Review: Asus E402MA

Introduction and design

There was once a time when nothing but netbooks consumed the sub-£200 ($300/AUS$411) price bracket, but fortunately Microsoft and its partners have recently done a lot to drive down the price of larger, considerably more usable laptops.

With the advent of true cloud applications such as Office 365, and a variety of streaming services that have quickly overtaken locally-stored media, lean machines such as the Asus E402MA are making ground at the budget end of the market alongside similar notebooks like the smaller Acer Aspire One Cloudbook 11.

Packing a 14.6-inch screen, the E402MA has a relatively modest set of specifications: a quad-core Intel N3540 M processor clocked at up to 2.66GHz is paired with merely 2GB of RAM and a rather paltry 32GB of storage.

Of course, it was never intended for users to rely on the local storage, as out of the box it is already largely consumed by Windows – users will need to take full advantage of online applications in order to make the most of this cheap-as-chips machine.

Fortunately, a one-year subscription of Office 365 and 5GB of Asus WebStorage are included, which will set most casual users on a path of computing that relies predominantly on the cloud.

If you would rather not rely on cloud services, models with either 500GB, 750GB or 1TB hard drives are available. The 64-bit variant of Windows 8.1 offers a full desktop environment alongside Microsoft's app ecosystem, and (like other current laptops) a free upgrade to Windows 10 is available – should you decide to make the jump.

Design

Considering that the Asus E402MA was designed to a strict budget, it would be harsh to call it an ugly machine, but simply put this particular laptop is distinctly lacking in any notable stylistic details.

The lid and keyboard surround are made from a smooth plastic that is available in a range of colours (blue, red and white), though the chosen material is a horrendous fingerprint magnet. The underside and screen bezel on the E402MA are made from an equally indistinct matte plastic, but at least it does not attract greasy marks quite so easily.

The 1368 x 768 pixel-resolution display is covered in a reflective coating, which helps the screen appear more vibrant indoors, but makes it almost unusable in bright sunlight. Above the screen you'll notice a low-resolution webcam that is only suitable for an occasional Skype or similar video calling applications.

Fortunately where connectivity is concerned, Asus hasn't skimped on the variety of ports available. Both VGA and HDMI are on offer to allow for easy video output, whilst a 3.5mm combined headphone/microphone provides both audio input and output. Data access is provided by one USB 3.0 port on the left side, and another USB 2.0 port on the right; I was happy to see an RJ45 network connector and SD memory card slot included, too.

The trackpad and keyboard are far from the worst I have used on a laptop – including more expensive models. The chiclet-style keyboard feels surprisingly responsive and not too spongy, whilst the trackpad is large, comfortable and also supports a variety of multi-touch gestures – absolutely necessary for using Windows 8.1 (though this doesn't quite make up for the lack of touchscreen).

Specifications and performance

Weighing in at just 1.65kg, it is noticeable how light the cloud-centric Asus E402MA is. Of course, you will need to ensure that you have reliable access to the internet in order to make the most of the machine but the fast N-grade Wi-Fi and Gigabit network port make it easy to get online just about anywhere.

Whilst the processor has enough grunt to keep up with multiple browser tabs, music, HD video or even very basic gaming, the limited storage capacity means that you will struggle to install much at all on the E402MA. I ran out of space simply by downloading the suite of benchmarks we would usually run on machines such as this.

Here is the Asus E402MA configuration provided to techradar for review:

• CPU: Intel Bay Trail-M Quad-Core N3540 processor @ up to 2.66GHz
• GPU: Intel HD Graphics
• RAM: 2GB
• Screen: 14.6-inch "Auto HD" 1366 x 768
• Storage: 32GB eMMC
• Optical drive: N/A
• Ports: 1 x 3.5mm combo audio jack, 1 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0, HDMI out, Mini D-SUB VGA out, RJ45 Ethernet port
• Connectivity: 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v 4.0, 10/100/Gigabit LAN
• Camera: 640 x 480 resolution webcam
• Audio: "Sonic master" stereo speakers
• Battery: 2-cell 32Whrs
• Weight: 1.65kg
• Size: 339 x 235 x 219mm (W x D x H)

Apart from the Acer Aspire One Cloudbook 11, there are few alternatives available that rival the Asus E402MA on price and specification, with the vast majority of other inexpensive SSD-toting competitors being hybrids such as the compact Asus Transformer Book Flip and HP Pavilion x2.

