The Best Budget Laptops
Best budget laptops
Asus VivoBook S200 - £450 (around AU$685/US$715)
5/5
For * Superb price * Excellent build quality * Responsive screen * Great keyboard * Decent trackpad
Against
* TN screen has its limitations * Could be a bit lighter * Battery life could be better
The Asus VivoBook S200 offers supreme good looks, touchscreen operation, slick performance and excellent portability, all for a reasonable price.
This laptop runs on an Intel Core i3-3217U processor, which means it provides more than enough grunt to power Windows 8 through any day-to-day tasks, while keeping power consumption to a minimum.
For a long time it was hard to get excited about laptops. They all had the same features, they all ran the same software and they all looked exactly the same as the ones we all had five years previously.
But the arrival of Windows 8 has changed all that, and no device showcases this fact better than the Asus VivoBook S200.
It's a fantastic little 11.6-inch touchscreen laptop that offers pretty much everything you could want from a portable device, and what's more, it costs a thoroughly reasonable £449.99.
The brain of this laptop comes in the form of an Intel Core i3-3217U CPU, which means it provides more than enough grunt to power Windows 8 through any day-to-day tasks while keeping power consumption to an absolute minimum.
Benchmarks * 3DMark06: 2,774 * Cinebench: 4,198 * Battery life: 3 hours 5 minutes
You don't get any fancy graphics – if playing 3D games is on your to-do list, look elsewhere – but again, the integrated Intel HM70 EXPRESS chip is good enough to keep everything on the 11.6-inch screen running creamy smooth without pulling too much juice out of the battery.
The Li-Polymer 38 WH battery itself consists of two cells and is good for two weeks on standby and a maximum of five hours' constant use.
In our test, it lasted fractionally over three hours when looping video, which makes it about
Asus VivoBook S200 - £450 (around AU$685/US$715)
5/5
For * Superb price * Excellent build quality * Responsive screen * Great keyboard * Decent trackpad
Against
* TN screen has its limitations * Could be a bit lighter * Battery life could be better
The Asus VivoBook S200 offers supreme good looks, touchscreen operation, slick performance and excellent portability, all for a reasonable price.
This laptop runs on an Intel Core i3-3217U processor, which means it provides more than enough grunt to power Windows 8 through any day-to-day tasks, while keeping power consumption to a minimum.
For a long time it was hard to get excited about laptops. They all had the same features, they all ran the same software and they all looked exactly the same as the ones we all had five years previously.
But the arrival of Windows 8 has changed all that, and no device showcases this fact better than the Asus VivoBook S200.
It's a fantastic little 11.6-inch touchscreen laptop that offers pretty much everything you could want from a portable device, and what's more, it costs a thoroughly reasonable £449.99.
The brain of this laptop comes in the form of an Intel Core i3-3217U CPU, which means it provides more than enough grunt to power Windows 8 through any day-to-day tasks while keeping power consumption to an absolute minimum.
Benchmarks * 3DMark06: 2,774 * Cinebench: 4,198 * Battery life: 3 hours 5 minutes
You don't get any fancy graphics – if playing 3D games is on your to-do list, look elsewhere – but again, the integrated Intel HM70 EXPRESS chip is good enough to keep everything on the 11.6-inch screen running creamy smooth without pulling too much juice out of the battery.
The Li-Polymer 38 WH battery itself consists of two cells and is good for two weeks on standby and a maximum of five hours' constant use.
In our test, it lasted fractionally over three hours when looping video, which makes it about