Asus Chromebook C223N Review: The Asus Chromebook C223N is an entry-level Chromebook that runs on the browser-based operating system ChromeOS. Its market price is Rs 17,999. We have tested this device and this is our review.
Asus Chromebook C223N Review: Due to the corona virus and lockdown, the trend of work from home and online education has become common. For this change in work and studies, it has become necessary to have a tablet or laptop. To meet this need, there are budget Chromebook devices in the market, which are making online learning possible for students at a low cost. Asus Chromebook C223N is included in these cheap Chromebooks.
The Asus Chromebook C223N is an entry-level Chromebook that runs on the browser-based operating system ChromeOS. Its market price is Rs 17,999. We have tested this device and here is our review, where we will talk about this device’s design, build quality, performance and battery to display, camera, keyboard, trackpad and speakers.
Asus Chromebook C223N review
Design and build quality
When it comes to laptops or tablets, the simplest design is the most preferred. The Asus Chromebook C223N is just like that. Its silver color may fade against other vibrant Chromebooks in the market, but when you use it, you will definitely appreciate its simple design and look.
The small form factor and light weight of this Chromebook make it very easy to carry around. While using it, you can take it and sit at any angle and its weight will never become a hindrance or trouble for you. There is no dearth of ports in this Chromebook. There’s also two USB-C ports, a USB-A port, an audio/microphone jack, and a card slot for extra storage.
The Asus Chromebook C223N’s build quality doesn’t seem cheap from any corner. Rather, it seems to be quite strong when held in hand or driven on a lap. Seeing this, it gives confidence that it can also withstand rough use and that is why it can be given to the children of the house without any tension for use.
Asus Chromebook C223N Performance
Let us already tell you that this machine is not a power house and neither is the performance its strong point. This device starts hanging only after opening 5-6 chrome tabs. You cannot use it for your office work at all. When we opened an Outlook tab, a Google Sheets tab, a Google Docs tab and news websites in three different tabs, it hanged. After waiting for half an hour, it still did not work and finally it had to be force-restarted. This happened not once or twice, but 5 times. After that we took the burden of office work out of it.
The Asus Chromebook C223N is just for attending online classes or doing light work. It comes with a dual-core Intel Celeron N3350 processor, paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of eMMC storage. It’s specifications aren’t strong, but it’s a Chromebook, so its operating system takes all the weight off. Let us know about its performance on low-usage.
If you’re doing normal web-browsing, playing YouTube, video calling on ‘Zoom’ or ‘Google Meet’, reading PDF books, or attending online classes on the Asus Chromebook C223N, this Will continue to work without interruption. This device is able to do light tasks comfortably without stopping or getting stuck. It is better that you never open 6-7 tabs at a time in Chrome browser. If the website is bulky, it’s best to stick to 4 tabs.
Within its functionality, this Chromebook runs at just the right speed. Whether it’s opening apps or switching between two programs, everything gets done faster. All the credit for this goes to ChromeOS. This operating system does wonders even on the weakest hardware and the Asus Chromebook C223N gets its full benefit. Along with this, you can install many web apps on the operating system and apps running on Android from Google Play Store. In this Chromebook, we were also seeing games like Asphalt 9 available for download on the Play Store, but we did not think it right to install this heavy game on a laptop which cannot withstand office work.
keyboard and trackpad
The keyboard of the Asus Chromeboko C223N is one of the best features of this device. It’s so bouncy that it’s a lot of fun to type. The key travel is very high and the size of the keys is large even though the size of the Chromebook is small. There is a lot of space between the keys, which completely eliminates the chance of typos or any other kind of mistake in pressing the button. Due to the good keyboard, we also did its intensive testing, in which we gave it a rough treatment and it passed in it with ease.
But as good as the keyboard is, the trackpad is bad. Firstly, its size is very small and secondly it does not work properly. While the keyboard, by virtue of its goodness, saves you time in typing, the trackpad wastes your time equally. We tried the cursor speed on every setting but it gave poor performance on all the settings. If you add a mouse to it separately, then only you will be able to work properly with this Chromebook. The only time we used it, we navigated with the help of the keyboard.
Display, Camera, Speakers and Battery
This budget Chromebook does not have a touch display. Here you get a normal 11.6-inch HD screen, which has a resolution of 1366x768p. The bezels are very wide and you will not be able to ignore them even if you want. But when you start working, the 11.6-inch screen will not seem small to you at all. Just the viewing angles of the display are not that good, but even many expensive laptops do not have good viewing angles, so it would be an excessive to expect better from such a cheap device. The brightness of the screen is fine for indoor work, but it is a bit low for use in the courtyard of the house during the day or sitting on the terrace in the evening.
This Chromebook has a camera on the top bezel for video calling. This is a low-resolution sensor, so you can’t take any other kind of work and being a budget device, it would not be right to expect more from it. In terms of speaker, it disappointed a bit. Since the performance of this budget Chromebook is limited to online reading and watching movies, etc., the most important thing was to get better audio, but the volume level is quite low on this device. There are two speakers in the base of this laptop, but both are slow. You will have to use headphones or earphones while playing YouTube or during video calls.
As for the battery, this Asus Chromebook impresses here. It goes on for 8 hours comfortably. You can watch three movies on it continuously and the battery still won’t last. The Asus Chromebook C223N comes bundled with a 45W USB-Type C charger, which can charge it in 3+ hours. In this you cannot use 45W charger of your phone.
Asus Chromebook C223N review: Verdict
The Asus Chromebook C223N’s price of Rs 17,999 makes it affordable for a lot of people. It has a good design, very low weight, great build quality, awesome keyboard, great battery backup. But Asus has done a lot of compromises to keep the price down. The screen and camera of this device are just functional, the speaker could have been better and the trackpad is very disappointing.
This laptop cannot be used for office work. The main target of this laptop is those users who have to do light work, use for entertainment or just attend online classes. But the trackpad and speaker of this Chromebook will bother the users of these three groups. If your budget is tight and you can use Bluetooth speakers or earphones with this Chromebook, then this device can come in handy for all three groups of users. At the same time, if you can take your budget upwards by Rs 4-5 thousand, then you will get better performance Chromebooks, which will not have these drawbacks and will also be able to handle a bit heavy work.