The 1201HA is neat looking to say the least and it’s finished in a pure glossy black. While glossy black finishes are a dime-a-dozen these days the 1201HA looks hot, but not as hot as the pure white version, at the expense of sounding colour prejudiced, which we are! And she’s slim as well; ASUS has managed a very sleek look, with designeresque curves and edges. The display is also pretty good, and at 12.1-inches it’s larger than typical netbooks and gloriously viewable. The screen resolution is 1366 x 768 pixels – not bad. The thick bezel will bother some, but ASUS has given this one a segregated keypad that will catch your attention. It’s a good looker but doesn’t function as well – the keys are slightly smaller than we’d like, and although key spacing is fine, the whole setup feels a little unintuitive while typing. Larger keys next time ASUS is all we can say. Then there’s the mushy feedback, and this completes the suspicion that ASUS was trying to achieve a Sony-like feel to their keypad, since Sony uses the same segregated design and soft keys. The trackpad is reasonably accurate; but a royal pain. It has tiny dimples that immediately earn our distaste. They are abrasive to the fingerpads and very uncomfortable, and will bother the heck out of you, unless you’re a manual labourer. The dedicated trackpad disable button is a nice addition and is useful, since the trackpad isn’t recessed.

It’s size belies the hardware and a 1.33 GHz Atom Z520 is puny indeed, especially since given the larger screen, ASUS had more space to shoehorn some higher performing goodies in. In testament to the weak processor, the video encoding scores were the lowest, taking just 12 seconds short of three minutes. It was also the second last in the Wi-Fi test. Not an impressive show at all. But hey! – people don’t buy netbooks for their performance, do they? The 2 GB of DDR2 RAM makes booting up and surfing quite snappy, and this is the only other netbook aside from the MSI U130 to feature Windows 7 Starter. Priced at Rs. 23,990, the 1201HA is a lovely piece of equipment to behold, but once you begin using it some chinks in its armour become noticeable. If you are looking for a larger screen however, it is worth a look.
 

The 1201HA is neat looking to say the least and it’s finished in a pure glossy black. While glossy black finishes are a dime-a-dozen these days the 1201HA looks...