ASUS VivoBook L203MA Ultra-Thin Laptop, 11.6” HD, Intel Celeron N4000 Processor (up to 2.6 GHz), 4GB RAM, 64GB eMMC, USB-C, Windows 10 in S Mode, One Year of Microsoft Office 365, L203MA-DS04

Comment

OK! this laptop (if it already hasnt) will cause a wave of other laptop manufacturers to create budget laptops just like this one. it sets the standerdfor laptops at this price point with its 64gbs of storage and 4gbs of ram which is crucial when owning a computer as the OS itself takes up 20gbs of storage and nearly 2gbs of ram to run. so this laptop pretty much beats the rest of any previous budget laptops that cost more for lower specs. i bought this laptop when it was going for 179$ even then it was still worth the buy. the screen is rather decent, it sports a 1366 x 768 lcd display which doesnt have very good vewing angles but does show good depth in color overall it generaly gets the job done especially at the pricepoint. the keyboard feels a little week as if the key caps can pop off at any instant even so the layout works well with my big hands and i never find myself cramping up when using it. THE TRACKPAD IS THE BEST FEATURE OF THIS LAPTOP. it feels so premium its rediculus. its almost on par with that of a macbook air but that may be over exagerating. bottom line is the track pad is its best feature. the build quality is fairly decent, i wont find my self worring about weather or not my laptop can survive a fall in my backpack and its extremely light wait easy to carry with your thumb and index finger. in conclusion... this laptop is proof that chromebooks are obsolete and that quality is a decision of the manufacturer and not the cost.

Show more

Comment

I must say that I was a little disappointed by this laptop. Yeah, I know its never going to read any speed contests, but I had a E200HA for over a year so I felt like I knew what I was getting with this laptop. Unfortunately there were a few things that disappointed, the biggest of which was the smallest change: the lack of perceived performance improvement from the E200HA model. Pros: - Keyboard: this has a most excellent keyboard for the size. Typing is very pleasant and for the most part I hit the right keys, like I would on a much larger laptop. It even has a delete button, which for anyone who types as poorly as I do, is an essential button. - Ports: it has all the ports I need. No dongles required. - Power button: placed in good spot that cannot be mistaken for another key on the keyboard, or for a volume up/down. - weight: this is the lightest laptop Ive ever owned. I can easily pick it up with one hand, barely noticeable in backpack. - price/value: I get a happy buzz from the price. Under $200 for a device that is functional, where I can do web development while traveling, is very satisfying. - N4000 Celeron responds better than the Atom 8350 in the E200HA Cons: - only two cores/threads. The E200HA had 4 cores/threads and for LInux, I felt it made a difference - display: there was not material improvement from previous model. It really could benefit from 1080p. - IO speed: the eMMC drive is very slow, read/writes to USB 3 drives perform much slower on this device compared to my other laptop, same goes for MicroSD - 4G RAM: this is fine for basics, but having 8G would have made this little computer so much more useful - design: the E200HA looked great. Asus really made the E200HA a good looking gold-colored laptop that looked more expensive than it was. This one looks cheap, you may be a little embarrassed to flash this one around in public. Now, if Asus could somehow make a Windows version of their 12.5" C302CA-DHM4 Chromebook I think they would have the ideal portable laptop.

Show more

Comment

I have multiple ASUS laptops (x205ta, e200ha, ux305la). Their laptops tend to be the most portable among the peers, but some fatal flaws keep them from being great. They finally get it right with e203ma. 4GB RAM and 64GB eMMC is just enough to make this highly portable laptop useful for daily browsing and light workload. The touchpad is extremely smooth, while not perfect, still outperforms some higher end ASUS models. In terms of web surfing, this laptop can handle 50+ open Chrome tabs without problem. The eMMC seems capable of handle page swapping with ease. Sadly Firefox does not work as well. Also, it struggles slightly with Google Drive apps. This laptop does cater to a specific crowd. You have to live with the 11.6 inch screen size, and willing to work with the limited RAM and storage. For me the ultra portability and long battery life is worth the sacrifice. Please dont buy the 2GB/32GB version, its simply not enough space even by modest netbook standard. I have some gripe with consistency of ASUS quality. Both my wife and I have this laptop. My wifes touchpad works flawlessly (one of the best touchpad Ive used). My touchpad works fine, but is a little sluggish when performing touch-scrolling in Chrome. Not a deal breaker but I hope ASUS understand how important touchpad is for a super portable laptop.

Show more

Comment

Update 2 months after purchase: Power supply died and laptop wont power on. ASUS wanted me to pay for shipping the bad one to them to get a replacement a month later. The shipping cost was almost as much as a new one. So, I ordered a replacement power supply charger cord on Amazon (not asus original) for 17 bucks and got it in 2 days which has fixed the problem. ASUS has always had great motherboards, but I guess power supplies are not their thing. Updating 5 stars to 2 stars. Great deal for 199 bucks. Cant really beat it. Light and works pretty well for my kids in school. 64GB is plenty, but 32GB models are not adequate. You can easily switch this from Windows 10 S to Pro from the app store for free, which I did right away. ASUS is a solid brand for hardware.

Show more

Comment

After 11 days of purchased, all I get is a black screen. Had to return it!!

