So far it is really great. I have had it for a little less than a day now. It is a perfect laptop for someone who already has a desktop or other workhorse computer. In my case, I have a home desktop for gaming and a bulky work laptop. This one stays at home and works as my chilling laptop, which it is perfect for. It makes no sound at all because it has no moving parts, it is super light and comfortable to use on your lap, and the battery life is truly incredible.
The boot time on the flash storage (eMMC drive) is nice and snappy. The processor is a little underpowered, but that fact contributes to the battery life and the ability to not have a fan for cooling. If you think about it from a physics standpoint, all the energy your laptop uses becomes heat, since this laptop uses so little energy, it doesn't produce a lot of heat. That said, when charging the battery the first time, it did get very warm, but I have not had a problem since. So far I have used the laptop to stream games from my desktop using steam (just display what the other machine renders), watched netflix, listened to music, and browsed reddit (gifs, text, images, and video). The sound was good, video is smooth and high res, and it never really stuttered or slowed down. I do see a little more delay when browsing than I usually do though but only enough to notice and not enough to change the experience. On a few occasions the mouse has not registered a tap or two finger scroll, but for the moment, I am chalking that up to adjusting to a new laptop and/or needing to adjust the sensitivity.
As others have mentioned, there is really no Asus bloatware. A few configuration tools for the hardware but no anti-virus or other annoying bloat (just all the windows bloat). The 128 GB of storage has about 18 GB consumed for OS and things like chrome and other software you might install. If 110GB sounds constricting, you can always get a high speed external drive (the USB C port allows for really high speed transfer). You could even double your storage with a 128 GB flash drive. The USB C port also allows you to power your computer with a USB hookup like you might use for your phone. This allows use of a battery pack like they have for phones as well. The USB C can also be adapted to display port, HDMI (already has one), or VGA. The battery life seems like it is actually 14 hours as advertised with normal browsing and video, but I have not run the battery down completely yet. The RAM and eMMc storage are soldered on apparently (haven't checked, but others have said so). This fact allows for the slim construction but also means that you are at the mercy of the parts. Asus has a good reputation for using good parts and putting things together well, so I think the risk is minimal. But if they used low quality parts it could severely reduce the life of the laptop since these parts are not easily replaced.
In the title I compare to a macbook air, so here are the macbook air specs:
[...]
The macbook air has fewer ports, shorter battery life, and costs more than twice as much. It does have a faster processor and storage device, but I think it would also get really hot if actually used for a difficult task. The macs may also be a little smaller and lighter, but this laptop is already so small and light, that I can't imagine it would matter.
Summary:
Great price
Snappy boot
Great sound
Great battery life
High resolution matte screen
Nice keyboard
No bloat!!!
No noise at all
Very slight lag from light weight processor
Components are soldered on and not repairable or replaceable (but I hear Asus is really solid)
If you want a small lightweight laptop for chilling, travel, school, or business, it would be very difficult to find another laptop that has this kind of value. The price tag is great for all you get. The processor is the only shortcoming, but it allows for a small fanless design with incredible battery life and is not a hinderance for notebook intended tasks (browsing, video, light computing).
Edit: eMMC is apparently much slower than a standard SSD and more comparable to a hard drive. And the USB C port on this machine does not allow video output though it is a possible through USB C with proper support. The HDMI port should be sufficient anyway. These things do not change my review though as the machine still feels snappy and I had no plans to display over USB C.
Another edit: The USB-C does not seem to support charging either. So it seems the it is limited to ethernet and high speed USB applications. I will also mention that the ASUS Smart Touch software is not perfect...by any means. Specifically pinch. Nothing is really customizable, besides being able to switch features on or off. For example, I can not set the scroll speed for two finger scrolling or the sensitivity for pinch. I ended turning pinch off because it was over sensitive and I would occasionally zoom instead of scroll. I will also mention that two finger is really bad in chrome, and I think it is google chrome's issue, not the laptop. Other people have noted it as well. Between this and google censoring political news, I think I may switch to firefox. Edge lacks extensions and other features and does not work on linux or mac.
So far, none of this changes my review as other features have proven valuable enough to compensate. The light weight and battery life have been more useful than I anticipated. And the built in bluetooth is also quite nice for wireless headphones, mouse, and other peripherals. Built in bluetooth is only going to become more important as more product move toward bluetooth and other wireless solutions. The price still amazes me.
| Standing screen display size | 14 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 pixels |
| Max Screen Resolution | 1920*1080 Pixels |
| Processor | 2.4 GHz pentium_n3700 |
| RAM | 4 GB DDR3 |
| Memory Speed | 1.6 GHz |
| Hard Drive | 128 GB Emmc |
| Graphics Coprocessor | Intel HD Graphics Integrated |
| Chipset Brand | Intel |
| Card Description | Integrated |
| Wireless Type | 802.11ac |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 1 |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 1 |
| Average Battery Life (in hours) | 14 Hours |
