With cloud technology getting a strong momentum, companies such as Microsoft are offering Office 365 fully in cloud and a variety of other streamlining services are also joining the race to provide an alternative to locally storing the data on the system. In recent months, laptop makers have also started experimenting with machines having limited internal storage, usually in the range of 30-50 GB, along with capability to sync with independent cloud storage service providers.
Asus E402MA is an attempt in this direction. Priced at Rs 16,999, the Asus E402MA is a lean machine with 14-inch screen and modest set of specifications that include a quad-core Celeron N2840 processor, paired with 2 GB of RAM and a 32 GB of storage. We explored this notebook for over a week and here are the details.
The Asus E402MA comes with a decent and simple design without any notable stylistic features. The lid and keyboard are made from plastic, whereas the underside and screen bezel are made from indistinct matte plastic. The 14-inch screen has 1368 x 768 pixel-resolution display. A low resolution camera is placed above the screen that can be used for video chatting.
On connectivity front, the notebook comes with all required ports and connectivity options. It has both VGA and HDMI on the left side for easy video output and a 3.5 mm microphone jack on right side for both audio input and output. There is also a USB 3.0 port on the left side and another USB 2.0 port on the right for accessing data cards.
On the performance front, despite Asus E402MA packing the low-end hardware configurations, there is hardly any noticeable impact on the performance. The notebook is powered by a quad-core Celeron N2840 processor, paired with 2 GB of RAM and a 32 GB of storage.
However, one of the impressive things about E402MA is its light weight that is just 1.65 kg. As far as battery life is concerned, E402MA comes with a 2Cells 32 hours battery. The battery life is decent.
During the review period, the notebook handled each and everything quite smoothly but overall there is nothing distinctive about this device. It stands out for its low price, light weight and simple design but the challenge of storage and hardware is hard to ignore.
Estimated street price: Rs 16,999
