Asus C202SA

I recently bough this nice toy, and I decided to share my impressions. Check out the images:

Positive impressions of the laptop

• Performance: Even this low-end machine with 4GB of RAM and a 2016 low-power Celeron processor is fast enough for everyday tasks. You can definitely get work done if you need to browse, write, do minor image editing, play videos etc.
  • I tested with 9 tabs, a second monitor, Calendar and Gmail Android apps open, and the laptop managed with only minor delays when switching tabs. When I pushed its limits it was obviously using the page/swap file to compensate for the limited RAM, but it did this gracefully. Heavy websites with a lot of content, ads and animations can take a few seconds to load. But once loaded, they scroll smoothly.
  • Note: I doubt that 2GB would be enough for a Chromebook. I'd say 4GB is the minimum, if you want to do some multitasking and run Android apps.
  • Gaming: light Android games can run surprisingly well on this low-end hardware. And there's a lot of choice on Google Play. Performance-wise, you can probably play all 2D games, and a high number of 3D ones, as long as you're ready to lower the detail level every now and then. Quite often your main problem will be the lack of keyboard support, not necessarily frames per second. Battery life while playing games is more or less halved - you can expect around 4-6 hours of gameplay, when pushing the chip's limits.
    • Examples: A great game for this laptop is Riptide GP. It runs well at high settings, has keyboard support and feels great. Asphalt runs very smoothly at the lowest settings. However, at high settings it's unplayable. Street Racing 3D plays smoothly even at high settings, but it doesn't have keyboard support, so it's not an option. Angry birds runs perfectly fine, but this type of game would be more enjoyable on a touch screen. The same goes for Skyforce, which runs and looks great (it's 3D), but is a touch-centric game.
• Keyboard: It is AMAZING, for a device in this price class. The only downside is that the plastic is a bit slippery, so ladies with long fingernails might have some issues. However, I personally love it. There’s just no match in this price class in terms of key feedback, responsiveness and general feel. Even some of the more expensive machines from other companies can’t match this one. Well, it’s not illuminated, but that’s something to expect for such a price. And that’s actually OK, unless you plan to work in a completely dark room.
  • Don't forget that this keyboard is also water-resistant! The laptop as a whole is not water-proof, of course, but spilling a bit of tea on the keyboard should not be a problem at all.
  • The keyboard layout is pretty standard for a Chromebook. It's easy to use, and all main functions have their dedicated keys at the top: escape, page back/forward, page refresh, fullscreen, switch window, brightness, volume, power. (Having a physical escape key is already a major plus...) The fullscreen button is quite useful on a laptop with a small screen. The button layout is well-designed, in my opinion. Shortcuts (Ctrl+C / V) are similar to other major operating systems. There are some differences as well, but it's very easy to learn them through the integrated visual tool.
• Battery endurance is astounding. The nice thing with a low-power machine like this is that even if you push it, your battery is still going to last quite a bit. That's simply because the processor is slow and efficient, even at 100% load. It's a 4-6W CPU. Compare this to 45W or even 75W on powerful laptops. There are simply no conditions that would make the battery drain quickly. Text editing and occasional web browsing will give you 10 hours, sometimes even more.
  • Well, technically you COULD drain the battery fast... if you really do your best. You could connect some power-hungry devices to all ports (for instance, charge an external battery and your phone, and connect a monitor), turn up the brightness and load the CPU at the same time. But... come on!
• Multi-display works quite well. You can connect a monitor to the HDMI port and keep using the build-in 11.6' display at the same time.
  • Resolution: I was able to set the resolution to 2048x1152@60Hz, which is not bad for a low-power cheap iGPU. My monitor is 4K (3840x2160), so this machine can never use it to its fullest. However, even at that resolution, text looks quite ok (though not as crisp as it can be with a powerful laptop). I can say that it's definitely usable and I don't mind working this way. However, my monitor is in much higher price class, and most people are likely to pair this laptop with a cheaper one. Obviously if you have a more common full HD monitor (1080p), this Chromebook will be able to handle it without breaking a sweat, at native resolution.
  • Features: ChromeOS lets you set different zoom/dpi levels per screen. You can also drag windows and tabs from one screen to the other - basically you can do everything you'd expect.
  • Performance with an external display: I didn't see any slow-downs while using an external monitor at maximum resolution. I was positively surprised. Connecting and disconnecting the monitor was handled faster and with less flashing compared to Windows and Apple laptops.
• Playing video: Playing a 1080p @ 60Hz youtube video was no problem and I could even work on the other monitor at the same time.
  • However, playing at 1440p @ 60Hz required me to close a couple of tabs if I wanted smooth playback. Still, the chip managed it. However, 4K was a different story - the playback was far from smooth. Playing 4K videos smoothly is possible if you use a video with the right codec (h.264 8-bit), and the right player (like MX Player). But I'd rather say that this laptop is just not meant for 4K. Which is OK! In my opinion, 4K is a nice-to-have, not everyone needs to care for it.
• Camera: it's quite OK for a cheap laptop. Colors are OK. The image looks acceptable, even at relatively low light, with a lamp turned on. I'd definitely use this camera for a Skype call. For comparison, it's better than a cheap Creative webcam that I bought a few years ago. But comparing it to high-quality cameras - it's simply cheap. Its resolution is quite low and you can see lot of visual noise.
• Microphone: quite acceptable as well. I wouldn't mind using it for calling my parents.
• Touchpad: it's quite OK. It supports multitouch gestures, it's responsive and requires only a light touch. The surface is nice and smooth (though it's just plastic). The size is OK, though any smaller than that would be annoying. You can tap it or press it to register a click.
• Storage: This is hardly a positive feature of this laptop, as 16GB is probably the lowest storage you can get on a Chromebook. But I have to say that it should be enough for most people who don't need to store a lot of media. Here's my story:
  • Currently I have: all the important Google Android apps (Gmail, Calendar etc, together with synced data), a couple more Android apps (Netflix, Spotify, Skype etc), some downloaded music from Spotify (800 MB), a couple of downloaded episodes from Netflix (400 MB), browsing cache data (500 MB), a downloaded full movie (1.7 GB), Asphalt 8 Android game (1.7 GB). These are already more than I plan to use on a regular basis. And I still have 3 GB free.