ASUS S200N
ASUS S300N
by Galina Sudareva
09/04/2004 | 06:50 PM
The fashionable tendency to miniaturization often leads to sacrifices in terms of performance, functionality or ergonomics. So, notebooks, being much alike to desktop PCs but smaller, can’t compete with them in performance yet. However, the developers are driving for an even higher level of miniaturization.
<%BANNER[article]%>Does this mean we’re up to more sacrificing? I hope this review will help to answer this question. Portable computers S200N and S300N from ASUS that I will be talking about belong to the class of sub-notebooks, super-light systems with a small screen and small keys and a highest battery run-down time.
So, sub-notebook means small, slim and such and the two reviewed devices fit into this definition well: the dimensions of the S200N are 228x152x28mm, of the S300N – 235x177x32mm. The case of the S200N is light-gray with a black bottom; the S300N is all silvery-blue with black insertions. These two computers look like some small books. This simile is emphasized by the S300N’s having angular rather than rounded corners. The design is overall elegant and exquisite.
To open the lids of the sub-notebooks, you lift the latch on their front panels up. The latch is rather unhandy, especially for women – you can accidentally spoil your manicure or even break your nails.
The notebooks are different inside:
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The ASUS S200N has a rectangular power-on button near the screen hinges, above the black keyboard. The keyboard is smaller than usual, but still quite easy to use. Page Up, Page Down, Home and End keys are combined with the arrow keys and, like the functional keys, are available when you press them with the [Fn] button. There’re numerical buttons as well as two Windows keys available.
The ASUS S200N offers you a TrackPoint instead of the ordinary mouse. It is realized as a small joystick, located between the second and third rows of keys, and three buttons (two replace the mouse’s buttons and scrolling wheel). It’s not as easy to work with the TrackPoint as with a touch pad, but one can get used to anything with practice :).
There are two stereo speakers at the sides of the cursor keys – it is not the best position as you cover them with your hands when typing text on the keyboard, but it’s really difficult to find a proper place for the speakers on the surface of so small a computer.
The ASUS S300N uses exactly the same keyboard as the S200N, but its position has changed – the keyboard is now very close to the screen hinges, leaving more space for your hands. Again, we have a TrackPoint here, although the color and design of the three buttons is different – silvery-blue to match the case of the computer.
Besides that, there are a rectangular power-on button, two stereo speakers and five quick-launch buttons near the screen hinges. The buttons do the following:
The indicators of the system status are located at the right part of the front panel. When viewed from above, these indicators look like shining symbols; if the notebook’s lid is closed, the indicators are visible as ordinary LEDs. In other words, you can always see them, irrespective of the position of the lid. Curiously, the indicators of the S200N are brighter than those of the S300N. The indicators are split in two groups on the ASUS S200N. One group is on the left of the front panel:
Another group is on the right, too, but it is above the keyboard, next to the power-on button. This group includes:
The ASUS S300N has the following indicators of the system’s status:
Besides that, there’s a WLAN indicator on the right, above the keyboard; and in the bottom left corner, there’s an indicator of the multimedia audio system (it is aglow when this system is on). The hole of the integrated microphone is also there, in the left corner, so you can use the ASUS S300N as a dictaphone.
The widescreen LED displays of both sub-notebooks have a diagonal of 8.9 inches, an aspect ratio of 16:9 and a maximum resolution of 1024x600. They are good at reproducing colors and have acceptable brightness and viewing angles. You can control the screen brightness with appropriate functional keys in a rather wide range – there are 15 grades of brightness to choose from. At the zero brightness, the display is practically blank, although you could try to read text in full darkness. The ASUS S300N uses an antiglare coating, which should reduce the reflection and refraction of sun beams on the screen. Unfortunately, in my opinion, this coating doesn’t help, but only produces additional mirroring artifacts – I don’t think the sub-notebook’s screen should be used as a mirror!
The front panel of the S200N only carries a lid latch.
