instant On, Media sharing, USB Charge+.
Considerations
I expect that most of the buyers who want a netbook, does not expect a huge powered laptop that can play graphics heavy games and video editing and other such things. When anyone think of a netbook, that means he or she want a laptop for daily needs and light office work or web browsing so to stay connected. If you expect anything else as said above, you should buy a full featured laptop and NOT the Asus 1225C is also viewed from the same angle in this review.
The Looks
The first word is Excellent. It's a great looking notebook that will add value to your lifestyle. The odd size (11.6 inch screen) makes it a unique choice. It is not a regular 10 inch netbook neither a big 14 or 17 inch heavy laptop. It is an excellent combination of both worlds.
Screen
I have used a Samsung N148 netbook before this. And as compared to it, the Asus 1225C has 20 times better screen. The native resolution is 1366x768 which will give you crispest image quality.
The most advantage of this resolution is, if you want to install Windows 8, you can easily do that as the minimum screen resolution required by Windows 8 is the same You can easily run the modern Windows 8 application on Asus 1225C but not on the regular netbooks because the native resolution of the regular netbook does not meet the requirements. (Though there are many workarounds and hacks)
The viewing angles are great and most of the time you won't get any ghost effects. If you are going to watch movies occasionally, it will not disappoint you at all. The horizontal viewing angles (Left and Right) are good but if you try to wide open the screen, the images try to get black. The lower side viewing angle is bad.
The screen is glossy and will give you better picture quality but if you are a person who read too much on the laptop screen, you may prefer the matte screen over this.
Keyboard
Keyboard keys are good places and even if you have big fingers, there will be no any problem for typing. Backspace and Enter keys are larger than the alphabetic keys that make it easier to use. It has extra Home, PgUp, PgDn and End keys at the last line but it may confuse you while typing and using the 'Enter' and 'Backspace' keys but once you get used to it, this may be of more use.
Web Camera
E-Cam software is provided on the accompanying software / driver CD. You have to copy the content of CD in USB drive and then copy it into the hard drive. The software is basic and you can use it for video chat.
The camera is VGA and photo quality is basic. You can not adjust the size of the image and you will get fixed sized photos.
Touch Pad
The touch pad is not so smooth and keys are OK. The two buttons are not separate. You can easily enable and disable the touchpad with the hotkey function provided so that it will not move the cursor while typing. I think you should carry a USB mouse.
Performance
I installed Windows 7 Ultimate for testing, installed Firefox 17 with many extensions, Google Chrome 22, MS Office 2010, VLC media player, Free download manager, Avast antivirus and many other softwares. No any software had any problem while installation.
I tested the Windows Experience Index and it was just 3.4. The bottleneck for such a low result is gaming graphics which is 3.4 and the highest score was for Graphics (Desktop performance for Windows Aero 5.9). Processor got 3.6, RAM 5.2 and hard disk got 5.8.
Browsing Test
While web browsing with Firefox 17 and 10 tabs opened. Up to first 5 tabs the performance was fine but after that, especially when I opened the Google Plus and Google product forum page, there was a problem with scrolling. Google plus page was very slow while loading and scrolling. The total processor used was 38% and RAM used was 1.18GB while loading web pages which dropped down to 4-8% after completely loading all tabs.
There was a JavaScript execution error on Google product forum tab and Firefox freezes for a few moments. I think the problem was a site specific and all other tabs were working fine. When I closed the problematic tab, everything worked fine. Same was the case with Google Chrome with same websites and the same tabs although the memory usage was 120 MB more than Firefox.
MS Office test
To open a blank MS office Word document, Asus 1225C took around 21.13 seconds. There was some lag when I tried copy-paste some text from one document. Same is the case when trying to switch between ribbon tabs but it was acceptable.
Video Playback Normal and HD
I was a little negative about the video playback capacity about this net-book. I had read many reviews and everyone was saying that the playing of full HD video is not possible. But my experience was completely different. May be because, I have got an updated version of drivers or may be Asus and Intel have worked out the problem. There was no any lag or hang of computer at all. The full HD video with 1080 resolutions also played excellent. I used VLC media player for it. There was no any late in sound and everything was worked perfectly.
Music Quality
If you are a music lover, you will be happy for choosing this netbook. The music quality is crystal clear thought it is not too loud but fine for a room. You will not find the volumes sufficient if you are in open places like a garden. If you have a good quality headphone, the music quality is incredible.
The speakers are placed at front side bellow the touch-pad which is a curved place so the sound doesn't get pressed against the ground.
Bluetooth Connectivity
Asus 1225C supports Bluetooth , you can easily share data across other Bluetooth supported devices like your mobile phone, Bluetooth headset, wireless keyboard and mouse and other.
