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Home > Notebook Reviews > Asus VivoBook X202E and Asus VivoBook Q200E

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Asus VivoBook X202 and Q200

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What's hot: Attractive, metal casing, very portable, touchscreen and affordable. Full Windows PC runs all Windows apps. Plenty of ports for a small laptop.

What's not: Display doesn't have wide vewing angles, just OK trackpad and Intel Core i3 is the only CPU option.

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Reviewed December 16, 2012 by , Editor in Chief (twitter: @lisagade)

Touchscreen Windows 8 laptops with a modicum of style, Intel Core i CPUs and a very portable design don't come cheap. What if you want an ultraportable laptop with a touchscreen but don't have $1,000 or more for the likes of the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13, Sony Vai Duo 11 or Asus Taichi? How about the Asus VivoBook Q200 and X202 11.6" laptops that sell for $500 to $600? The Q and X models are nearly identical with the same casing, display and features but the Q200, sold mostly at BestBuy is $500 has less smart internals. Both have a stylish Asus Zenbook inspired casing with a metal lid and keyboard deck along with the Zenbook's tapered design (though they're not as wafer thin). The VivoBook weighs 3 pounds and is a great buy if you're in the market for a touchscreen ultraportable.

Asus VivoBook X202

What the difference between the VivoBook Q200 and X202?

Get the X202! The Q200 runs on last year's second generation 1.4GH Intel Core i3-2365U CPU with Intel HD 3000 graphics and no Bluetooth. The X202 is on average $50 more, but you get a 1.8GHz Intel Core i3-3217U CPU with much faster Intel HD 4000 graphics and Bluetooth. Both models have single band Atheros 802.11b/g/n WiFi, 4 gigs of RAM and a 500 gig HDD. Given the laptop's small size, it doesn't have an internal optical drive but you can use an external USB CD/DVD drive (not included but available for $50 at most consumer electronics stores). You may see both models listed with an "E" at the end, and that's simply the full model designation for the X202E and Q200E.

Asus VivoBook X202

Design, Ports and Features

The VivoBook is a very portable 3 pounds and while it's not Ultrabook thin, it's still fairly slim at 0.8 inches thick. It has the good looks of the stylish Zenbook line and despite the relatively low price, it looks like a good quality piece. No, it doesn't have the polished aluminum finish of the Zenbook line but it's clad in metal and has plenty of style with pleasing tapered sides. This is a traditional laptop design, and the hinge doesn't swivel, pivot or do 360 degree flips. It's simply a small notebook with a touchscreen, but given Windows 8's Modern UI with Live Tiles, that touchscreen makes the new OS much more enjoyable to navigate.

Asus VivoBook X202

The notebook has a 5136 mah Lithium Ion battery, a webcam with mic and a good selection of ports for a small chassis: two USB 2.0 ports, 1 USB 3.0 port, 10/100 Ethernet, VGA, full size HDMI and an SD card slot. The battery is sealed inside, but it's easy enough to remove the Philips head screws on the bottom to access the battery, RAM slot and SATA bay (it holds a 2.5" 500 gig, 5400RPM drive). You won't get an SSD drive or even a small SSD caching drive to speed up boot and app launch times at this price.

 

Deals and Shopping:

 

Asus VivoBook X202 and VivoBook Q200 Video Review

Display and Touchscreen

Both models have an 11.6", 1366 x 768 TN display with 10 points of capacitive multi-touch (there's no digital pen support but you can use a capacitive stylus). For this price, you don't get an IPS display with wide viewing angles, full HD or super-rich colors, but it's a decent display that's no worse than non-touch screen models on the market. Viewing angles aren't as important on the VivoBook since it has a standard notebook design rather than convertibles with displays that twist, flip or slide to tablet mode where wider viewing angles are a necessity. Colors are reasonably pleasing and contrast is adequate. The touchscreen is responsive and easy to use. Again, for the price we aren't complaining and it's quite usable.

Keyboard and Trackpad

The VivoBook has an island style keyboard that's fairly roomy for such a small machine and it has decent key travel. Once again, in this price range don't expect amenities like a backlit keyboard. Men with big hands might find an 11.6" keyboard cramped, but even with my relatively large hands and long fingers, I had no trouble typing at my usual 80 wpm. The keyboard might not beat Lenovo ThinkPads (they have the best keyboards in the business), but it's very usable and gave us no trouble.

The large trackpad (simply branded as Asus, so we don't know who makes it) was horrid out of the box unlike the Synaptics-equiped Windows 8 convertibles and notebooks we've reviewed so far. But an Asus update pushed a much improved driver that made Windows 8's gestures work fairly well. Happily, with a touch screen, one need not use the trackpad all that often.

Performance and Horsepower

The VivoBook ships with 4 gigs of RAM, which is adequate for most Windows users. The 500 gig, 5400 RPM HDD is plenty roomy, but it won't give you the 8 second boot times and instantaneous application launches that an SSD will. SSDs are relatively pricey, so we don't expect one here (they cost $200 to $500, depending on capacity). The machine has a standard SODIMM RAM slot so you should be able to upgrade to 8 gigs of RAM if needed, and it has a standard 2.5" SATA drive bay. Compared to Ultrabooks that are often harder to open and have RAM soldered to the motherboard, the VivoBook is easier to upgrade.

The 1.8GHz Intel Core i3 3217U ULV (ultra low voltage) Ivy Bridge CPU is the low man on the Intel totem pole, and it's adequate for MS Office, web, email and even photo editing. The X202 with Intel HD 4000 graphics plays HD video well, but don't expect it to fly when using demanding apps like video editors and current killer 3D games. In fact, you'll want to stick with casual games and older 3D games on this notebook. The Q200 runs on last year's Sandy Bridge Core i3, and it noticeably slows down if you have several apps running simultaneously. The X202 multi-tasks better, though it too can bog down if you've got 5 apps running. Simple solution: quit apps if it gets slow. If you need that many apps running simultaneously, get a more powerful computer. Is the VivoBook as fast as current Ultrabooks and touchscreen convertibles with Intel Core i5 ULV CPUs? No, but that's why it costs less.

Benchmarks

PCMark07:

Asus VivoBook Q200: 1523
Asus VivoBook X202: 2218

Asus VivoBook Q200 Windows Experience Index (scale of 1.0 - 9.9):
Processor: 5.3
RAM: 5.9
Desktop Graphics: 4.4
Gaming Graphics:5.7
Primary Hard Disk: 5.9

Asus VivoBook X202 Windows Experience Index (scale of 1.0 - 9.9):
Processor: 6.3
RAM: 5.9
Desktop Graphics: 4.4
Gaming Graphics:6.1
Primary Hard Disk: 5.9

Battery Life

The X202 and Q200 have a 2 cells 5136 mAh, 38 Whrs Polymer Battery that lives under the bottom cover (you'll need to remove the bottom plate's screws to remove and replace the battery). That's a decent capacity battery for a machine with a small display and low power CPU/GPU combo, and in our tests the machine averaged 4.5 hours on a charge with moderate use that included MS Office, web, email running in the background and 45 minutes of YouTube streaming. So far, Windows 8 machines haven't had stellar battery life, and the X202E has average battery life vs. the competition. The laptop comes with a compact black wall wart charger that looks similar to the charger included with Asus Android tablets and Zenbook Ultrabooks.

Conclusion

The Asus VivoBook X202E is definitely worth a look if you're in the market for a very affordable and portable Windows 8 touch screen notebook running full Windows 8 64 bit on and Intel Core i CPU. As you know by now, we highly recommend the X202 over the Q200: you get significantly better performance for just $50 more. The laptop is good looking, is well put together has a quality metal casing. It's also easier to upgrade than most Ultrabooks and the touch screen lets Windows 8 shine. If you're on a budget and are looking for an ultraportable touchscreen notebook, we recommend the Asus VivoBook X202.

Price: $500-$600

Website: www.asus.com

 

Asus VivoBook X202

 

Asus VivoBook X202

 

Asus VivoBook X202

 

Asus VivoBook X202

 

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Specs:

Display: 11.6", 1366 x 768 TN LED backlit display with 10 points of multi-touch. Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics on Q200, Intel HD 4000 graphics on the VivoBook X202. HDMI and VGA ports.

Battery: 2 Cell 5136 mAh, 38 Whrs Polymer Battery, sealed inside.

Performance: 1.8GHz Intel i3-3217U dual core on X202. 1.4GHz Intel Core i3-2365U single core CPU on VivoBook Q200. 4 gigs DDR3 RAM on both models (1 SODIMM RAM slot). 500 gig, 5400 RPM HDD (2.5" SATA standard notebook drive).

Size: 11.90 x 7.90 x 0.80 inches. Weight: 2.9 pounds.

Camera: HD webcam.

Audio: Built in stereo speakers, mic and 3.5mm standard stereo headphone jack.

Networking: Integrated single band Atheros WiFi 802.11b/g/n. Bluetooth 4.0 on X202. 10/100 wired Ethernet on both models.

Software: Windows 8 64 bit.

Expansion and Ports: 1 SDXC card slot. 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 USB 3.0 port, 3.5mm combo audio jack, HDMI, VGA and RJ45 Ethernet.

 

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