Asus X102BA review

To the X102BA’s credit, we could browse the web, write MS Word documents and watch Full HD video files pretty well, but the X102BA was noticeably slower to load applications than any other laptop we’ve recently tested. Using the AppStarter program, it took the X102BA an average of 2.5 seconds to load LibreOffice, and around 21 seconds to load simple apps such as Fresh Paint. It even took the X102BA 17 seconds to open Chrome and load our home page. The X102BA struggled to play 720p YouTube videos smoothly, and videos appeared jerky and jagged even when the video was fully loaded.

Needless to say, the only games you’ll be playing on the X102BA will be simple Flash games, as its AMD Radeon HD 8180 integrated graphics chip isn’t cut out for 3D graphics. Even 2D games such as Bastion proved a struggle. We couldn’t play the Chrome version of Bastion in our web browser smoothly either, and most Chromebooks can do this comfortably.

This makes the X102BA debilitating compared to other cut-price laptops such as the Acer C720 Chromebook. This is a shame because its battery life is fairly good for a small laptop. The X102BA lasted 6 hours and 28 minutes in our light use test with the screen set to half brightness, which is roughly two hours more than many other budget laptops we’ve tested.

The laptop’s chunky chassis also provides a lot of room for a good range of ports. There are three USB ports, one of which is USB3, and there are HDMI and VGA video outputs for connecting the laptop to an external display. You also get conveniences such as a Fast Ethernet port, an SD card reader and a combined headphone and microphone jack. It also has a fairly large 500GB hard disk, which is enough storage for a decent media library.

The Asus X102BA is certainly very cheap, but you shouldn’t buy this laptop when the superior Asus Transformer Book T100 is just £60 more. With its slow processor, long loading times and poor screen, the X102BA is both frustrating and time-consuming to use. If you really want a cheap touchscreen laptop, the Asus Transformer Book T100 is a much better buy. Otherwise you’re better off with a £200 Chromebook such as the Acer C720.