The connectivity is very easy and the hot function key for turning on and off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi will make the task very easy. Once you switch on the Bluetooth, it will automatically search for the devices in the range. Just verify the devices for security and you are done.
You can listen to music, transfer data, make and receive calls from your mobile, sync phone book and messages, connect to internet via mobile network and more.
WI-Fi Connectivity
Asus1225C supports Wi-Fi WLAN 802.11 b/g/n@2. 4GHz which is the latest standard in the industry. The data transfers are fast enough and detects the available networks every easily.
There is no any dedicated software for Asus for making the connectivity task easy over Wi-Fi.
Verdict
All in all, if you are not a gamer, a video editor and want a better powered, ultra portable laptop, also if you hate those 10 inch traditional netbooks for their pathetic screen quality and too small size, if you want a little bigger size than notebooks and 14 inch laptops are too big for traveling with this is a perfect thing you are searching for. I wanted a netbook that didn't add extra weight to my already heavy bag but don't want to shed heavy money on any super powered ultrabooks because I am having a desktop PC where I can do a heavy work which require more processing power, so I selected Asus Eee 1225C.
For Geeks
All this is a simple reason and my experience with the Asus 1225C Eee netbook. But there are some other reasons for which I bought this netbook, even if I already have another one, and the reason is the screen size. Tomorrow I will try to install Androin X86, Chromium OS Linux, Firefox Operating system for Mobile.
You may think, why this one and not another, the reason is all the Chrombooks released by Google are 11.6 inches so, I think it will have better compatibility, the same is the case with Windows 8, the Microsoft Surface has of same size and the Android x86 developer tested all the flavors on Asus Eee PC's.
When I will try all those, I will update my experience here. Also, I will keep updating my experience with Asus 1225C on this post.
Also Read : Must Have Software For Windows Laptop.
Most of the traditional netbooks powered by the Intel Atom processors are primarily used for basic computing like web browsing, word processing and other light work which is justified by long battery life and ultra portability provided by the common 10.1 inch netbooks.
Asus 1225C is an Intel Atom processor based, ultra portable, extra sized netbook. The Eee brand is already a flagship of Asus when it comes to netbooks and the 1225C have much more than you can expect from any netbook.
So here is my experience of Asus 1225C
Technical Specifications
Processor: Intel Atom N2800 Cedar Trail, Dual Core , 3rd generation.
Processor Clock Speed: 1.8 GHZ
System Memory (RAM): 2 GB (Fixed, You can not upgrade it)
Screen Size : 11.8 inches
Screen Resolutions :
Screen Type : Glossy
Keyboard Type: Chicklet
USB Ports: 3 ( 3.0 x 2, 2.0 x1 )
HDMI Port : Yes 1
Eathernet Port : Yes
Bluetooth: 3.0
Memory Card Reader : Yes
Mic and Headphone Out: Yes
Battery: 6 Cell Li-Ion Battery with 8 Hrs backup
Official Technical Specifications here
Pack contents
The Netbook , Battery, Charger, Driver CD. Driver CD has all the required drivers for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, graphics, touchpad and other devices and functionality. There are additions applications given like Caps-hook, Super hybrid engine, Instant On, Media sharing, USB Charge+.
Considerations
I expect that most of the buyers who want a netbook, does not expect a huge powered laptop that can play graphics heavy games and video editing and other such things. When anyone think of a netbook, that means he or she want a laptop for daily needs and light office work or web browsing so to stay connected. If you expect anything else as said above, you should buy a full featured laptop and NOT the Asus 1225C is also viewed from the same angle in this review.
The Looks
The first word is Excellent. It's a great looking notebook that will add value to your lifestyle. The odd size (11.6 inch screen) makes it a unique choice. It is not a regular 10 inch netbook neither a big 14 or 17 inch heavy laptop. It is an excellent combination of both worlds.
Screen
I have used a Samsung N148 netbook before this. And as compared to it, the Asus 1225C has 20 times better screen. The native resolution is 1366x768 which will give you crispest image quality.
The most advantage of this resolution is, if you want to install Windows 8, you can easily do that as the minimum screen resolution required by Windows 8 is the same You can easily run the modern Windows 8 application on Asus 1225C but not on the regular netbooks because the native resolution of the regular netbook does not meet the requirements. (Though there are many workarounds and hacks)
The viewing angles are great and most of the time you won't get any ghost effects. If you are going to watch movies occasionally, it will not disappoint you at all. The horizontal viewing angles (Left and Right) are good but if you try to wide open the screen, the images try to get black. The lower side viewing angle is bad.
The screen is glossy and will give you better picture quality but if you are a person who read too much on the laptop screen, you may prefer the matte screen over this.
Keyboard
Keyboard keys are good places and even if you have big fingers, there will be no any problem for typing. Backspace and Enter keys are larger than the alphabetic keys that make it easier to use. It has extra Home, PgUp, PgDn and End keys at the last line but it may confuse you while typing and using the 'Enter' and 'Backspace' keys but once you get used to it, this may be of more use.
