az $400 Laptop Worth It? #Helpful Post

Hey guys, this is Austin.

Is a $400 laptop worth it?

So usually when it comes to a budget laptop,

you're not getting a lot.

Sure, you're gonna get a usable screen,

and enough specs to handle basic tasks,

but this is a slightly different take

on a budget laptop.                             

So, immediately you can feel that

that is actual metal.

I hope it's metal.

So this is also fanless.

Which means that, well, there are no fans,

no vents, nothing like that.

But it's also fairly lightweight.

The bottom of the laptop is plastic,

but I've gotta say this does not

feel like a $400 laptop.

Now this one doesn't come with a lot

of accessories, there's literally

a single power brick.

As far as ports go, it has the standard variety,

but what's interesting is the USB Type C port.

So the first thing is trying to charge

a Nexus 6P which also uses USB C.

Boom, charging.

Oh, charging rapidly.

Alright, next is some laptop inception.

So I if connect these two with

the USB C cable...

Oh, it's charging!

One nice thing about the VivoBook

is that it has Windows 10 Signature Edition.

So, what that means is if you go through,

you'll find it, it's a pretty clean install

of Windows.

Now you will find a couple base Asus apps

that have already been installed.

But, for the most part you're not gonna

see any bloatware.

Browser performance really isn't bad,

I mean sure, you can tell a slight difference

with a higher powered desktop,

but honestly, for most tasks it doesn't even

trip up at all.

The VivoBook also has AC Wi-Fi.

As you can see here, it's pretty quick.

So it's one of the nice things about

lower end laptops, especially in the

last year or two, the Wi-Fi has gotten

so much better.

As far as specs go, we have

an Intel Pentium N3700.

Now, this might not be the most powerful

CPU in the world, it's closer to an Atom

than a Core, however, it is reasonably

powerful, it's quad core and it

can clock up to 2.4 gigahertz.

It also has four gigabytes of memory,

now that may not be spectacular,

but again, this a $400 laptop.

For storage we have a 128 gigabyte SSD.

And while technically is an SSD

in real world use it's much more

similar to what you would find inside your phone.

It's decent, it's about the same that

you would get with a normal hard drive.

But, there are still advantages,

it's much smaller than a hard drive,

it's gonna be more reliable especially if

you happen to drop your laptop.

Not that fast, though.

This is definitely not a gaming PC,

however for lighter titles especially browser-based

games likes Agar.io.

It seems to run just fine.

What the-

What is that?

Next up, I'm gonna try CS:GO.

I mean, it's not the greatest gaming experience

I've ever tried, but this is totally playable,

mind you I am playing at 720p on low settings.

For $400, I wasn't exactly expecting

a great gaming laptop, but this is fine.

As long as you kind of keep your

expectation low, right?

Don't expect to be able to play Crysis

at max settings or anything.

As far as the screen goes,

we have a 14 inch 1080p display.

It's actually pretty solid.

Now the colors, especially the contrast,

isn't quite as nice as what you would get

on a higher end laptop, but most laptops

this size, and especially this price,

have a much lower resolution screen.

So having a full 1080p is a big bonus.

There is one area where you can notice

the budget price, and that is with the VGA webcam.

Now, honestly, this is sort of passable

for a quick video chat, but honestly you could

do a lot better.

If you flip the laptop over you'll see

there are two downward firing speakers.

They're actually not bad,

they're a little bit on the quiet side,

but I've heard a lot worse out

of a laptop.

This is definitely not a perfect laptop.

When you get to this kind of price range,

a lot of the time you're dealing with

a lot of compromises.

This actually checks a lot of the boxes,

it's built pretty well, there's still

some plastic in there, but it's

a lot better than what you would usually expect.

The specs are decent, again nothing spectacular,

the screen is good, there's a lot of things

that are solid, right?

You're not gonna get anything amazing,

it's not the best laptop that you've

ever seen, but for $400, you could do a lot

worse than the VivoBook.

As always, I'll have a link to check this guy out

in the description, and you guys should definitely

go check out some of the other Is It Worth It episodes

that you've missed.

Anyway guys thank you so much for watching,

and I will catch you in the next one.