The Asus C200 Chromebook is expected to hit the streets in May for $250. It’s already available for pre-order from some stores, even though Asus has yet to officially acknowledge the Chrome OS laptop.

But that hasn’t stopped one company from posting pictures, benchmark results and initial impressions of the 11.6 inch Chromebook.

Update: Not surprisingly, Promevo has been asked to remove their article… but it’ll apparently be back on May 6th, 2014. That’s as good an indication as any that Asus plans to launch its Chromebooks in May.

asus c200 chromebook leak

The Asus C200 Chromebook features an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, an Intel Celeron N2830 Bay Trail processor, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage. It has HDMI output, a USB 3.0 port and a USB 2.0 port, and an SD card slot.

Asus is also expected to offer a 13.3 inch C300 Chromebook with more memory and storage and a higher price tag.

According to the folks at Promevo (which is taking pre-orders for the Asus C200 Chromebook), the 11.6 inch model gets about 10 hours of battery life and scores a 7387 on the Google Octane benchmark.

That’s not quite as high a score as the 9500 to 10000 points you get with a Celeron 2955U-powered device like the Asus Chromebox or Acer C270p Chromebook. But it’s better than the 5162 Google Octane score I got when I tested the HP Chromebook 11 with a Samsung Exynos 5 dual-core CPU.

via OMG Chrome

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29 replies on “Asus $249 C200 Chromebook tested ahead of launch”

  1. How do I find out what “environment” is running on my brand new ASUS Chromebook?

  2. Only 2/3 of the Passmark CPU score of Acer and Dell’s offering? WTF is ASUS thinking?

    Only 2GB of RAM and 16GB storage? Very disappointing …

  3. I really hope the C300 has a 1080p display with a dockable keyboard. I would absolutely buy that.

  4. I am waiting for (and need) a transformer Android/Chromebook. Why? Mother-in-law, and she needs Skype (Hangouts don’t work with her daughter’s BB phone)

    1. You might have a long wait. Can always dual boot ChromeOS with Ubuntu on currently available Chromebooks.

  5. Looks identical to the aluminium bodied Asus Vivobook S200/X202, but this is made of plastic and the specs pretty identical to the plastic Asus F200/X200. Offers nothing new but a Chromebook logo.

    I’d like to see UX21E refreshed or something similar aluminium+intel i-processor+highres 8-11″ screen, also no more 1366×768 screens please pretty please.

    I see hundreds of 10.1″ 1080p screen tablets, most quite cheap, but haven’t seen any, not one, 10.1″ 1080p screen ultrabook with intel i-processor & ssd, WHY IS THIS??

    1. “I see hundreds of 10.1″ 1080p screen tablets, most quite cheap, but haven’t seen any, not one, 10.1″ 1080p screen ultrabook with intel i-processor & ssd, WHY IS THIS??”

      Plan on waiting a whole lot longer. All the manufacturers have done plenty of marketing studies and I can assure you there are no plans to make a model that only .00001% of the US population will buy. By they way, there will be no plans for a mass market Pixel 2 either, for the exact same reasons.

  6. they pulled down the review. anyone care to summarize what was there while it was there?

    1. Pretty much just what I wrote about plus a few more pictures. It was more of an unboxing and quick test than a detailed review

    2. They noted it easily provided a 10 hour run time, they used it most of the day and it still had plenty of charge… and they used the Google’s Octane tool, which gave it a score of 7,387 and they stated that’s very competitive with other Chromebooks on the market….

      Which seems to be the case as a Haswell Celeron 2955U 1.4GHz, which can be found in other Chromebooks, does score only a bit better at 9253…

      Haswell has a significant processor advantage over Bay Trail but at 1.4GHz vs the Bay Trail N2830 at 2.16-2.41GHz helps even things quite a bit… Mind, the Bay Trail has some advantages like Quick Sync is enabled but disabled for Haswell…

      While they both don’t have Hyper Threading and thus are limited to just two threads for the two cores but you don’t need all that much to run a Cloud OS like Chrome…

      End of the review indicated they were going to work on a more extensive review… So just keep a eye out for the update… Though, the reason why they pulled it may be because Asus doesn’t want any information out yet until they’re ready to release the product…

  7. Is this fanless? I checked the web, but could not find out either way. If it is, it should compete well with Samsung’s Chromebook 2.