Web Camera
E-Cam software is provided on the accompanying software / driver CD. You have to copy the content of CD in USB drive and then copy it into the hard drive. The software is basic and you can use it for video chat.
The camera is VGA and photo quality is basic. You can not adjust the size of the image and you will get fixed sized photos.
Touch Pad
The touch pad is not so smooth and keys are OK. The two buttons are not separate. You can easily enable and disable the touchpad with the hotkey function provided so that it will not move the cursor while typing. I think you should carry a USB mouse.
Performance
I installed Windows 7 Ultimate for testing, installed Firefox 17 with many extensions, Google Chrome 22, MS Office 2010, VLC media player, Free download manager, Avast antivirus and many other softwares. No any software had any problem while installation.
I tested the Windows Experience Index and it was just 3.4. The bottleneck for such a low result is gaming graphics which is 3.4 and the highest score was for Graphics (Desktop performance for Windows Aero 5.9). Processor got 3.6, RAM 5.2 and hard disk got 5.8.
Browsing Test
While web browsing with Firefox 17 and 10 tabs opened. Up to first 5 tabs the performance was fine but after that, especially when I opened the Google Plus and Google product forum page, there was a problem with scrolling. Google plus page was very slow while loading and scrolling. The total processor used was 38% and RAM used was 1.18GB while loading web pages which dropped down to 4-8% after completely loading all tabs.
There was a JavaScript execution error on Google product forum tab and Firefox freezes for a few moments. I think the problem was a site specific and all other tabs were working fine. When I closed the problematic tab, everything worked fine. Same was the case with Google Chrome with same websites and the same tabs although the memory usage was 120 MB more than Firefox.
MS Office test
To open a blank MS office Word document, Asus 1225C took around 21.13 seconds. There was some lag when I tried copy-paste some text from one document. Same is the case when trying to switch between ribbon tabs but it was acceptable.
Video Playback Normal and HD
I was a little negative about the video playback capacity about this net-book. I had read many reviews and everyone was saying that the playing of full HD video is not possible. But my experience was completely different. May be because, I have got an updated version of drivers or may be Asus and Intel have worked out the problem. There was no any lag or hang of computer at all. The full HD video with 1080 resolutions also played excellent. I used VLC media player for it. There was no any late in sound and everything was worked perfectly.
Music Quality
If you are a music lover, you will be happy for choosing this netbook. The music quality is crystal clear thought it is not too loud but fine for a room. You will not find the volumes sufficient if you are in open places like a garden. If you have a good quality headphone, the music quality is incredible.
The speakers are placed at front side bellow the touch-pad which is a curved place so the sound doesn't get pressed against the ground.
Bluetooth Connectivity
Asus 1225C supports Bluetooth , you can easily share data across other Bluetooth supported devices like your mobile phone, Bluetooth headset, wireless keyboard and mouse and other.
The connectivity is very easy and the hot function key for turning on and off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi will make the task very easy. Once you switch on the Bluetooth, it will automatically search for the devices in the range. Just verify the devices for security and you are done.
You can listen to music, transfer data, make and receive calls from your mobile, sync phone book and messages, connect to internet via mobile network and more.
WI-Fi Connectivity
Asus1225C supports Wi-Fi WLAN 802.11 b/g/n@2. 4GHz which is the latest standard in the industry. The data transfers are fast enough and detects the available networks every easily.
There is no any dedicated software for Asus for making the connectivity task easy over Wi-Fi.
Verdict
All in all, if you are not a gamer, a video editor and want a better powered, ultra portable laptop, also if you hate those 10 inch traditional netbooks for their pathetic screen quality and too small size, if you want a little bigger size than notebooks and 14 inch laptops are too big for traveling with this is a perfect thing you are searching for. I wanted a netbook that didn't add extra weight to my already heavy bag but don't want to shed heavy money on any super powered ultrabooks because I am having a desktop PC where I can do a heavy work which require more processing power, so I selected Asus Eee 1225C.
For Geeks
All this is a simple reason and my experience with the Asus 1225C Eee netbook. But there are some other reasons for which I bought this netbook, even if I already have another one, and the reason is the screen size. Tomorrow I will try to install Androin X86, Chromium OS Linux, Firefox Operating system for Mobile.
You may think, why this one and not another, the reason is all the Chrombooks released by Google are 11.6 inches so, I think it will have better compatibility, the same is the case with Windows 8, the Microsoft Surface has of same size and the Android x86 developer tested all the flavors on Asus Eee PC's.
When I will try all those, I will update my experience here. Also, I will keep updating my experience with Asus 1225C on this post.
Also Read : Must Have Software For Windows Laptop.
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