ASUS VivoBook E403SA-US21 14-inch Full HD Laptop (Intel Quad-Core N3700 Processor, 4 GB DDR3 RAM, 128GB eMMC Storage, Windows 10 Home OS) Metallic Gray

The Asus Vivobook E403SA is twice the price of the other "wow that’s a cheap Windows laptop" laptops. What do you get for that price hike?

1. Twice the number of CPU cores. It does come out to just about exactly twice as powerful as the N3050 that’s in a ton of the 0 models.
2. 30% stronger GPU
3. A 1080p display which is pleasantly matte and very sharp.
4. A lot more storage. You usually get 32gb with the 0 models, sometimes 64gb for a few bucks extra. This has 128gb.
5. Improved battery – most laptops half this price run for 8-12 hours, and this does indeed run for right around 14 hours.
6. Twice the RAM. It helps, especially when we’re talking 2gb vs 4gb.
7. One USB Type-C port supporting quick charging. This IS going to matter a lot more in a few years.

Other strengths worth noting: The screen bezel is rather nice, it’s notably thinner than any competitors I’ve found. It’s very thin and quite light, without being top-heavy at all. Viewing angles are tolerable, and 1080p is very crisp at this screen size. It has absolutely ZERO worthless bloat software on it, and so it’s quick right out of the box.

Meh-points: The trackpad has some weird settings out of the box, like it doesn’t 2-finger click to right-click for whatever reason. It scrolls very smoothly and seems very precise, but that threw me off. I would have really enjoyed an ability to add RAM, but that’s what you get with this kind of device. It’s way cheaper to put the RAM permanently on the board than to put slots on it and a door on the bottom.

Cons: You’re going to forget to charge this laptop, because it lasts so long that you sort of just forget about batteries. An additional thing to note is that the USB Type-C port is a great addition, but I can’t fathom why they didn’t use one for charging the laptop itself. That would have been a very popular feature with the press.

Summary: It’s really nice, and I think it’s absolutely worth the price when compared to the 0 units. I’m sure you can get more powerful laptops for 0-500, but they’re going to be thicker and have fans and absolutely have worse battery life. It’s essentially an ultrabook for 1/3 of the price and all of the day-to-day performance, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

The laptop is fast enough for daily work (office, web browsing, basic stuff) but won’t do anything too demanding (the Pentium N3700 is an entry level processor), but the trade off for less power is all day battery life (typically 12 hours or so) without spending close to 1000 dollars on a premium ultrabook. If you look at this device as a budget ultrabook, you will come away pretty happy I think. Not really good for gaming or watching movies (the TN panel doesn’t offer the best colors and viewing angles for entertainment), but it is good enough for working on writing stuff, spreadsheets, and other school/office tasks. There is no touch screen, but the lack of a touch screen means that the overall unit is lighter and gets battery life because of it. The trackpad isn’t perfect, but it works OK. Other windows computers with a "precision trackpad" perform better, but are often only available on more expensive machines. The keyboard is comfortable enough, but its no ThinkPad. I write excessively and haven’t had any problems with it.

Another user commented that other budget machines (around 200 dollars or so) are cheaper but much slower and less pleasant to use. I concur, after trying a few budget machines myself, it seems that a Pentium or other quad core processor is the minimum requirement for windows to be pleasant enough for day to day use. The celeron and atom processors (except perhaps the X7 in the surface 3) are generally not fast enough for a smooth experience in real world usage. This device is a perfect entry level PC, and while it costs twice as much as those other cheaper units, it will last a long time on a charge without compromising performance too much. A cheap 15 inch laptop with an i3 will be much more powerful, but get substantially worse battery life and weigh a lot more.

Overall, I recommend this device highly for anyone who is on a budget and wants a taste of the ultrabook life offered by the Dell XPS or Macbook Air. Sure, you won’t mistake this device for one of those in appearance, feel, or speed, but its a similar product for half the price.

For the user who was getting the BSOD when booting (CRITICAL ERROR PROCESS DIED), just turn off the "fast boot" option in power settings and you should be golden. This option is provided so computers with spinning hard drives will boot quicker, but with the eMMC storage on this unit it boots fairly quickly without the "fast boot" setting. I turned it off after getting the BSOD twice and haven’t had it since. To to this, go to control panel>power options and select "choose what the power buttons do" on the left panel of shortcuts. This will take you to a new screen, where you will have to click "change settings that are currently unavailable" to un-grey the options. Then un-check the box for "turn on fast startup." After this, you can restart the computer. The computer will boot a little slower, but no more pesky BSODs on start up!

This is a very nice laptop. I bought the Microsoft signature edition which comes with no bloatware. Basically barebones Win10 which is what you want. Not sure if this one from Amazon has any bloat or not. I own a x205a which is a little 11.6 Asus and I really like Asus laptops. I’m very happy with the smaller laptop I have but I wanted a bit bigger screen and something a little more upscale.

First things first. Here’s a tip I learned from the X205a. Uninstall the Asus splendid video utility. It makes the screen look washed out. Once you do that your screen will become very colorful the way your graphics card intended. You can always download the utility from the website if you did in fact like it. The screen is matte, HD 1080P. I find it very impressive. The angles aren’t the greatest and it sure looks better at 100 percent than 50 percent. If you want long battery life, go for 50 percent. You’ll get use to it.

The processor is quad core and does very well. Not the fastest. The 4gb ram helps. Remember you’re sacrificing processor speed for battery life, a worthwhile tradeoff. Performance is good overall. I wouldn’t do video processing on it but everyday tasks it does well. The build quality of the unit overall is excellent.

Dislikes: The SD card sticks out about 3/4 inch. Yeah, what were that thinking? Only 2 USB ports. One of them is USB 3. 3 ports would have been nicer. No LAN port. Yes we are all wireless nowdays but there are time when you need a LAN connection. Windows 10. Its not ready for prime. There are still bugs everywhere. For Instance, I’m writing this review on the Edge browser and I can not double click anywhere I’m typing to move the curser. I can only do it using the arrow keys. After almost a year the mail app still cant download a lot of gmail attachments and still takes forever to sync. Oh, many more but this review is not about Windows 10.

In conclusion. Its a very nice laptop. I’m not sure I’m going to keep it. I feel its overpriced. What I really want is an 13-14 inch x205a. But the only ones Asus sells are available only in India. I’m still waiting for the perfect Asus laptop.

Edit: I’ve had it for a couple of weeks now and I have to say I really love it. The screen is beautiful. Microsoft Flight simulator has never looked or ran better in full HD. I like that its very light for a 14 inch. The screen and build is where this laptop really shines. Runs fine with the 4g ram. Touchpad is perfect. Its a keeper.