ASUS Chromebook C523NA-DH02 15.6" HD NanoEdge Display, 180 Degree, Intel Dual Core Celeron Processor, 4GB RAM, 32GB eMMC Storage, Silver Color

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I always like to start with something positive, and I will. Overall the device looks great, the size is perfect, the keyboard feels good, and the performance seemed more than adequate. Asus seemed to do a good job of putting together a reasonably priced chromebook that would be suitable for most people. Where they missed the boat big time was on the display. It was so washed out and grainy that Im not totally sure there wasnt something wrong with the model I received. If that display quality is indeed part of their specs and design, then I strongly urge you to consider something else. After using it for 15 min it began to give me a headache...it was that bad. My other chromebook is an Asus C302 flip, and I couldnt be happier with it. I was expecting a similar experience for this newer 14" model. I purchased it for my wife, and unfortunately Im sending it back tomorrow. The display is simply so bad that neither she nor I can use it.

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I wanted to buy my mom a laptop since her 10 year old Toshiba finally failed. I was looking at all the options out there, but everything in my budget range was either way too slow. All she does is watch movies and surf the web, youtube, etc., so I wanted to find her a laptop that was particularly keen for those type of tasks. I started looking into Chromebooks. Mind you, this was the very first Chromebook that Ive purchased, so I didnt know what to look for when it comes to specs. I mean, lets face it-when it comes to specs, Chromebooks that are out on the market right now has some very weak specs. But dont be fooled by the unimpressive numbers. Chromebooks use Chrome OS which was developed by Google. They use a completely different user interface than, say Microsoft or Apple. Chrome OS uses significantly less resources, therefore your computer runs very fast, even with low specs. For example, my moms old Toshiba had an 10 year old Intel Celeron processor, 8 GB of ram, 500 GB HDD. Nothing too impressive, just an average laptop. This Toshiba took about 4 minutes to boot up. When it comes to surfing the web, watching YouTube, etc., it was an absolute pain! This ASUS Chromebook has similar, or even weaker specs: Intel Celeron processor, 4 GB ram, 32GB storage. You would be wondering why on earth would anyone get a computer that has such weak spec sheet? Dont be fooled. I was skeptical too when I first purchased this Chromebook. The laptop is able to boot up in 7 seconds. Thats right, 7 SECONDS!!! The entire setup of the laptop took less than 2 minutes. All you have to do is log in using your wifi information and Gmail account. Everything else sets up automatically. The user interface was really simplistic, even a kid could operate it. It makes sense as to why it only has 32GB of storage. You store all your documents on Googles cloud. All the apps you could possibly ever want is included: Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Drive, etc. In my moms case, all she does is watch YouTube, so this is the perfect laptop for that. Not to mention, it is incredibly thin! It almost looks like a MacBook Air from far away. The Chrome OS updates your computer discretely so you dont have to worry about the hassle of updating your laptop or be alerted to do so. You also dont get any viruses on Chromebooks too since Google has your back with their security features. All in all this is a fantastic laptop for the price. My mom has been using it for a couple days now and she absolutely loves it! In fact, she tends to baby it by covering it up with the packing sleeve after every use. LOL!

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I have been using this Chromebook for a day now. The battery life is definitely all day, the OS is crisp and quick, and the new version of the OS allows you to download your favorite android apps from PlayStore. I am using it as my main business laptop too, as it is light and the screen is a good size. The OS will allow you to run Linux programs by opening the Linux terminal in its apps and typing: sudo apt -get install libreoffice It takes perhaps 15 minutes to download this Office substitute, but the substitute is very good and nicely Office compatible. The power cube is good too. The USB-C cord and port is very convenient as one cord now charges this device, my Windows 2in1, my wifes laptop, and our phones. We have a few power cubes, and now we have another that has enough power (at 2.4 amps) to charge and run any of our devices. Finally, the keyboard is solid and does not slow me down. One annoying thing coming from windows is the lack of a delete key and a snipping tool. However, there is a program switch key on the top row, above the number 6 which, if pressed along with CTRL and Shift, is a snipping tool. And, ALT backspace is a delete key. So, I can do everything I do, at a pretty sophisticated level, all on one bright and fast machine with long battery life and a $239 pricetag. Heck, Office alone almost costs that. This is a very good solution for home or corporate.