ASUS S200N
The ASUS S300N, besides the lid latch, has a block of buttons for controlling CD playback on its front panel: stop, play/pause, next and previous. These multimedia buttons can be locked (as I already mentioned above) by pressing the Key Lock button – the CD player indicator will signal about that.
ASUS S300N
The following is found on the left panel of the ASUS S200N:
ASUS S200N
The following connectors are located on the left side of the ASUS S300N:
ASUS S300N
On the right side of the ASUS S200N we have the following:
ASUS S200N
On the right panel of the S300N you can find a network connector, an IEEE 1394 port, a DVD-CD/RW bay with an eject button and an emergency extraction hole, and a slot for PC Cards (one card of type I or II).
ASUS S300N
At the rear panels of both sub-notebooks there’s a battery compartment: additional for the ASUS S200N (it already has an integrated battery; if you don’t use the additional battery, you may want to cover this bay with a special gag) and main for the ASUS S300N. The S300N also has a Kensington lock hole here.
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At the bottom of both notebooks, you can find round covers of the memory slots (this slot is empty on the ASUS S300N), a battery module and vent holes.
For comparison, here’s a table of all the connectors and ports of the two sub-notebooks:
The accessories sets differ between the sub-notebooks. So, let’s discuss the ASUS S200N first. This model comes with an external power adapter, an additional battery, a cable for connecting two computers across the USB interface (supports High-Speed USB 2.0), an adapter for the external monitor (D-Sub), a phone cable, a portable optical mouse Logitech Traveler, a napkin for dusting the screen, two spare TrackPoint caps, necessary documentation, a user manual, cards with Web addresses of tech support service and with phones of service centers around the world, a set of installation CDs (two discs for system restoration and a disc with drivers and utilities), a bag and a special “folder” for carrying the notebook.
The snapshots below show you the USB LAN cable and the Logitech Traveler mouse:
The exclusive bag you receive with the notebook is rather small and gray in color and designed in the sports style. It has two big compartments (for the notebook, its accessories, power adapter, documentation and other thingies) as well as two voluminous pockets on the front side where you can stuff more thingies in.
The transportation “folder” protects the notebook from dust and dirt, scratches and unwanted looks:
The ASUS S300N comes with an external power adapter, an adapter for an external monitor or port replicator, a phone cable, an optical mouse Logitech Traveler, a napkin to dust the screen, two spare TrackPoint caps, documentation, a user manual, cards with Web addresses of tech support service and with phones of service centers around the world, a set of installation CDs (two discs for system restoration, a disc with drivers and utilities, a disc with Nero), a portable MP3 player and/or SD/MMC card-reader, a transportation folder.
You put the sub-notebook into this transportation folder to protect it against dust and scratches:
The portable MP3 player uses SD and MMC flash cards as audio media – and you can use it like a card-reader. The player is smaller than a cigarettes pack; its exact dimensions are 77x56x15mm, and its weight is only 38gram. It is powered by a single AAA battery.
The color of the player’s case is blue, while the control buttons are silvery. They are:
There are two indicators in the top left corner. They blink or shine with blue or red light depending on the function the player’s now performing.
The slit for SD and MMC flash cards is on the top of the case. It is next to a microphone socket and an eye for attaching a neck cord. On the left panel, there are two buttons: a repeat key (it sets the point from which a fragment will be repeated) and a controls lock key.
At the bottom, there’s a mini-USB connector for connecting the player to the computer. The player comes with a pair of earpieces – they are rather bad at reproducing sound, so you may want to replace them with better headphones. Overall, this player is a nice addition to the notebook, which adds one more function to the system – the S300N can read SD cards only, while the MP3 player can read MMC cards, too.
The ASUS S200N and the S300N share the same Centrino architecture. They both have an Intel Pentium M 1GHz CPU (Banias core, 0.13-micron technology, 400MHz FSB, 1MB L2 cache) and a 4200rpm Hitachi IC25N060ATMR04-0 HDD (8MB cache buffer, 60GB capacity). The S200N model features the Intel 855GM chipset with support of DDR266 SDRAM, while the S300N is based on the i855GME chipset that supports DDR333 SDRAM.
