ASUS has introduced a family of Chromebooks for two weeks before the traditional home for this Taiwanese manufacturer at Computex 2014, so that our editors have already hold in your hands the two new items. Why two? Because the company decided to release just two Chromebooks in 11.6-inch (C200) and 13.3-inch format (C300), which differ from each other only in the diagonal of the screen and the size, but not the specifications.
Scope of delivery
ASUS Chromebook C200 comes in a typical cardboard box, so to distinguish it on the storage rack from conventional laptops will not work.
Scope of delivery is very simple – the power supply and the accompanying documents. However, expect more of the budget unit (suggested retail price for the USA market is $ 249) would be too optimistic.
Design, materials
Note that the older 13.3-inch ASUS Chromebook C300 is available in four design options – black, blue, yellow and red, while in the first case, the operation panel is also made of black, while the youth “color” version of feature bright main panel .
More compact 11.6-inch version in less fortunate, as it is available in only black and silver version.
Cover ASUS Chromebook C200 is finished matt black plastic. Material leaves a pleasant tactile feel, but too quickly covers the following touch. The center of the lid is placed mirror company logo in the upper left corner you can find all the usual mark Chromebooks – corporate four-ball and inscription Chrome.
Base of the housing is made of a less pretentious rough black plastic.Here you can see the rubber feet, screws, fasteners, service information, and a pair of vertical trim lattices acoustics.
Operating panel and almost all faces are made in a single piece of silver plastic under the metal. Same silver made and shelving joint, resulting in a closed form ASUS Chromebook C200 body looks “three-layer”.
The front and rear faces are free, you can only find the right hole for Kensington lock, USB 2.0 port and an optional card slot Micro-SIM. The left sidewall handed combined audio port, full-sized card reader format SD, USB 3.0, the HDMI video output jack and power supply with LED activity.
Ergonomics
The display unit can be opened with one hand, but in the end you may need a little work to hold the panel. Developers make a special emphasis on the “hidden” hinge, which they believe is more attractive than the traditional two-loop option.
But the 11.6-inch border of the matrix of black matte plastic could be narrower, too wide black stripes visually heavier ASUS Chromebook C200. Resolution glossy matrix is 1366 * 768, the range of brightness – from 15 to 270 cd / m 2. By the way, the overall dimensions of the device are 304, 3x200x19, 8 mm, and weight – 1.15 kg.
Chromebooks island keyboard makes it comfortable to work with text, since the size of the keys are almost identical medium format options. Note ergonomic block arrows in the form of “inverted T” and a specific set of service keys, needed to work with Chrome OS.
Touchpad without dedicated keys turned out just great, it really can replace a “mouse” that special note amateurs working with laptop in a minimum of space – on a table in a cafe or on your lap in the transport or in the countryside.
Features of the Chrome OS operating system we discussed in the review ASUS Chromebox and a separate review of this software.
Functionality
Both ASUS Chromebook built on absolutely identical energy-efficient hardware platform Intel Bay Trail-M. As the CPU can perform chip Intel Celeron N2830 or Intel Celeron N2930 with integrated graphics Intel HD Graphics. It is interesting that despite the similar signs, the first dual-core processor, and the second – a quad.
RAM is 2 GB or 4 GB, the memory soldered on the motherboard and is not upgradeable. The capacity of local storage, depending on the configuration of 16 or 32 GB. Expand it by using the external memory cards SD, while Chromebooks guaranteed to support the specification of SDHC, t. E. Cards with a maximum capacity of 32 GB. Where there is access to the global network, you can use cloud storage Google Drive, the benefit of all owners of ASUS Chromebook C200, Google offers 100 GB free for 2 years.
Responsible for data transfer module Wi-Fi 802.11n / ac, while at the time of the sale he will be able to work only in the standards b / g / n, and support for the latest version of 802.11ac will be available after the firmware upgrade. Card slot micro-SIM on a test specimen indicates that there are and the 3G-version Chromebooks (or, at least, the possibility of self-install 3G-module), but the official information about this modification yet.
ASUS Chromebook C200 equipped with a three-segment non-removable battery 48 Wh, from which according to the manufacturer, the device is able to work up to 11 hours. Since our test suite Battery Eater does not work with the operating system Chrome OS, check this assertion in practice failed.
Result
As a result, ASUS Chromebook C200 / C300 may be interested in those people who do not have problems with a constant connection to the global network and has already transferred the lion’s share of their personal and work files and applications in the “cloud” using the service Google Drive, Dropbox, Flickr, etc. . D. with this model you can use not worry about the safety of the data even in case of loss or damage to the Chromebooks, which will be appreciated and home and corporate users. On the other hand, you will be deprived of the usual Windows-based applications and support the periphery, so that users with specific requirements for the soft and hard components are hardly so simple switch to Chrome OS. Oh, and most importantly – the price tag around $ 200 which is quite attractive to many consumers buy this particular system.
Review ASUS Chromebook C200
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