Earlier this year Asus introduced the Asus BR1102 line of 11.6 inch notebooks with Intel Alder Lake-N processors. Now the company is expanding the family with two new models sporting bigger, higher-resolution displays and higher-performance processors.
The new Asus BR1402F is a convertible notebook with a 14 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel touchscreen display, a 360-degree hinge, and support for up to an Intel Core i3-N305 processor, while the Asus BR1402C is nearly identical in most respects, but it’s a clamshell-style notebook with a non-touch display and a hinge that only supports angles up to 180 degrees.
These are budget laptops designed for classroom use rather than high-performance machines. But Intel claims the Core i3-N305 processor with 8 Efficiency CPU cores offers performance that’s on par with what users would expect from a Core i3-branded processor. Lower-priced models may have Intel Processor N200 or N100 quad-core chips though.
Other features include support for up to 16GB of DDR4 memory (there’s a SODIMM slot for user-upgradeable memory), and 128GB of PCIe 3.0 NVMe storage (there’s an M.2 2280 slot, so this is also user upgradeable).
Ports include:
- 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C
- 1 x USB 2.0 Type-C
- 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A
- 1 x HDMI 1.4
- 1 x 3.5mm audio
- 1 x Gigabit Ethernet
The laptop has a 1080pm webcam with a privacy shutter, and convertible models have a 13MP world-facing camera as well.
All Asus BR1402 configurations feature a spill-resistant keyboard and a MIL-STD-810H tested body that should be resistant to bumps and drops from a short height, among other things. The Asus BR1402F also has a scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass cover and support for an optional stylus that fits in a garage in the laptop’s body when you’re not using it. Asus says the pen supports Microsoft Pen Protocol 2.0 technology and features fast-charging support: a 15-second charge should let you use the pen for up to 45 minutes.
The notebook have 50 Wh batteries and come with a 45W USB Type-C power adapter. Wireless features include support for WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3.
Since these laptops are designed for use in educational settings, they’re also designed with repairability in mind: Asus says they use modular components that allow schools (or others) to replace “key components – such as the keyboard, battery, thermal module, and I/O card… in minutes using simple tools.”
If you see an “N” in the CPU name, it is a netbook class device.
Yup, and I wish there were more machines with them on the market. These chips run windows way better than the netbooks of old.
even the entry N95 with faster and more memory and storage is easily 10x netbooks and netbooks were 300 odd back in the day, these are 150ish (passmark of 5500 is completely respectable), my only gripe: way too much entanglement with masks just so they could link it to N5095/N5105
No word on pricing eh? If it’s less than 700, this might be what the doctor ordered. I’ve had problems with my Vaio that I bought for school.
Is there just one RAM slot total, or is one soldered and the other upgradeable?
My 14 inch Vaio is actually a little chunky to carry around classes, so I might like this one instead.
Of course, having regular BIOS updates would be a really nice bonus. There are absolutely NO updates available from Vaio for my machine. Nothing whatsoever.
Oh sorry, misread that in my haste. Nevermind. The older one is an 11.6 inch, which would have been perfect for me.
Nevermind.
I’ll just stick with what I’ve got, it should get me through my last two years of school.
Actually I still can’t find around the 11.6in models announced in April, they’re either not available or available only to schools. About the RAM slot, I’m pretty much sure that it’s just one single slot, Alder Lake N doesn’t support dual channel memory and I’ve not seen any mini PC or laptop equipped with more than one slot (when it’s not soldered LPDDR5, but actually sodimm solutions appear to be fairly common, perhaps they’re less expensive).