The ASUS S200N has one memory slot occupied with a 512MB module of PC2700 DDR SDRAM (according to the manufacturer, this is the maximum memory amount for this computer).
The ASUS S300N uses two memory slots, one of which is already occupied with a 512MB module of PC2700 DDR SDRAM. The other slot is empty – the manufacturer claims the maximum supported memory amount is 1024MB.
One memory slot is at the bottom of each of the notebooks. To access this slot, you undo the fastening screws. Removing the keyboard and shifting it towards the screen, you can access the miniPCI slot of the ASUS S300N model.
The sub-notebooks both use integrated graphics subsystems with Dynamic Video Memory technology – from 8MB to 64MB of system memory is allotted dynamically for the needs of the graphics core. The audio subsystems of the two models are integrated, too. The sound is good enough for the OS messages, applications and games. The stereo speakers have a good volume reserve.
The configuration of the ASUS S200N doesn’t include an optical or floppy drive – it is too small for that. The ASUS S300N, however, does feature an inbuilt DVD/CD-RW drive that can read CDs and DVDs at 24x and 8x speeds, respectively. It rewrites CD-RWs at 16x and burns CD-Rs at 24x.
Both systems boast Wi-Fi units of the IEEE 802.11b standard. Unfortunately, none of them supports the Bluetooth interface or has an infrared unit for connecting to a cell phone or another notebook.
The sub-notebooks both have rather quiet cooling systems (a most important factor of any computer!) I measured the temperatures with an infrared thermometer during the Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 test to get the following results:
The following table details the technical characteristics of the S200N and S300N sub-notebooks from ASUS:
I checked the performance of the ASUS S200N and S300N under control of Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition with DirectX 9.0a installed. Before the tests, I disabled power-saving and network services, the audio subsystems, antivirus software, and screensavers.
Our tests:
I used two power modes in my tests. First, I selected the Always On power mode for the maximum performance and the shortest battery run-down time. Then, I switched to the Max Battery mode for the maximum battery run-down time. I tested the computers at the maximum screen brightness settings and the maximum resolution of the LCD matrix.
The reviewed computers belong to the sub-notebook class (super-light and small-size systems mostly sharpened for a longest time of autonomous work), so it’s natural to test this characteristic first. I measured the battery run-down time with the help of Battery Eater Pro 2.23 in several test modes:
The results are tabled below:
So, the ASUS S200N can last as long as 1 hour 13 minutes in the 3DMark/classic mode and up to 1 hour 29 minutes in the reader’s mode. The battery of the S300N allows working for 3 hours 23 minutes in the classic mode, 4 hours 34 minutes in the reader’s mode and 3 hours 12 minutes in the DVD watch mode.
I should note that the poor results of the ASUS S200N are quite expected since it uses an integrated battery of 1250mAh only. However, there’s an additional 2000mAh battery among the accessories, and I tested the notebook with it, too. I should also confess that the results of the ASUS S200N in the 3DMark/classic mode with an additional battery are an approximation since 3DMark 2001SE Pro would fall out into Windows on the fifth cycle and wouldn’t run this test correctly to the end. So I had to restart the benchmark and get the result this way.
The use of the additional battery in the ASUS S200N gives an impressive bonus to the time of autonomous work: 1 hour 44 minutes in the 3DMark/classic mode and 2 hours 30 minutes in the reader’s mode – a very perceptible advantage!
For those of you who think visually I drew the following diagrams:
The results of office and content-creation benchmarks like Business Winstone 2004 and Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 should also be interesting for a prospective owner of the ASUS S200N or S300N, since these notebooks are likely to be mostly used with such applications. So, the two above-mentioned benchmarks run scripts of office (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Power Point, Microsoft Front Page, WinZip, Norton Antivirus Professional Edition) and multimedia (Microsoft Windows Media Encoder, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, NewTek LightWave 3D, Steinberg WaveLab, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, Macromedia Director MX) applications and measure the time it takes to run each script through.
