At $100 per pound, this new ASUS laptop is a steal

By Jon Martindale Updated January 3, 2020

asus computex e403sa eebook 300 2 eeebooke403sa

With laptops naturally constrained by their form factor, cooling ability and battery life, upping performance in pursuit of standing out from competitors is not as easy as it is for their desktop counterparts. That, along with the fact that nobody likes lugging around a big chunk of metal and plastic, is why over the past decade the race has been on to make the lightest and thinnest laptop yet. While Asus isn’t about to win that award, it does stand the chance of winning a special mention for its latest creation, especially considering its price tag.

At just $300, the new Asus EeeBook E403SA is just three pounds and 0.7 inches thick, making it comparable in size and weight to Apple’s latest generation of MacBook Pros, though the Asus has a larger 14-inch display.

Of course, where a laptop like this does fall down is in performance. While there are no publicly verifiable benchmark results for the newly announced system, we do know that it will be utilizing an Intel Pentium processor, which is far from the powerhouse top end chips that Intel provides for enthusiast system makers. Liliputing speculates that the particular chip being used may be the Intel Pentium N3700, which is the same one that Asus used in its EeeBook E202.

One of the few notebooks out there which can actually beat Asus’ new miniature system at the weight game is Lenovo’s new LaVie Z, but at five times the price, you would hope so.

Other specifications for the new EeeBook include 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. We don’t know what resolution is being offered as of yet. It’s expected to go on sale in Q3 this year.

The question is: Is the performance trade-off worth the low price tag and lightweight design?

Topics

Computing Coordinator

Jon Martindale is the Evergreen Coordinator for Computing, overseeing a team of writers addressing all the latest how to…

Computing

Trying to buy a GPU in 2023 almost makes me miss the shortage

Two AMD Radeon RX 7000 graphics cards on a pink surface.

The days of the GPU shortage are long over, but somehow, buying a GPU is harder than ever -- and that sentiment has very little to do with stock levels. It's just that there are no obvious candidates when shopping anymore.

In a generation where no single GPU stands out as the single best graphics card, it's hard to jump on board with the latest from AMD and Nvidia. I don't want to see another GPU shortage, but the state of the graphics card market is far from where it should be.
This generation is all over the place

Computing

HP printers are heavily discounted in Best Buy’s flash sale

The HP - OfficeJet Pro 8034e Wireless All-In-One Inkjet Printer on a desk with a smartphone.

There’s good news in store if you’re looking to land a new printer at a discount this weekend. Best Buy is having a 48-hour flash sale on HP printers, with several that can compete with the best printers seeing some good prices. HP is almost always one of the best laptop brands, and it’s one of the same when it comes to printers. So if you’re looking for a new home or office printer, read onward on how to save on an HP printer at Best Buy.
HP DeskJet 2755e — $60, was $85

The HP DeskJet 2755e is a good entry-level printer. It’s got you covered if your printing needs are pretty basic, or if you don’t need to print in mass. This is a color InkJet printer, which makes it good for almost all uses. It can also make copies and scan in color, and it has mobile and wireless printing functionality. You can get set up quickly and easily with the HP Smart app that guides you through the setup process, and you can also use this app to print, scan and copy documents from your phone.

Computing

This tiny ThinkPad can’t quite keep up with the MacBook Air M2

While the laptop industry continues to move toward 14-inch laptops and larger, the 13-inch laptop remains an important category. One of the best is the Apple MacBook Air M2, with an extremely thin and well-built chassis, great performance, and incredibly long battery life.

Lenovo has recently introduced the third generation of its ThinkPad X1 Nano, one of the lightest laptops we've tested and a good performer as well. It's stiff competition, but which of these two diminutive laptops stands apart?
Specs and configurations