A Budget Laptop That Exceeded My Expectations

I just replaced my trusty old Acer laptop, which had been kicking around for over 5 years. I picked up the Asus, and I snagged it for 19,000 rubles on sale back in February 2018. That's a pretty sweet deal, considering I got an Intel N4200 processor, a dedicated video card, and 4GB of RAM. Other stores were offering similar configs for around 23,000 rubles, so I felt like I got an amazing value.

The laptop's design and construction are really impressive. The keyboard is a joy to type on, and the keys are spaced out well, so they won't get clogged with dust like my old laptop's did. It comes with Windows 10 Home, which installs automatically when you first turn it on. I've heard that installing Windows 7 can be a real pain due to driver issues, so I stuck with the default install. After connecting to the internet, all the updates loaded and installed, and I turned off any unnecessary features that were hogging the processor. The laptop boots up pretty quickly, considering the price – I'm talking under a minute.

The power button's location in the top-right corner is a bit unconventional, but it's grown on me. The matte display is a bit unusual for me, but it's actually really nice. The block power supply is a bit awkward, but it's really convenient. The laptop doesn't get as hot as my old one did, which was a major issue – I couldn't even put it on my lap after buying it. There's a card reader hidden under the indicators at the bottom, which I only discovered after a month of using the laptop. I was surprised to find that the sound from the two speakers is surprisingly good – it's got plenty of volume and depth.

One thing that's not so great is the touchpad. It's big, but it's not very responsive – it clicks when you don't want it to, and doesn't click when you do. I'm not sure what's going on there. I've been using it for a while now, and it's still got me stumped.

For 19,000 rubles, I'm not sure I could have found a better laptop. I've been using it to play World of Tanks on medium settings, and it's handled it just fine. The battery life is also pretty good – I've been getting around 5 hours of use before needing to recharge.