The good: Comfortable keyboard; excellent battery life; sleek design; affordable for an 11.6-inch Netbook; optional HSDPA radio; quick charge mode provides up to 6 hours of uptime with 1-hour charge.

The bad: No dedicated buttons or switches; trackpad not multitouch enabled.

The bottom line: One of the more affordable 11.6-inch Netbooks in the market, the JoyBook Lite U121 Eco impressed with an excellent battery life and comfortable keyboard despite its no-frills design.

Read full review of the BenQ JoyBook Lite U121 Eco »

By Darius Chang, CNET Asia
Oct 12, 2009

With the wide range of Netbooks surging into the market, along with the second-generation Atom platform expected early next year, vendors are finding way to differentiate their offerings in the market. HP collaborated with famous fashion designers such as Vivienne Tam and Studio Tord Boontje to create unique covers, while Acer and Gateway started using AMD chips and ATI graphics processors in their minilaptops. At the same time, LG and Lenovo have put in a Linux-based preboot environment that bypasses Windows OS and allows the user to surf the Web and check emails in seconds.

The BenQ JoyBook Lite U121 Eco, however, goes back to basics and creates an affordable minilaptop with long battery life and a comfortable typing experience. The Eco in its name is meant to impart a sense of environmental awareness as this portable reduces the packaging size, uses recycled materials and is one of the few to come with an Energy Star logo to denote reduced power consumption. But does this BenQ have what it takes to compete in the competitive Netbook market?

Design

While the earlier JoyBook Lite U101 had a unique Emoticon design, the BenQ JoyBook Lite U121 Eco does away with that and opts for a simple glossy body in a choice of white or blue. Together with a gun-metal gray and black interior, the Taiwanese maker has somehow managed to slip in a six-cell battery, while maintaining a sleek profile and portable 1.45kg heft. Though most machines with a glossy exterior tend to pick up fingerprints faster than a forensics database, this JoyBook's chassis is somewhat resistant to body oils as well as light scratches.

Despite the fact that most recent Netbooks sport multitouch trackpads, this BenQ has a standard model with left/right click buttons and a scroll bar at the side. Fortunately, the buttons provide a solid feel and the touchpad is responsive. The keyboard, on the other hand, stands out as the alphabet keys are the same as full-sized versions. Though touch typing is possible on the U121 Eco, there are a few points to note. In order to fit the keyboard into a 11.6-inch body, the punctuation keys are half-sized, which may throw off some users. But in our experience this is a minor quibble and the JoyBook offers one of the best typing experiences for a Netbook.



The Taiwan company probably designed this machine with a minimalist mindset as, aside from the power button, there are no other switches and keys on the U121 Eco. The wireless radio, touchpad, volume and even screen brightness are accomplished by a combination of button presses. Not exactly a deal-breaker, but other models do at least offer an easier way to turn off the Wi-Fi to save on battery life, which we expected the BenQ U121 Eco to have.

Features

Don't look forward to features such as a one-touch backup button (Lenovo S10) or 8-second bootup (LG X120), as the BenQ JoyBook Lite U121 Eco is best described as a no-frills Netbook with an affordable S$899 (US$638.45) price tag. This is cheaper than comparable models such as the Acer Aspire One 751 and Gateway LT3104. The BenQ is also one of the few Netbooks in its class to offer an optional HSDPA radio in some regions.

One useful feature we like is the quick charge function. Within an hour, the Netbook can charge its cell to 80 percent capacity with a claimed battery life of up to 6 hours. A full charge to bump up the unplug time to 8 hours takes another 60 minutes. This impressive battery life is possible as the Energy Star-compliant machine uses the low-power Atom Z series processor while sipping power from a generous six-cell 5,200mAh battery. The reduced thermal signature also results in quieter operation as the fan does not need to be turned on as often.

The 11.6-inch display is HD-ready and driven by an integrated Intel GMA 500 graphics processor. We found this chipset to perform slightly better than the more common Intel GMA 950 version as standard definition videos runs well on this machine. However, its Atom chip is still a stumbling block when it comes to surfing Adobe Flash-heavy sites as well as high-definition video streaming.



Interestingly enough, you can switch the screen to portrait mode by pressing Ctrl+$ and back to landscape mode with Ctrl+€. We don't know how useful this feature is since the laptop is not a convertible tablet PC, but its there if you need it. The SRS TruSurround HD-branded audio platform is adequate when played through the built-in stereo speakers, but we advise plugging in headsets to enjoy better sound quality.

Performance And Battery Life

The S$899 (US$638.45) JoyBook Lite runs off a 1.6GHz Atom Z530 processor, 1GB RAM and 160GB HDD. Internet surfing and simple productivity tools such as word processing are no problems for this machine, though HD videos (even those streamed from the Net) do not perform well on this minilaptop.

Battery life is where this Netbook excels. We looped a video clip at half-screen brightness with the wireless radios turned off and the machine shut down only after an impressive 5 hours 32 minutes despite a larger screen and resolution than most 10.1-inch models. This should be enough battery life for even long flights without the need to recharge.

Service And Support

The JoyBook comes with a one-year international warranty. At BenQ's support Web site, laptop owners can download the latest drivers and software updates as well as register for the warranty online, though for some markets you might have to keep the receipt for verification. In the event of a hardware failure, the portable has to be sent to the service center for diagnosis or repair. Telephone support is available. Unfortunately, there is no online database or FAQ to assist users for common issues, though there is an online email form which can be used for this purpose.

Tags: Netbook, JoyBook Lite U121 Eco, Laptop Computer, Keyboard, processor

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