    1. Chromebook 2 is octa cores while C200 is dual cores. Octane 2.0 is benchmarking mono core.

      1. The ARM big.LITTLE Octo cores don’t mean much, they’re mainly a way to improve dynamic performance range to improve overall power efficiency with only a marginal increase in total processing power…

        So, most of the time, you’re only getting about the performance of a quad core device… with a secondary lower powered quad to handle the more menial tasks and free up the main quad for heavy work loads…

        Besides, Samsung only really claimed a big power efficiency improvement of up to 70% compared to a pure Cortex A15 solution…

        Also, as a mobile SoC, it means there’s a limiting power budget that limits performance… but the dual core Bay Trail doesn’t have that limitation because it’s not a mobile optimized SoC…

        Which is partly why the dual core N2830 scores better than even the quad core Z3770…

        1. I believe you must run concurrently 1 to 8 octane 2.0 benchmarks on Samsung 2 CB and Asus C200 to compare the actual processing power of both. Each big ARM core is certainty slower than each bail tray, however ChromeOS is Linux and Linux runs quite well on multicores. It will depends on users experience.

          1. Mind, Chrome OS is mainly a browser and thus the benefits of being based on Linux are limited, you’d be better off dual booting a full GNU/Linux distro…

            But, again, it’s a mobile SoC and thus is inherently limited beyond just it’s performance difference… High end ARM SoCs get performance throttled to keep them within the power usage limit to ensure good battery life and prevent the need for active cooling…

          2. There are hundreds of applications that run outside the browsers. Moreover Chrome tabs are mostly Linux processes. Linux is the kernel of Chrome OS as it is the kernel of Ubuntu or other distributions. Moreover you don’t need dual boot to install another Linux besides Chrome OS( i.e Crouton).

          3. No, there aren’t hundreds of application that run outside the browser… It’s called a Cloud OS for a reason! Most of the apps it runs are cloud web apps!

            And no, a OS is more than just a Kernel… So just using a Kernel doesn’t make say Android the same as Ubuntu… As everything besides the Kernel can be very different and a OS is the sum of its parts and not any one part alone!

            Besides, Chrome is not available in the default GNU/Linux distro repositories because it’s not open source! Chrome OS also won’t run Linux desktop or Android Apps…

            So don’t confuse using a Linux kernel with there being a lot in common with other GNU/Linux distros…

            While, yes you could use something like Crouton but that’s still a limited environment, as it actually uses a “chroot” environment to run both Chrome OS and Ubuntu at the same time but that’s basically like running two different OS at the same time…

            Just like there are ways to run Windows and Android on the same system without needing to reboot… It doesn’t mean the two are interchangeable, just that you can switch between them easily…

            So you still need to switch between them, you just avoid the need to reboot… and you still need to enable Developer Mode to install and run Crouton as well…

            Since Chromebooks are normally locked down for security, only booting properly signed operating systems, checking them for tampering, and preventing users and applications from modifying the underlying OS. While Developer Mode allows you to disable all these security features…

            So, there reasons why some people want more than something like Crouton and thus why there are forums on modifying the firmware for a true dual boot option…

          4. Packaged applications run offline by definition. They shared the same run time with the Chrome browser. Google Drive Keep, Quick Office, Google Draw, Camera, Dart editor is coming among several other packaged applications run offline and outside the Chrome Browser ( Windows/tabs)
            They have their own Linux processes which could take benefit of the Exynos 5 octa processors. Granted, the Chromebook’s Linux kernel ( scheduler) need to be updated to efficiently balance works between Big.little cores technology. Linux’s support of Big.little cores exist, it will depends on Google to update the Chromebook Linux kernel for the Samsung Big.little cores or not.

            This said, support of specialized processors on other platforms exist for a while. Heterogeneous Multi-Processing is not a new concept.

            Linux is no more no less a kernel. Linux is not Ubuntu, RedHat, Suse, Andoid. ChromeOS, etc. But all run on top of Linux and will depends at the end on the Linux scheduler and dispatcher to execute any workload.

          5. They’re still different environments that aren’t running the same apps!

            And no, having offline apps does not mean they are running separately from the browser!

            Chrome Apps are written in HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS.But Chrome Apps look and behave like native apps,and they have native-like capabilities that are much more powerful than those available to web apps.

            And all the Apps on Chrome are Chome Apps!

