Asus is stepping up to the plate when it comes to launching a competent set of entry level laptops. While many users are searching for an all purpose laptop, some users just want a secondary laptop that they can easily carry around, with vast battery life and all the commodities that Windows 10 provides them. It's in this scenario where our review of the Asus VivoBook E200HA-US01-GD comes to play.
Asus's latest foray onto the entry level market is equipped with a stylish and lightweight design, 13 hour battery life, SSD storage, great connectivity and a smashing price. However, don't take us on our word, keep reading and see for yourself if this is the laptop you've been waiting for or if it'll fall short to your expectations.
Asus VivoBook E200HA-US01-GD Review of the perfect secondary laptop
Incredibly light design with an enhanced display
One of the reasons many people turn to this model is its lightweight design. Specifically, the Asus VivoBook E200HA-US01-GD weighs a measly 2.2 pounds making it absurdly portable. Just to place this into context, this laptop is even lighter than Apple's 11 inch Macbook Air so if you've held one of those on your hands you know you're in for a treat when you pack this notebook from one place to another.
The screen size is also the same as the 11 inch MacBook. To be more specific, we've got an 11.6 inch display with an HD resolution and a set of software upgrades that deliver true to life colors and allow you to adjust your colour settings amongst a wide variety of options. This is a very handy feature when you're editing pictures and you want to know exactly how they'll look once you print them out.
The keyboard is also very convenient, not only because we're talking about a fully fledged keyboard but because the keystroke key travel distance is of 1.8 mm which means you get a more pleasurable and natural typing experience.
What's within?
We're not gonna lie and tell you that performance on the Asus VivoBook E200HA-US01-GD is excellent because that's simply not the case. Rather, you should think of this laptop as a Windows 10 tablet with good specs, great battery life and a comfortable keyboard. That's how you should judge this laptop's performance because if you compare it to an i5 laptop with 8GB of RAM you'd be fooling yourself.
With that in mind, Asus's latest entry level comes with a quad core Intel X5-8300 processor that operates at a base frequency of 1.84 GHz. Couple that with 2GB of DDR3L RAM and the essential 32 GB of SSD storage and you've got yourself a great laptop for stuff like streaming movies, typing a novel, editing pics and chatting with friends. If you're in need of more horsepower then you'll be in for a disappointment.
Multitasking with 2GB of RAM is pretty much limited to between two and three things at a time, especially if these aren't power hungry activities. Otherwise we'd stick to just the two activities at a time. However, jumping from one program to another is very fast thanks to its SSD storage which allows for quick and easy access as well as great boot up times.
Speaking of speed, another great virtue this laptop holds is that it comes packed with a WiFi ac antenna and MU-MIMO technology which delivers very fast download speeds when compared to your run of the mill b/g/n connectivity you'll find on most entry level models.
However, aside from the sleek design, the other thing we really love about this laptop is its 13 hour battery life (2 cell battery) which means you can use it all day long without having to carry around your power cord every time you pack your laptop.
This is an excellent feature for both students and people who wanna work on the road. It's also great for people who spend a lot of time traveling since they'll be able to watch movies, edit pics and get work done no matter where they are.
What are the biggest cons or drawbacks?
Asus had to make a certain amount of sacrifices when they designed this model. The biggest one being the lack of a DVD drive. This is normal for 11 inch models but it could still be a dealbreaker for some. Also, USB ports are limited to two, one USB 2.0 and one 3.0, there's also a microHDMI instead of a standard HDMI and of course, there's no ethernet entrance.
That said, we're pleased to say that this model does come with an SD card reader which can also act as a storage expansion unit. Just place a 32/64GB SD card on the slot and you've got yourself a quick fix to your lack of storage.
Oh yeah, the webcam is VGA, something that we've also come to expect at this price point and often times at even higher prices.
Wrapping things up
As a secondary laptop, our Asus VivoBook E200HA-US01-GD review shows that this notebook is more than up for the task. This is not a main laptop unless you're not really into computers and your main usage is just web browsing, watching movies and editing documents, at which point this could potentially serve you as a main laptop.
Mainly in this case we would say that if you can use a tablet or smartphone as your main computing device then this laptop could also work as that. The battery life is impressive, design is sleek and the manual color settings are definitely a plus. All in all, for basic computing this is a great option at an even better price.