The results are given in the following table:
You understand that the scores are low, but after all, this is natural for computers with a Pentium M processor of 1GHz frequency. When powered by the battery, the notebooks both drop their performance by 30% as the system automatically enters the power-saving mode. The results of the S300N are about 4% better in Business Winstone 2004 than those of the S200N, and 2% better in Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004. This difference is explained by the sub-notebooks using different memory (the i855GME chipset of the S300N supports DDR333 SDRAM, while the i855GE chipset of the S200N only supports DDR266 SDRAM).
Sandra 2004 confirms that the two notebooks use the same processor, giving them about the same scores in the CPU test. Due to the above-mentioned difference in the memory subsystems, the ASUS S300N is about 11% faster than the S200N in the memory test. Curiously, the S200N is found to have an 8% slower disk subsystem than the S300N.
The following table contains the SiSoftware Sandra 2004 scores:
The reviewed sub-notebooks are not intended for playing games. Anyway, let’s try to evaluate their gaming capabilities. We ran 3DMark 2001SE Pro in two modes:
The following table suggests that the notebooks are different in graphics applications.
Well, the results are rather poor due to the slow CPU (1GHz clock rate) and the DVM technology. The slower memory of the S200N is the reason for its being 8-12% slower than the ASUS S300N. When powered by their batteries, the sub-notebooks cannot provide playability in dynamic DirectX 9.0 games.
Then I tested the notebooks in Quake 3 with two graphics quality presets:
I had to use 800x600 resolution in the second mode, since the sub-notebooks both refused to start the game up in a higher resolution. As you can see in the table below, the performance of the ASUS S300N is about 6% higher than that of the ASUS S200N in the first test mode and about 23% higher in the second test mode.
The same numbers, but as diagrams:
In Unreal Tournament 2003, the ASUS S300N was much faster than the ASUS S200N, by 43-46% to be exact. Here are the numbers:
Well, that’s rather a surprising result. I think the results in Unreal Tournament 2003 are due to certain differences in the integrated graphics cores, since it is the graphics subsystem that mostly affects the results in this test. For better reading, I construct diagrams out of the numbers in the table above:
Both sub-notebooks support a two-tier data security system:
The S200N and S300N also allow restoring the system from a special hidden partition on the hard disk drive (that’s especially important for the S200N model which doesn’t have an optical drive). When you want to roll the OS, drivers and utilities, and other software back to the moment when you bought the notebook, press the F9 key before powering the computer up. After that, you will see a menu with the following items:
1. Reboot to Windows XP; this option is selected by default after 60 seconds;
2. Recover Windows XP to first partition only (the first system partition will be deleted, and a new “Disk C” partition will be created; other partitions remain intact);
3. Recover Windows XP to entire HD (all the partitions of the hard disk will be deleted and a single “Disk C” partition will be created);
4. Recover Windows XP to entire HD with 2 partition (all the partitions of the hard disk will be deleted, and two new partitions will be created – “Disk C” for 60% of the drive’s total storage capacity and “Disk D” for the remaining 40%).
Having tested and examined these two sub-notebooks, ASUS S200N and S300N, I should confess I’m very pleased with these “cuties”. They are small and light and easily fit into any bag, from women’s handbag to rucksack. By the way, in dimensions only, the S200N is better between the two, and I think the users who are not set aback by the lack of an optical drive in its configuration should be pleased with it and its price, too. Otherwise, the ASUS S300N has an advantage as it delivers a higher performance; it is also ergonomic and functional, with an excellent battery run-down time. This model would be a good helper for people who spend their lives on business or entertainment trips.
Unfortunately, there are minor shortcomings with these notebooks. They don’t support Bluetooth or infrared connections to a cell phone or another computer. The placement of the USB ports is rather inconvenient, too, as they are too close to each other, making it difficult to use more than one port at a time. But you understand that it’s impossible to go on miniaturizing without sacrificing certain conveniences in terms of performance or connections or ports…