            Really, expecting to gain all the benefits of Linux just because it’s using the Kernel is like expecting to be able to do the same with Android, which also shares the Linux Kernel but you don’t see that happening!

            Crouton lags behind official GNU/Linux distros anyway… So you’re not getting the latest version with that solution…

            And no, Linux is only a Kernel but Ubuntu, RedHat, Suse, etc are more than just Kernels… They’re GNU/Linux, aka Desktop Linux distros… the kernel is the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other
            programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself and it can only function in the
            context of a complete operating system.

            Linux is normally used in
            combination with the GNU operating system, meaning the whole system is
            basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called
            “Linux” distributions are really distributions of
            GNU/Linux.

            While Android represents a non-GNU mobile OS but the same distinction applies to the Kernel, which Android mainly uses just for handling the hardware…

            So don’t confuse the Kernel with all these operating systems being equivalent because there’s a lot more than just the Kernel at work… and those differences can be very significant!

          6. GNU/Linux is Gnu software ( compilers, runtime libraries, etc) + the Linux Kernel since the Gnu kernel (HURD) was never released. Chrome OS is a subset of GNU software and a light Linux kernel + Chrome specific run time libraries.
            Once again, both GNU/Linux and Chrome OS rely on Linux kernel to schedule processes and threads.
            A bad program will not run better on a better kernel. However a CPU intensive program can be slowed down by the Linux scheduler if it is dispatched on a little core vs. big core. Kernel Patches exist to teach the Linux scheduler about heterogeneous system to avoid confusion.

            Regarding Android, even though Dalvik virtual machine manage its own threads, Dalvik thread can be Linux thread or multiple Dalvk threads can run in a same Linux thread. All in all , the Linux kernel will decide which the next runable thread to be executed by a CPU. The Linux kernel effectively schedule Dalvik threads for execution.

            This is to say ( I repeat it again) , that the Linux kernel decides how processes ( and threads) are scheduled and dispatched no matter processes are running on Ubuntu, Read Hat( Centos), Suse, Mandriva, Chrome OS or Android.

            Both Chrome OS and Android are shipped with Linux Kernel 3.4 ( May 2012). HMP non mainstream patches are available since Q3 2013. It should be mainstream sooner ( kernel 3.13 ?) since Samsung is a gold member of the Linux foundation. However, I believe the implementation of the HMP patches on Chromebook will mainly depend on Google. Changing kernel 3.4 to 3.13 ( or later) on all Chromebooks will be challenging for Google.

          7. Incorrect, Chrome OS is running on a subset of GNU/Linux but it’s still a browser OS! You aren’t running separate apps in Chrome OS but just Chrome Apps!

            This is why you even need Crouton to run regular GNU/Linux apps! It’s also why you can run many of the same Chrome Apps on non-GNU/Linux OS like Windows by simply running the Chrome Browser because Chrome is not dependent on the specific Kernel and they could have done it with any building block for an OS…

            While, for Android, the input device drivers are responsible for translating device-specific signals into a standard input event format, by way of the Linux input protocol. The Linux input protocol defines a standard set of event types and codes in the linux/input.h kernel header file. In this way, components outside the kernel do not need to care about the details such as physical scan codes, HID usages, I2C messages, GPIO pins, and the like.

            Android also lacks GNU and makes use of a virtual machine as its runtime environment in order to run the APK files that constitute an Android application.

            The advantage of using a virtual machine is twofold – firstly, the app code is isolated from the core operating system, ensuring that should something go wrong, it’s contained in an isolated environment and does not effect the primary OS. And secondly, it allows for cross-compatibility, meaning even if an app is compiled on another platform (such as a PC, as is usually the case with developing mobile apps) , they can still be executed on the mobile platform using the virtual machine.

            So there are separations between the environment the user uses and the rest of the underlining elements of the OS… for both Android and to a lesser degree Chrome…

            Sure, the Kernel handles a lot of the hardware level stuff but the environment you’re running on top of it doesn’t need to directly interact with it…

          8. GNU are software that run on top of Linux kernel but it does not means a distribution without GNU software or preventing users to use directly GNU software is not a Linux based OS. Granted, In addition to required Linux progresses, Chrome OS run mainly Google V8 virtual machines. However, when you switch to developer mode, you can access to a subset of GNU software commands. Granted, they are limited by DESIGN. You can’t install GNU software as you like, however it is possible but you need to build all the missing underlying libraries that are missing. This would not be smart since you deviate from the design of Chrome OS.
            Moreover, while Chrome browser is the main application running on top Chrome OS, you can write other chrome Apps (packaged apps) that run ONLY OFFLINE but it would not be smart. You can also develop native client applications that run only offline but why would you do that?