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I do. I absolutely love this device and I am so glad I bit the bullet and bought one. I have had it for a few weeks now and I dont miss my Windows laptop one single bit. I was worried that my laptop had features with which a Chromebook could not compete. I havent come across any. Chromebooks do not come with optical drives or a hard drive with a ton of space. You also cant load third party software such as MS Office or TurboTax. There simply isnt the space or computing power to do so, not to mention the OS to support it. Chromebooks do come with the Chrome OS, browser and the ability to download apps from Google Play. Onboard storage is limited to 16 - 64 GB but Chrome is fully integrated with Google Drive (unlimited storage) and you can easily use an SD card or a thumb drive so you can access files offline. They also have considerably more battery time than a conventional laptop. You can easily use the online version of MS Office if your account is associated with a licensed copy of MS Office or you can subscribe to Office 365 and most software applications you would use (e.g. Turbotax) have web-based versions as well. Anyway, back to the review of the ASUS C523. Its a great device. The C523 has a full 15.6 inch display so it "looks" like any full size laptop. It is fully integrated with all of my Google resources...mail, Google Drive, Youtube and I can access content from Netflix via the Chrome browser or the app. I can store files locally if I want but I usually just save them to Google Drive. Its very portable and light so I can move with as easily as a spiral notebook. The thing that really wows me is that it is "instant on". I dont have to wait for some convoluted boot process...I open the lid, type my PIN and I am in with no delay. Updates are done in the background and I have not had to do a reboot yet because of one. It intefrated with my (wireless) printer in a snap...I have not tried USB connecting the printer so I dont know if that would work. The only negative thing I have to say is regarding battery life. ASUS says you can get up to 10 hours of battery life. That is not true. There is nothing that you can do on this device that is economical enough to get you to 10 hours of battery life. I would say you can count on about 5 hours MAX if you are just surfing the internet or watching Netflix and the display brightness is kept as low as possible. I usually have to plug it in shortly after four hours; still better than my laptop.

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As someone who has used low-priced Chromebooks for several years, I thought this computer offered a great price for a lightweight, thin, large-display Chromebook that works with the Play Store. The one area this computer could have been improved is by having better speakers, but I could easily look past this for the other specs this computer offers for a bargain-basement price!

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I read some online reviews of this laptop in addition to the reviews on here; based on those, I was expecting to be satisfied, but underwhelmed. Not the case at all! The keyboard is excellent, the computer feels like quality and is very sturdy-feeling. Some people have complained about the track pad "ratting", but honestly the way its designed feels like an intention (and pleasant) tactile touch rather than poor design. Thats just me. It feels like its designed to be easy to tap with a finger rather than clicked with a firm press (though of course both work fine). The hinges of the screen are just the right amount of tight. I love the matte of the screen itself, and it goes as bright as I need a screen to go. I do tend to use computers indoors, but Im sure it could handle daylight, especially with the anti-glare. As far as resolution, I really dont know what folks claiming its grainy are talking about. It doesnt seem grainy to me at all, nor does it make my head hurt. HD videos look HD on this machine. Battery is fantastic. I get about 8 hours or so it seems while using the internet and typing and occasional videos. I still havent broken the battery in totally though, so it may get even better as it stabilizes. This computer runs quite quickly, despite having a pretty low-end processor. You probably could not run any games on this smoothly, but if you stick to videos and browsing and dont have a bajillion tabs open, it should keep up with whatever you are doing just fine. Very, very happy! I dont think anyone should hesitate on this one.

