Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The hot trend in terms of Windows Laptops is Windows 8 and touch screens. The Asus VivoBook X200CA is one such foray into the market, but it is one that is lacking. It is not as much a laptop than it is a touch screen enabled Windows 8 netbook - that class of small, lightweight and unfortunately underpowered machines that emphasize portability and battery life over power. While a fun experiment and a great way to get your feet wet with Windows 8 and a touch screen, the machine comes up lacking for any real regular use. As I am writing this, I am running the machine with the default McAfee security program and Open Office, and I'm currently using 75% of my memory. Part of that is that the system is downloading updates and the included McAfee is scanning it as it downloads but as someone who multi-tasks work, this is going to be a problem. The light memory (only 2 GB) and the beyond weak processor (a Pentium Celeron 1.5 Ghz) prevents this machine from living up to potential. Unfortunately, laptops need a bit more oomph, because unless you leave it on or you use it every day, when you boot the laptop, you need to compete with updates and downloads before you can get started on your work. Which is too bad because otherwise there is a lot of potential here. Sleek and lightweight, the machine weighs in a very light 2.6 lbs. with a bright 11.6 inch touch screen. It is built for portability - there is no optical drive but the machine boasts two USB 2.0 ports on one side and a USB 3.0 port on the other side. Video has both a VGA and an HDMI output on the left hand side to give options to hook up to a larger display. Networking is either the built in 801.11 bgn wireless, but also has a sleek expanding Ethernet port for wired networking if needed. The hard drive is a decent 320 GB, which is probably going to be much more space than you need for this type of machine, unless you use this as a portable movie media device and download a lot of files (since you do not have an included optical drive to watch from) The keyboard is fairly nice to type on featuring a well laid out collection of keys for the size of the keyboard, with the keys the raised Chiclet style that give nicely under the fingers for tactile typing, as well as an on-screen keyboard for touch screen use. At the bottom of the screen is a rather large trackpad that is set up for multi-touch gestures, allowing the user to navigate through programs and the Windows 8 screens with multi-finger gestures. The gestures take some getting used to but overall they can be used for a speedy response without having to move from the keyboard to the screen and back. The warranty and battery life are not bad at one year, and a reported 5 hours of life. Unfortunately, the battery seems to be inside the body which means that it is not easily replaceable, nor is it possible to get a longer lived battery. Unfortunately in the end I have a very hard time getting past the lack of memory and power. I understand that is part of the reason the price is more in line with what we were paying for netbooks, but I have a hard time recommending this machine beyond as either an entry level laptop for year or so, or as a supplemental, very portable machine for on the go. Otherwise, if you are able, up your budget $200 and look for full powered notebooks with AMD or Intel's i3 or i5 line of processors and a decent amount of memory. In the end, you truly get what you pay for.