In the never-ending saga to find the best in value in technology I pounced on something I could not resist. I have a terrible weakness for cheap laptops. Typically, I purchase a new laptop every other year and my old laptop becomes my dad’s new laptop. Almost every purchase is made during the Boxing Week sale at the end of the year. That is how I have ended up with several years of HP laptops, and a Lenovo all with AMD APUs.
Of course there were some available with Intel CPUs but as an AMD guy I went out of my way to get a laptop with an AMD CPU which was harder than you may imagine.
The last laptop I purchased was a Lenovo that I have been pretty happy with though it came with a defective power supply. Buying a new power supply fixed it and I moved on. What I have really not been liking is the size and weight of the laptop. It’s a full size 15.6” laptop, relatively thin for it’s size but still very heavy.
Something smaller was needed. Much smaller.
Enter the Asus VivoBook E203N. Price point was a major reason for this particular purchase. At $279.99 right now on Amazon I had to pick one up.
Asus VivoBook E203N
- CPU
- Intel Celeron N3350 1.1GHz (Boost to 2.4GHz) TDP 6W
- Memory
- 4GB DDR3L 1600MHz
- Storage
- 32GB eMMC SSD
- Included 32GB Micro-SD Card
- Screen
- 6” LED Backlit 1366×768 TN Panel
- Graphics
- Intel HD Graphics 500
- Connectivity
- 11ac Wi-Fi
- Bluetooth 4.1
- Battery
- 38 Wh
So this CPU is very similar to the N3050 we have in our Intel NUC in the studio we use for skype and initially that did concern me but it looks like the extra year and a half being baked the new late 2016 N3350 is a much better performer. I won’t lie though. Watching Youtube and then open a few more tabs of Opera. This is a no go as it pegs the CPU to 100%. This has forced me to find another browser and so I did something I haven’t done in years. Use a Microsoft browser. Briefly, Microsoft Edge doesn’t completely suck. On top of that you can multi-task as the CPU sits around 25 to 40% playing back a 1080p60 video on Youtube.
On the memory front, I have seen cheaper netbooks (as that’s really what this is) running 2GB but I can’t see Windows 10 running on it in any kind of efficient fashion. This VivoBook has 4GB and it appears to be more than enough especially when there isn’t going to be a bunch of multi-tasking going on during use.
Storage is the real issue on this netbook. 32GB is not enough to do major Windows updates. This was a huge complaint and Asus, after their initial launch of the E203N, responded by providing a 32GB micro SD card allowing you to update. This is good because almost as soon as I started the thing up it wanted to update to the latest 1803 Windows version.
Obviously with this little amount of storage you aren’t going to be lugging around a giant library of Steam games. That said you won’t really be playing much on this laptop. You do get a steady framerate in Minecraft (even though I really don’t play that it’s still worth noting that). Older titles like Half Life and things of that era play well on the laptop. Rocket League at 720p sees pretty poor performance with about an average of about 12 to 15 frames per second. So playable but not really enjoyable. No matter the case the integrated Intel graphics are not impressive to behold.
As for connectivity this little netbook has a lot. We’ve got two USB 3.1 ports, one USB-C and an HDMI out. For networking we have 802.11ac wireless and Bluetooth 4.1. I had no performance issues streaming from YouTube over the 2.4 and 5GHz bands of my wifi.
Aesthetically the netbook is really nice. Its blue on all surfaces and the bottom is black.
There are no user accessible parts on this guy which is no real surprise. I am also happy with how sturdy the frame is on this. The is a minute amount of bending when typing on the keyboard and it feels solid overall. The plastic is equivalent to most other laptops in the sub $600 range. It’s also less than an inch thick and just over 11 inches wide.
Speakers are impressive for such a cheap device. Certainly, they feel a bit tinny but nearly so as my cheap Lenovo from a few years back. Besides, who doesn’t have a decent pair of headphones?
The E203N has incredible battery life. This thing can stream YouTube for almost ten hours on a single charge. Not bad at all considering my Lenovo can only make it three hours.
The screen is fine for being a TN panel. It’s not bright enough for outside though so this is a room to room champion.
The BIOS is a treat as well. There really isn’t any reason to go in there on this kind of computer but it’s still a custom ASUS bios with their familiar interface that you can find on their more expensive motherboards and computers. I like to see that as almost any other laptop I have bought in the last ten years has that ancient blue and white text interface.
Overall this is an incredible value for the price. I would like to see Asus ditch the 32GB + 32GB sd card setup for a straight 64GB SSD but at least they do send you a 32GB sd card now. I have been very impressed by this and I am more than happy to bring it in the truck with me now, even if it can’t play DVDs. For a passively cooled netbook I can’t honestly think of anything more I would want.
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