Red Fox WizBook N1020i fails to impress

By: Pallab Jyotee Hazarika

If looks alone could kill, The Wizbook would’ve been a demon

 Red Fox is from Philippines, has recently launched this series of netbook with well.. some really weird shades. Powered by an Intel Atom N270 processor with a standard clocking of 1.6GHz, 32KB of L1 cache and 512KB of L2 cache, the Wizbook is adorned by a 1GB DDR2 667 memory support (upgradable to 2GB), and a hard disk capacity is up to 160GB. Connectivity is taken care of by the Wireless LAN 802.11b/g, and Bluetooth 3.0 –which is a first. It also offers a SD/MMC/MS Card Reader. Red Fox also throws in a 1.3MP Webcam.

David Gonzales of electronicpulp, got his hands on a piece for reviewing. The machine has nothing much to offer really, except maybe the ExpressCard/34 slot and Bluetooth 3.0. The reason you would look back at this baby is its looks – which too rather outrageous looks - how about banana yellow for a shade, or leaf green? Couple it with the attractive price and it might just find some space in some people’s heart.

The Red Fox WizBook N1020i scores on designs healthily. The outer lid is made out of glossy plastic that will attract greases and dirt but you can’t disagree with me that it looks far stylish than a matte finish. It’s quite thin and light for a 10” netbook. It comes in five shades - green, yellow, black, pink, and red. It comes with XP pre-installed and no bloatware – so you are pretty much left alone to chose your own softwares.

Inside it’s the same old N270 racing against time with a clock speed of 1.6GHz. The ExpressCard/34 slot is only of ornamental value as they come as a convenient upgrade option in many other netbooks. But inspite of an average processor, David found out the system was quite speedy with Windows XP and worked fast enough with Aero in Windows 7 (as well as with Desktop Effects in Ubuntu 9.04). Even the built-in speakers were surprisingly loud. The placement of ports did not prove to be a problem and the presence of a built-in webcam and mic made the N1020i useful as a device for chatting on the go, connecting to open Wi-Fi hotspots easily with the built-in 802.11b/g wireless antenna – as pointed out by David.

The touchpad although has a quite comfortable grip with the left and right mouse buttons nicely placed, Red Fox forgot to provide the multi-touch gesture. The keys are also cramped and are not at all comfortable to type.

The last thing that could save the WizBook N1020i was the battery, but with a 3-cell battery and no option of upgrades – this was sadly not the case. And with the same price, you probably will have to settle for a GB of less memory, but even then I, like David, will suggest you go for another brand.