Asus Chromebook 12 C223NA Review: Step back

In my opinion, ASUS makes the best Chromebooks devices on the market, second after Google. The Chromebook Flip C302 last year is one of the best laptops that you can buy, especially given its competitive price point. The low -end -ended C101pa is also a 10 inches transferred transformative. I think you can easily present the argument that without ASUS, Chromebooks will not have the prevailing attraction today. However, both C101pa and C302 are nearly two years and two years old to replace. ASUS released a new Chromebook last month, but it was not a new laptop or 2-in-1 level in 1. The C223 is unusually cheap, with an uneven Nematic screen and low -devices. The retail price of $ 230 is in line with other Chromebooks devices that have been identified similarly, but it is difficult to believe that the company is widely known to build wonderful OS Chrome devices at competitive prices that made this product.

Specifications

Goodness

Not very good

Design and devices

When it comes to design, the C223 shares much more with ASUS EEE PC Netbook that I own six years ago more than any of the company’s modern Chromebook books. It is not convertable, and does not have a touch screen, which is completely plastic. The quality of construction is a Muslim with it that the screen does not praise much, and the lower cover contains a softer texture that makes it feel less cheap.

Almost all Chromebook these days, it contains at least one USB Type-C port, and this is true for C223 as well. One of the type C connector is on each side, and both can be used to charge the laptop. On the left side, you can also get a microSD card slot, a compass/microphone, and a normal USB 3.0 port. Nothing is out of the ordinary, but it is always good to have a regular USB conductor for old accessories.

ASUS announces C223 as “one of the thinnest features of any book of 11.6 inches”, at a height of only 0.68 inches. For comparison, ASUS C202sa is 0.9 “, and Samsung Chromebook 11 is 0.7”. C223 two -colors – gray and red. I have a very elegant red.

The keyboard and touch plate

The keyboard on the C223 is decent. The main presses are somewhat soft, and there is no rear lighting, but I had no complaints while writing articles or responding to emails. The design is a little packed, but this is restrictions on the smaller shape factor – if you want a larger keyboard, you need a larger laptop.

The touch board is also nothing special. Hymms and clicks work well, and they are not very tight. If you need something better, you can always connect the external mouse.

an offer

If there is any aspect of ASUS C223 that feel completely cheap, it is the screen. It is a TN panel, not an IPS screen, with terrible viewing corners. If you look at the screen more than 15 degrees outside the center, it becomes significantly distorted. The screen is acceptable to write a sheet or browsing the web, but it is terrible to watch the media.

(GFYCAT DATA_ID = “Blondanimatedlemur”)

What is worse, there is a strange ripple effect that appears on both sides of the screen when the rear cover moves (either by setting the screen or moving the entire laptop). You can see it in the video below.

(GFYCAT DATA_ID = “ChailamptedCassowary”)

I think this is the result of rubbing the display set against some other ingredients in the laptop. The effect is only noticeable on a dark background, but certainly there should not be in the first place.

Performance and battery life

The C223 is run by the Intel Celeron N3350 processor, with 2 cores (no chief hyper) and a basic hour of 1.10 GHz. It is basically the CPU an atom under another name. Performance is limited, but 4 GB RAM helps a lot here.

C223 is rushing to boot, and as long as you only adhere to a CHROME tab, it is not a bad experience. The heavy work burden, such as 10+ Operating Signs of Chrome tab and a few Android applications simultaneously, crush this Chromebook completely. You can forget that 3D games – Minecraft from the Play Store could not reach 20 frames per second in virtual settings.

If you care about the standards, C223 gets a degree of 24.02 on the 2.0 speed counter. For comparison, ASUS Chromebook Flip C302 gets 65.51. On Geekbench 4, C223 gets 1461 the performance of the mono -core CPU and 1344 on the double nucleus (full results here).

The only advantage of the presence of the unbeatable central processing unit is that the battery life is excellent. ASUS estimates “up to 10 hours”, and it continued to easily from 8 to 9 hours, depending on the brightness of the screen and what I was working on.

Should you buy one?

Maybe not. While the C223 is in line with other Chromebook books on the $ 200 brand, it is definitely not what I expect from ASUS. It seems that the company’s excellent construction and design of the company was apparently thrown. When looking at Chromebook Flip C101Pa, which was only $ 25 more than C223 (until last month), you hardly believe that it was built by the same company.

If you don’t do anything more complicated than writing papers and watching YouTube, C223 is a completely capable laptop. But as soon as you try to reconcile a handful of chrome tab as Android applications, they begin to delay and stutter. I still recommend this on the similar prices in the heartbeat, but this is not a chrome device for complex work burdens.

This is the part of the review where I recommend what you must buy instead of ASUS C223, but frankly, there are not many other options. ASUS Chromebook Flip C101PA is a largely better product, but the price of this model was recently raised to about 0. Each Chromebook in a 200 -dollar book has almost identical devices to ASUS C223, some of which contain worse processors.

According to Keepa, the ASUS FLIP C101PA price was raised significantly at the same time as the C223 was released.

If you can’t spend about $ 250 on the Chromebook, I recommend looking for EBay or Swappa for the light models used. For example, the C101PA laptops used regularly on EBY for $ 150-220. Make sure to consult a Chromebook for a useful tips.

He buys: Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, B& h