The good: Sleek Netbook at affordable price; large 12.1-inch display; comes with Vista Home Premium license for upgrade to Windows 7; generous two-year international warranty.

The bad: Mini-HDMI port requires adapters; shared headphone and microphone jack; built-in battery with short uptime; run-of-the-mill Atom chipset.

The bottom line: The iiView makes no bones about being the MacBook Air of the Netbook world and impresses with its sleek profile and low price. However, at the end of the day, it's still just a Netbook.

Read full review of the iiView A2 »

By Darius Chang, CNET Asia
Aug 17, 2009

For a small startup, Singapore-based iiView's first foray into the Netbook arena is surprisingly not another uninspired "me-too" minilaptop. From the get go, the iiView A2's design took a page (more like the entire book) from Apple's MacBook Air. The sleek form factor and generous 12.1-inch display sets it apart from the competition, though its Atom guts means it performs just as well as (or as poorly as) the next Netbook. However, at under S$800 (US$579.84) this is one of the more affordable options for those looking for a stylishly slim minilaptop with a decent screen size.

Design

At first glance, the iiView A2 looks like a smaller, plastic version of the MacBook Air. In fact, the similarities even extend to the flip-down slot which hides a mini-HDMI and USB port on the left. The main departure is an additional USB slot on the right. Despite its matte plastic chassis, the iiView A2 is surprisingly well-built with no flex or creaking. One small gripe we have is that this Netbook is available only in white. As a result, stains and scratches tend to be pronounced and difficult to hide.

Though we like the sleek profile, we could have done away with one imitation--the non-replaceable battery. As we will explain later, the iiView's uptime is nothing close to Apple's premium ultraportable, and not being able to carry multiple cells could be a deal-breaker for some.



At the base of the unit, a single panel hides the upgradeable components of the Netbook. If you wish, the single RAM slot, SATA harddisk and wireless module can all be changed for better hardware. The rubber stubs at the bottom increase the height a little, but in return provide a stable platform for typing.

The keyboard is one of the better ones for a Netbook, and the typing experience is generally satisfactory. However, touch-typing tends to result in a few more typos than we would have liked. In fact, we feel the iiView could have made better use of the bigger footprint and put in larger keys. The touchpad is generously sized and quite responsive.

Tags: Netbook, Apple MacBook, Serial ATA, Microsoft Windows 7, Keyboard

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