Asus F201E Review

Performance

The ASUS F201E is really slow when it comes to the tests. The Celeron 847 is ridiculously slow when you pit it against any decent entry-level Intel Core i3 processor. This means, it’s left crawling well behind any mederately good entry-level notebook priced over Rs. 25,000. 

Chiclet-style keyboard on the F201E

For instance, it takes 115 seconds on the ASUS F201E to compress a 100MB file—a task that would take roughly 35 seconds on other mainstream notebooks. It’s the same case with video encoding – where other notebooks take two and a half minutes to encode a particular video, the ASUS F201E takes close to eight minutes to complete the same task. 

D-Sub output on a thin notebook

Mainstream benchmarks such as PC Mark 7 run very slowly, nearly coming to a standstill in many tests. At the end, it manages to secure an overall score of 1457, easily less than half of most notebooks. Realworld CPU tests such as Cinebench 11 throw up scores of 0.74 points as compared to 2.4 points on most other notebooks.

There’s also heating up on the left rear of the notebook, which can be noticed some minutes into a benchmark or if you run some heavy software. This is because of the vent that’s placed near the hinge; some of the air even escapes into the keyboard. There are no other cooling vents anywhere on the notebook. 

Keyboard and trackpad are more spacious than most netbooks

The glossy screen is bright and better than the ones you’ll find on most notebooks, but it’s not great as such. You’ll be able to notice some banding and patches in images, but not so much in motion pictures. 

A low-power notebook means a higher battery life with the possibility to go further on a single charge. We run a battery test that renders a model non-stop till the battery dies. In Asus F201E's case, the battery died within two and a half hours of starting the test. This is higher than the usual norm of under two hours. 

Verdict and Price in India

Works like a larger, more usable netbook

The Asus F201E may be categorised as a notebook, but it does behave only a bit better than a netbook in many ways. It’s got slightly better performance than a netbook, good battery life and a compact design. If you were looking for a slightly larger netbook with better build quality and a usable keyboard, then this might be a good purchase. If you go by pure features and performance, the F201E isn’t exactly good value for money for a price tag of Rs. 25,999 here in India.