            At a higher level, Nokia distribution of Android does not have access to Google apps store but it is still an Android based distribution.

          9. Nokia X is a Android Fork, like Amazon’s Kindle Fire… Google’s Play Store and many of their other apps and services are all proprietary, thus how Google can choose not to allow any version of Android they don’t approve of to not have automatic access to those apps and services!

            However, this has nothing to do with what we’re discussing… Linux distros only really have the Kernel as a universal constant but the Kernel only really serves the purpose of handling the hardware… The rest of its association with the rest of the OS depends on the type of OS it is designed to be!

            And no, running Chrome apps offline changes nothing, I pointed that out myself and the fact is they’re still only Chrome apps and that’s all Chrome will run!

            Chromebooks do not run GNU/Linux apps! This is why you need to either dual boot or do something like Crouton… So, sorry, they’re not the exact same thing! Crouton only takes advantage of the common Kernel to not need to recreate that part of the OS but it adds the GNU part as a separate User Space and thus why you have to still switch between Chrome and Crouton!

            Again, a OS is a sum of its parts but it’s not defined by just one part! The Kernel mainly just handles the hardware and with modules it supports drivers, it may be a monolithic Kernel but it’s still only a Kernel and how the rest of the OS operates is really up to developers whether it works directly with the Kernel or just on top of it!

            Really, with custom firmware you can instantly switch between Windows and Android without rebooting too… So it’s possible to do even without a common Kernel!

            You’re basically confusing the Kernel Space with the User Space…

            https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-linux-kernel/figure2.jpg

            Just because they work together doesn’t mean the Kernel Space is vital to the User Space to the point it can’t be easily replaced by another Kernel Space!

            Really, look up Windroy… It’s Android but running with a Windows kernel! And that too is also a Android Fork!

          10. Nokia case ( among kindle etc.) was used to show that an Android distribution does not need to run Google Apps store like a Linux distribution does not need to run GNU software. Nokia Android is still Android and Chrome OS is still Linux based.

            Well, in developer mode, I can run many commands that are based on the GNU C library. Granted glibc is ripped by DESIGN but Chrome OS still come with subset of Glibc. Chrome OS core is basically Gentoo core.

            I am perfectly aware of what is user space and kernel space. For your information, in developer mode, you can use bash shell and compile programs. As I said, you will deviate from Chrome OS objective. It is not worth since you will get an insecure Chrome OS, however it is ONCE AGAIN possible.
            https://thomasloughlin.com/compile-on-chrome-os/

            This being said, this discussion was started with Linux kernel ( and particularly Linux scheduler) that Chrome OS is based on and no more no less. Linux scheduler need to be taught to efficiently use HMP and that was all about. Kernel patchs exist but are not mainstream. Who knows if Google is not going to fork Linux kernel for Chrome OS as they did for Android. After Linux 3.4, they are still kernel features that are unique to Android kernel vs. Linux kernel.

          11. Not needing the Google App store is irrelevant… I already pointed out you can still have a Android distro that’s not even using the Linux Kernel with Windroy!

            And yes, in developer’s mode you can run many commands based on GNU C library but only because you’re not locked into Chrome’s User Environment in Developer’s mode!

            Google basically used GNU/Linux as a shortcut to turning Chrome into a OS but the Chrome User Space is still separate from the rest!

            And Google can just as easily have used Windows as its basis instead… Chrome Apps aren’t limited to just running on Chromebooks!

            Really, you’re exaggerating the significance of the Kernel… and not understanding that the rest of the OS doesn’t have to be designed to work directly with it!

            As the layout image I showed in my previous response, the User Space interacts primarily with the System Call Interface layer… which in turn is what works with the Kernel layer…

            The System Call Interface creates a universal standard for the User Space to work with so it doesn’t have to be designed to work directly with the Kernel!

