Interfacing with the N10Jc
Wobbly hinge aside, the N10J's screen measures 10.2 inches and features a glossy finish and LED backlight. The screen is remarkably bright, sporting excellent viewing angles and very even backlighting. I found that in typical use inside the classroom, I only needed about two steps (out of 16) above the screen's minimum brightness for text to remain easily legible. At full brightness, the screen may actually be too much, but that's a welcome problem to have, all things considered.

Like most netbooks, the N10J's screen has a native resolution of 1024x600, which seems like an odd choice for a system with corporate aspirations. With a suggested retail price of $649, the N10Jc-A1 should really be pushing a higher resolution like HP's Mini-Note 2133 or Gigabyte's new M192V. With just 600 vertical pixels, I found even Firefox to be too thick at the top of the window to be useful and wound up electing to use Google Chrome just to get more browsing real estate. The use of a glossy screen also feels superfluous given that the ample backlighting already produces a vivid picture. Asus says the gloss is scratch-resistant, which is nice, but when was the last time you touched your laptop's screen? I tend not to like glossy displays because reflectivity can be a problem under certain lighting conditions. Your own mileage and tastes may vary, of course.

The N10j's keyboard is an absolute delight. Netbooks don't always have good keyboards, but Asus has been rather clever with this one, employing a unique key surface that I found remarkably easy to type on. Instead of the traditional beveling on three or four sides, the N10J's keys have only their left and bottom sides beveled. In practice, the typing surface feels larger and easier to use while still offering a strong tactile sense of the separation of the keys. As for the key layout, there are no real points of contention. Asus has wisely and efficiently used the space available, with the only real compromise being a smaller right shift key that's still in the correct place. Given the size of the keyboard, I can't imagine a better arrangement for the keys. I'm sure certain TR editors with Eee PC 1000s are probably wondering why this more logical layout didn't appear on their netbooks.

The keyboard itself is identical in size to that of the Eee PC 1000 series, with a horizontal span 91% of full size between the A and L keys and a vertical span 86% of full size between the T and B keys.

Below the keyboard sits a touchpad that sports a fingerprint scanner between the left and right buttons. The touchpad's surface is easy to use and quite comfortable, but the mouse buttons may prove to be too noisy for some. They have an almost alarmingly loud click and are sure to draw attention in a classroom or business meeting. To my ears, they actually sound substantially louder than the keyboard itself. Of course, you can just tap the surface of the touchpad instead.

The left and right sides of the N10J house all its ports and switches. Switches are on the left, including a Wi-Fi toggle and a switch that flips between the GMA 950 (dubbed "Power Saver" mode) and NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS (dubbed "Speed" mode). The switches themselves are a bit stiff, and I found I had to wedge my fingernail in to move them. Whether or not this bothers you is going to be a matter of taste, but at least you won't be accidentally switching either. Also over on the left side is the system's HDMI output, which is tied to the GeForce.

Expansion slots are rarely found on netbooks, but the N10J features an ExpressCard/34 slot on the right side of the system. It also has an 8-in-1 media card reader along the front edge of the case and Altec-Lansing-branded speakers that sound surprisingly good.