Show more

Comment

I bought this laptop and immediately installed Arch Linux with the XFCE desktop on it and added a 200GB micro SD card for added game and music storage. The system only takes about 300MB of RAM out of 3.71GB usable by the system, I also enabled zram compression. It also takes a measly 10GB of the storage space after I installed the system, all sorts of development and multimedia software as well as game emulators. Its an awesome machine still achieves 8-10 hours under Arch running TLP power management. It will emulate most systems up to about the GameCube and some Wii games or the PSP/DS and some 3DS games on the handheld front. It boots up fast with systemd-boot. I also tried the Deepin desktop on it which looked and performed beautifully but I am more accustomed to XFCE myself. Video acceleration works under VLC for x265 playback in hardware. The Intel HD 600 GPU also has full Vulkan support as well as OpenGL 4.6 support under Linux! All around a great performer for playing lighter Steam games (Terraria, Killing Floor, Prison Architect, RimWorld, Starbound, Stardew Valley all verified), emulation, web browsing with several tabs, music, video, etc. I used a 1440p 60hz panel with the HDMI with no problems as well. Bluetooth, wifi, keyboard multi keys, and touchpad gestures all work out of the box on 5.0.2 Arch kernel. The screen does have a sweet spot for viewing angles but for $199 this is an AWESOME Linux machine! Under Arch I could use this as a daily.

Show more

Comment

I actually ended up returning this particular computer because it had become out of stock after I paid for it. I was sent a similar machine with a larger screen, but with only 32GB internal storage. I already had this same computer with 32GB for a significantly lower price, so I returned the substitute. Apparently it is available again now. These computers (really netbooks) are very limited by the storage space of the internal chip, so getting a good-sized SD card for photos, music, and such will help. That said, I love this computer for its looks, size, weight, and portability, plus I have really liked my ASUS computers. It comes with Windows 10 S installed, and sure enough, the first app from a Microsoft untrusted source (my ISPs free anti-virus suite) wouldnt install. So, I did the one-time, one-way free fix to revert to Windows 10 Home, and then it worked as I wanted. I also dont really like the look and feel of Windows 10, so I went to CNET and got a (free) program titled Classic Shell. I use it on all my Windows 10 machines. Once you get it set up the way you want, you wont know you arent using Windows 7. Your desktop, start menu, everything will work like you are used to. I keep mine in the car and get it out several times per week at hotspots. I love having the real keyboard and reasonable screen size. If I had really gotten this computer with 64GB internal and regular Windows10 as it advertises, it would be 5 stars.

Show more

Comment

What can I say? WOW! Im so glad I bought this PC! Its the best low-cost laptop Ive ever purchased. As a PC technician I highly recommend this laptop. Ive been putting it though its paces in the past 24 hours. Ive been trying to "break" it but I cant. Its practically indestructible for novices. The first thing that quickly stands out to me is the speed and responsiveness in Windows and the Internet. No need to worry about anyone with clumsy fingers or in the habit of tinkering with things they may not know about. This laptop can take anything you throw at it. Its a perfect fit for beginners to professionals. Im typing this review on it. The Keyboard is so smooth and quiet and comfortable. The display is high quality. Fast boot and restarts. It comes with Windows 10 S but is easy to convert to Windows 10 Pro if you wish to install other programs that are not in Microsoft Windows Store such as Firefox or Chrome. Small but powerful speakers with plenty of volume. It has enough RAM (4 Gig) and storage (64 Gig) to open up as many as 10 to 12 browser windows with no degradation in speed. Its a laptop that looks and feels like a tablet with an attached keyboard. I should have mentioned this feature first: The battery! Wow. It barely uses power! It really does last, for me, about 11 to 12 hours without recharging! No overheating. Thus far, I cant find any CONS with this laptop. Go buy this laptop!

Show more

Comment

This suits my needs perfectly for college. Its small and lightweight, so its not annoying to lug around, and it comes with relatively good specs for a budget laptop. I wasnt sure about the difference between the processor options, so I just bought the cheaper of the two which happened to be the n4000 one. I paid about $170 for it. The 4gb ram is great to have as standard. The computer runs smooth and quickly for what I use it for, browsing the internet and writing papers mostly. Windows 10s is annoying, but you can upgrade to Pro for free. Though it does take up quite a bit of storage. So, the 64gb harddrive option is a must, the 32gb one will just get taken over by the operating system. The trackpad is pretty good for moving the mouse around, but its sometimes difficult to click with it. I would have preferred seperate mouse buttons. Battery life seems good, it lasts me the whole a day after a full charge. Though, I dont keep it on all day. As far as typing goes, its pretty comfortable. I have no trouble with the smaller keyboard. Im not too big of a fan of the plastic shiny cover, it just attracts fingerprints. The color is pretty nice however, its a very deep and dark blue that almost looks black. Obviously, you cant really game on this or use heavy programs. But for basic schoolwork and such, you cant go wrong for the price.

Show more

Comment

Es una computadora genial para usar linux, yo tengo la distribución UBUNTU 18.4 y funciona perfecta! Its a great computer for linux, i put the distribution UBUNTU 18.4 and work fantastic! Compré esta computadora para llevar a todos lados y me encanta. El teclado es suave y de tamaño perfecto para escribir de manera cómoda , la pantalla es de excelente calidad. Es una computadora básica pero extremadamente funcional. Lo que hice al recibirla fue tratar de configurar windows, para tratar de probarla tal como viene, pero fue imposible, el windows 10s calentó y puso extremadamente lenta la computadora. Así que decidí utilizar linux, tenía un poco de miedo porque linux a veces no tiene suficiente soporte para computadoras tan básicas, pero ubuntu 18.4 fue perfecto, todos los gadgets funcionan bien, la batería tiene el mismo nivel de energía que en windows, el rendimiento es 100% mejor de lo que funcionaba en windows, el bluetooth, wifi y bocinas funcionaron perfecto sin necesidad de agregar parches ni programas extra. Por último el tema de que la pc se caliente solo pasa con windows, porque con linux casi no se siente la temperatura. Es una excelente laptop para la universidad o para el trabajo.

Show more