Touchscreen Windows 8 computing for a brilliant price
For
a long time it was hard to get excited about laptops. They all had the
same features, they all ran the same software and they all looked
exactly the same as the ones we all had five years previously.
But the arrival of Windows 8 has changed all that, and no device showcases this fact better than the Asus VivoBook S200.
It's
a fantastic little 11.6-inch touchscreen laptop that offers pretty much
everything you could want from a portable device, and what's more, it
costs a thoroughly reasonable £449.99.
The
brain of this laptop comes in the form of an Intel Core i3-3217U CPU,
which means it provides more than enough grunt to power Windows 8
through any day-to-day tasks while keeping power consumption to an
absolute minimum.
Benchmarks
3DMark06: 2,774
Cinebench: 4,198
Battery life: 3 hours 5 minutes
You
don't get any fancy graphics – if playing 3D games is on your to-do
list, look elsewhere – but again, the integrated Intel HM70 EXPRESS chip
is good enough to keep everything on the 11.6-inch screen running
creamy smooth without pulling too much juice out of the battery.
The
Li-Polymer 38 WH battery itself consists of two cells and is good for
two weeks on standby and a maximum of five hours' constant use.
In
our test, it lasted fractionally over three hours when looping video,
which makes it about average for a device of this size. A bigger battery
would only add to the weight, which would negate the main benefit of
going for a device this size – portability.
As it is, it already weighs in at a distinctly normal 1.3Kg which we think is about right if a little weighty. We're
talking about premium materials here too, none of that faux-metal
plastic rubbish. The S200 is graced by a lovely brushed-metal finish
with aluminium base – you can thank Apple for pushing industry standards
this high. The
screen is standard TN fare, so if you're looking for an IPS panel
you're going to have to spend a bit more money. But it's decent enough,
and for most people we imagine it would be absolutely adequate.
Viewing
angles are what always suffer from this display technology but actually
this screen does pretty well. Colours are accurate enough and under
normal circumstances you shouldn't be bothered by its limitations.
On
the touch side of things, it can handle 10 inputs at once, which puts
it up there with the best and it works flawlessly in this regard.
Touch
inputs are registered without delay - there's no lag when exploring
Windows 8 or swiping between menus. It's a joy to use, a real computing
pleasure.
Of course, while a machine of this size and spec could
never be described as a media machine, the fact that it's so portable
means you may wish to load it up with music and movies. If that's you,
you'll be pleased to find that the supplied 500GB internal hard drive
should be more than enough for all your programs and content.
There's
no SSD on this model; it's not an ultrabook after all, and so the SSD
option is reserved for the much more expensive Core i7 version, which
also comes with a full HD IPS display and a price tag more than three
times as high. Gulp. Sound
is provided by Asus' SonicMaster brand which is really just a fancy way
of saying, "It's got a sound card and some speakers".
The
speakers really aren't that bad, either. Many laptops like this can
sound quite nasty, but the S200 does a pretty good job of putting out
sound that at least sounds nicely rounded instead of shrill and
piercing.
Who needs Beats tech, eh?
Ports
All your
standard inputs and outputs are ready and waiting for you here, with
full HDMI socket included, as well as 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 USB 3.0 port,
VGA-out, SD card reader and Ethernet. The
only thing you might find missing is an optical disk drive but if you
want one of those you're going to need to choose a different class of
device.
To finish off the specs, you've also got Wireless N for
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 5MP front-facing camera for video chats and 4GB RAM
which is practically enough memory to run Windows 8 twice. The keyboard is also faultless.
We're
writing this review on it now and simply can't find anything wrong with
it at all, which is often not the case with laptops of this size and
price.
And we've been careful not to use the word cheap there, because, honestly, the only thing cheap about this thing is the price.
Even the trackpad is nice and responsive, and responds well to Windows 8 touch gestures.
So
there you have it. The Asus VivoBook S200 is a brilliant little laptop
which offers supreme good looks, slick performance and excellent
portability, and all for a highly agreeable price.
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