 |
| Photo by: notebookcheck.com |
Not only is this laptop small, but it packs a punch. This laptop was ~$400 and it looks like a MacBook. The materials are a mixture of plastic and metal. The ports include: a power port, Ethernet, HDMI, one USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0, Kingston lock, VGA, mic/headphone jack, and an SD card reader.
Operation:
This laptop contains an Intel Core i3-3217U processor, clocked at 1.8GHz, 4 GB of ram, and a 500 GB hard drive. This laptop is very powerful for the price point, but the reason it was a great deal was this laptop has a touch screen with "Full Windows Touch Support with 10 Touch Points". Having 500 GB of storage is great for a laptop of this size, but the hard drive is slow spinning at only 5400 RPM. At this price point, some performance has to be decreased. The Intel Core i3 chipset in this laptop can easily be overwhelmed with tasks for a power user. Since i3 processors do not have a turbo boost, the processor struggles to run more demanding software. The keyboard and track pad are easy to use, and work great. The included webcam is an added bonus, but it is only 2 megapixels which is only really adequate for Skype calls. The keyboard is not backlit on this laptop.
Battery Life:
With smaller computers comes amazing battery life...right? No. In this laptop, this is not the case. For some reason, this laptop can only last 2-4 hours tops. This all depends on the programs running and what the screen brightness is set to, but the battery life is very disappointing on this machine. Other laptops in this category get 5-8 hours of battery life.
Software:
Asus includes some helpful software in this laptop that allows the hardware to come to life. One application is called "Asus USB Charger Plus" which allows users to plug in their devices into the USB 3.0 port and charge their phone even when the system is on or in sleep mode. Windows 8.1 64-bit runs amazingly fast and responsive using the mouse and keyboard or the touch screen. The new "Update 1" for Windows 8.1 adds added functionality for mouse and keyboard users, if you choose to work Windows that way.
Overall Thoughts:
The Asus Q200E is a great package deal for the money. If people want a touch screen on a relatively powerful laptop, look no further. Other laptops, with touch screens, run close to $1,000 dollars when this was bought last year. It makes a great portable laptop that can run almost any application. The only downsides to this laptop are the battery life and hard drive speed.
Score:
8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment