Hey guys this is Austin. Is a $170 Chromebook worth it? The Asus C201 is one of the cheapest
laptops you can buy but at first glance it really doesn’t look bad. Thanks to the plastic
build it’s lightweight but it still feels relatively sturdy, there’s a little flex
in the chassis but it’s still durable enough to survive life in a bag. Pop open the lid
and it still really doesn’t really show its price, the smooth silver finish feels
nice and even the screen bezel is decently sized. The biggest difference between the
C201 and most other Chromebooks is actually on the inside. Instead of an Intel processor
we’re looking at a Rockchip 3288 quad core CPU which is essentially a tablet processor.
Even though Chrome OS is hardly the most demanding operating system I expected some serious lag
but it really wasn’t there. It can’t match the sheer speed of a higher end laptop but
it feels every bit as snappy as most other Chromebooks I’ve tried. There is an option
to go with four gigabytes of RAM but two gigs is totally usable, even with quite a few tabs
open things really don’t slow down. It’s fanless which helps to keep it thin and battery
life is absolutely top notch, not only does it put most laptops to shame but it’s better
than a lot of tablets out there. And since this is a Chromebook it’s not all that different
from a tablet as it’s all about the browser. Over the last few years Google has made some
serious progress in making Chrome OS more usable but everything is still built around
the Chrome browser. There are advantages to this, you can grab a brand new Chromebook
and set it up almost immediately by logging into your Google account. It’s basically
the full featured experience too with support for Flash and a decent amount of web apps
including Spotify, Tweetdeck and even desktop like apps like Sunrise. You won’t be able
to install normal programs or games but a huge amount of what I do every day is inside
a browser. Where a Chromebook really makes sense is as a secondary laptop. It might only
be $170 but we’ve got full 802.11ac Wi-Fi for top notch internet speeds which is especially
important for a computer that relies on an internet connection. It’s small enough to
easily carry all day for taking notes and browsing the web and while the hardware isn’t
super premium it’s a lot more usable than a tablet. It’s rocking a full sized keyboard
and while it’s slightly mushy it’s still better than some laptops I’ve used at three
times the price. It’s the same story for the trackpad, it’s on the smaller side but
it’s accurate and supports multitouch. It even has a surprisingly decent 720p webcam,
it might not blow you away but it’s definitely better than a certain other laptop. With an
11.6 inch screen the 768p resolution is fine but it’s a TN panel with average colors
and pretty poor viewing angles. It’s totally usable but this is one of the biggest areas
where the price is noticeable. The speakers are also seriously lacking, they’re downward
facing and really quiet. You’ll probably want a decent pair of headphones if you care
at all about audio. The Asus C201 really does look like a much higher end laptop. There’s
just no big dealbreaker, performance is good enough and the screen is totally usable. Chrome
OS makes sense on a laptop like this, even if it was running Windows you wouldn’t want
to be doing much more demanding work on it anyway. Going into this video I really wasn’t
expecting much but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Unless you want to spend over twice
as much it’s hard to go wrong with the C201.