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I didnt want to risk dragging my expensive workhorse laptop everywhere. Just too high risk for when Im going to browse and netflix. This is perfect for $229. It starts up fast, opens all my bookmarks like on desktop, but surprisingly Chrome doesnt slow down running 4gb Vs 8gb on windows. Audio is ok but i never watch netflix with laptop speakers. Only thing id have perferred is a better screen with improved viewing angle. But then it wouldnt be $229.

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this laptop way exceeds my expectations. great performance. great screen clarity. super light. it does very well for me using a connection via my tethered phone. it performs light years faster than my windows laptop utilizing a tethered connection. so i highly recommend if your internet connection is a limited one like in a tethered scenario. keyboard layout is weird.. no page down, page up, delete, and other mainstays. but i am sure i will get use to the new alternative. just dont understand why companies institute change for the sake of change. it is a turn-off. the laptop is made very well. the keyboard has good action. great display it boots up fast.. real fast from what i am used to. and light.. almost makes it seem cheap. it is not, of course. it is very well made. but that is how light it is. i am thoroughly satisfied. the only demerit has nothing to do with the laptop.. but it comes with absolutely NO documentation. not even a quick start guide on how to turn on... what ports are what.. power supply, etc. the manual is a downloadable file online, but how are you supposed to get to that without having enough info to get the thing up and running? i thought this was incredibly thoughtless of asus. i am a retired sun solaris admin, so i am able to get pretty much anything computer related figured out. but im writing this for the home user who might buy this thing. and it seems to not be a fluke. when i was registering the device, the tech person told me that is the way they come... download the pdf. dumb. and overall, asus website is a kludge, and their tech support is wooden. and all i was doing was registering a laptop. (their registration process online would not work that night, and the website has all the deftness of something designed by a govt agency) bottom line.. great product. but dont have high hopes for any future company/customer interfacing.

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We have been an avid Chromebook family for years and never had issues with them....until now. Purchased the Asus C423NA for one of my kids for Christmas. However, after about 2 weeks it started turning off (with >80% battery) until it would no longer turn on. No problem I thought...eventually were all bound to encounter some issues with tech. Amazon took care of replacing with exact item very quickly. Unfortunately, the 2nd one has now started exhibiting the same issues after 2 months. And, its no longer within the window to deal directly with Amazon. This will be the first time having to deal with a warranty issue and not looking forward to it. Hopefully, Ill be able to return to this review and update with positive feedback/rating. ******* 05/10/2019 Update ******* After trying some of the suggestions by Rodel (the Asus rep that replied my original Amazon review comments) the chromebook worked a little better for a few weeks. However, on 05/06/2019 it began the cycle of turning off randomly (while fully charged) and at times not being able to turn back on. Suggested remediations no longer have affect. Since the purchase is no longer under the 30-day Amazon Prime window, I sent email on 05/09/2019 directly to Rodel at Asus (cl-rodel@asus.com) for warranty actions or refund. Will update throughout this process.

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I liked this Chromebook but I ended up returning it because it wasnt quite sufficient to my needs. The speaker is amazing; it had better sound than any tablet or laptop Ive ever owned. It booted up really fast and the graphics were decent. It is lightweight and very thin and the battery seemed to last for a long time. Those are all the positives. The negative comes in with the operating system itself. I didnt realize that a Chromebook wouldnt support some of the software platforms for a school and business setting that I needed it to (specifically group apps and group conference apps). Many of the apps I use from the Google Play store werent supported on a Chromebook, which is kind of ironic (such as the Kindle app). The final straw for me was the fact that I couldnt use Microsoft Office suite on the Chromebook unless I used Office 365, which I very much prefer not to. It also doesnt recognize some wireless mouses; in fact I couldnt get it to recognize any of the three of the wireless mouses I own and I had to use a wired mouse with it. The thing is fast, and it has a lot of great features, but it wasnt even as useful as my Android tablet is, so I just couldnt justify keeping something thats not very functional to my needs. I think that this would be a great fit for some people, and I just want to reiterate that the battery and the sound really were pretty amazing, but for me the cons neutralize the pros and make it just a three-star piece of equipment.

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