The Transformer Book Flip and Pavilion x2 may have the 2-in-1 capabilities of a tablet-come-laptop, but both have a smaller screen. If you are looking for a conventional 14-inch laptop at a low price – you can pick up the E402MA for around £190 (around $290, AU$400) online currently – then this machine has surprisingly few true rivals.

Performance

Though I have seen Windows 8.1 run happily enough on lower specification devices, be sure to limit your expectations as to what applications will run on the Asus E402MA. Despite the low-end hardware configuration, the solid state drive ensures that booting up is incredibly speedy, and most apps start up very quickly.

Although it is loaded with the previous version of Microsoft's operating system out of the box, a reassuring sticker on the packaging reminds you that the E402MA is included in Microsoft's free Windows 10 upgrade program, which is definitely worth considering judging by what we've seen so far.

Benchmarks

Initially I had problems running the full set of benchmarks that we would usually put laptops through at techradar towers, which somewhat stumped me. After much head scratching I was only able to get this laptop to run just two of our standard tests – Cinebench and Geekbench.

It turns out that the other benchmark we would usually rely on – Futuremark's PCMark – simply could not run due to the lack of free space remaining after Windows had taken its share of the system drive.

Here are the results of the two benchmarks that did run successfully:

• Cinebench: CPU: 159; GPU: 6.11 fps
• Geekbench: Single-core: 982; Multi-core: 2973

With a higher clocked Intel Bay Trail processor, it was no surprise to see that the E402MA scored higher than either the Acer Aspire One Cloudbook 11 or HP Pavilion x2 in Geekbench's tests and the Cinebench CPU test. The GPU tests, however, showed that this laptop isn't quite cut-out for graphics-intensive tasks.

Though we haven't got a PCMark battery life score to compare against alternatives, we comfortably used the E402MA for a variety of web browsing, social media, YouTube videos and music streaming over the course of around 6.5 hours with 'balanced' power settings before it was time to plug it back into the power socket.

Verdict

With limited storage and other specifications that are nothing to get too excited about, the Asus E402MA is really only a slight step up from cloud-centric Chromebooks such as the Lenovo 100s. If you are comfortable using a number of online applications, then this particular model is fast enough to deal with a variety of web-based activities.

For an entry-level 14-inch laptop it is also relatively slim and portable. Whilst the low price is appealing, the lack of storage stops the E402MA from feeling like it can truly compare with other fully-fledged laptops.

We liked

Despite the low price, the E402MA feels relatively well-built and could easily be slipped amongst books in a satchel or used on the lap with minimal fatigue.

Whilst storage space is very limited in capacity after Windows has eaten its share of the drive, this machine certainly feels quick, managing to start up from cold in just a matter of seconds. The lack of any hard disk or optical drives does mean that battery life is pretty respectable.

I was surprised to find out that the chiclet keyboard and expansive trackpad surpass this laptop's price tag, allowing for comfortable typing and easy multi-touch gestures. There is also a healthy selection of ports for easy connectivity.

We disliked

Beyond the storage limitations and poor quality webcam, the screen resolution and quality can – at best – only be considered basic. Equally, despite promising "SonicMaster" sound, I've heard tablets with speakers that equal or surpass those on the E402MA.

The lack of optical drive might frustrate some, though ultimately this is becoming much less of a necessity with fast downloads and streaming services rapidly overtaking physical media.

There's nothing offensive about the design, but equally there is nothing inspiring or unique about it either; the cheap plastic finish is an awful fingerprint magnet, too.

Final verdict

There is very little to make the Asus E402MA stand out from competitors despite the very low price. I can only assume that Asus hopes that those folks this model is aimed at will likely be making use of cloud applications and as such, the average specifications are not as much of an issue as they would otherwise be. Thankfully the battery life is also better because of this design philosophy.

Unfortunately the E402MA's storage limitations were made very obvious when we tried to install our simple suite of benchmarks, which quickly consumed every last remaining megabyte – a problem that might well become very frustrating for any user who wants more than just a web browsing machine.

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