            This is just like the reason why MS decided to make UEFI the standard firmware instead of traditional BIOS because UEFI can act like a partial OS, even can boot itself and access the Internet on its own… And has similar advantages to the Linux Kernel modules in that developers can make drivers that target the UEFI directly and that can make them universal drivers that would work any on UEFI system… even if one is ARM based and the other x86…

            So the concept of having different layers allow for levels of autonomy and integration being optional is nothing new and is one of the advantages to using a monolithic Kernel like Linux…

            And it works both ways… we have systems that allow the same basic OS to work with different Kernels and we have Kernels that can work with very different OS designs.

            So don’t confuse having common elements with the whole being the same equivalent as another…

            Android has no GNU and thus is very different from a GNU/Linux distro and despite Chrome basing most of the OS on GNU/Linux, it still is a browser User Space that is being used and without going into developer mode and using something like Crouton then you’re limited to only running Chrome Apps, which are not dependent on the Linux Kernel and like many Android apps are platform agnostic!

          12. So you agree that Chome Os is a stripped down version GNU/Linux and thats all about I wanted to say.
            Kernel is essential since it manages your all computer resource( network inclusive) however Linux kernel is not essential since other kernel exist. But we are deviating from our original discussion which is Chromebook 2 and HMP.

            V8 run on GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac OS, Chrome OS, etc. so Linux kernel or Chrome OS are not essential, however once again, we are deviating form Chromebook 2 ( Linux based OS) and Linux scheduler which manages pretty well multiple cores, processes and threads.In Chromebook ( but not yet HMP)

            That’s all about I was saying.

          13. The question was never whether Chromebooks used a stripped down version of GNU/Linux but what you were actually running on the Chrome OS!

            All apps in Chrome are Chrome Apps… Not GNU/Linux or Android apps!

            Crouton works by providing the rest of the GNU that a regular desktop Linux distro would have and thus provide an alternative User Space where you can run regular GNU/Linux apps but you still have switch away from the Chrome User Space in order to do this…

            While what you can access in Developer Mode is besides the point of what you’re running while using the Chrome OS!

            If Windows was Open Source, Google could have just as easily used a stripped down version of it instead of GNU/Linux and it would still work just like it does… Only what you could do in Developer Mode would change…

            Chrome is really Kernel agnostic, all the apps can just as easily run on a Windows system as a Linux based one…

            Google is even going so far as to allow Chrome Apps to be run on systems without the Chrome Browser!

            They’re doing this with Apache Cordova-based toolkit, which is a tool to essentially ‘convert’ these Chrome web apps into what look and act like native apps and Android and iOS are two of the first platforms they’re applying this too…

            So platform agnostic is something they’ve been going for from pretty much the start…

            Meaning what you were saying only applied to the underlining layers that work with the Kernel but as I was pointing out the User Space doesn’t really need to directly interact with those layers…

            This is the difference between a OS that’s fully integrated from the top to bottom from one that’s really meant to be hardware agnostic and only uses the lower layers to handle the hardware and basic necessities… and thus can easily just swap those lower layers with another equivalent and is not really tied to them…

            Like Windroy shows, you can have something like Android that normally uses a Linux Kernel instead use a Windows Kernel and still operate the same… Just like Chrome, it works because most Android apps are hardware agnostic too…

            And Chrome uses a Native Client to actually handle the real interface between Chrome apps and the Kernel/Hardware for native app performance needs but the Native Client can be configured for any platform and still let the apps work…

            Btw, there’s also GnuWin that as the name implies ports much of GNU or similar open source license, to run on Windows natively…

            So let’s not emphasis too much that Google uses GNU/Linux in Chromebooks because Chrome and Chrome apps don’t rely on it… Meaning it’s just a convenient tool to get the job done in this case and like any tool, you may be able to use it for other useful things but it doesn’t change the core of what Chrome and the Chrome Apps are meant to offer…

            Really, if it was easily to take advantage of the GNU/Linux side then I wouldn’t have bothered arguing the point but you do have to go to some lengths to take advantage of it…

            Besides, the Linux Scheduler is part of the Kernel and thus separate from the other layers of the OS… Chrome, or pretty much anything in the User Space doesn’t have to directly deal with it in order to take advantage of it…

    2. There is a nice chart that keeps up with all the new chromebook models here that you may find useful going forward: https://bit.ly/NewChromebooks By the way, the 13,3″ Samsung 2 should perform very closely to the current Haswell models.

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