Asus X200CA-HCL1104G 11.6″ Touch Ultraportable at Cheap Price

The ASUS X200CA-HCL1104G 11.6-inch touch-enabled Windows 8 laptop is on sale for only $269.99 during the Cyber Monday Week at Best Buy, down from normal $449.99. It’s one of the most affordable touch-enabled laptops this holiday season.

Asus X200CA-HCL1104G


Coming in an ultraportable form factor with a light weight of just 3 pounds and 1.2″ thickness, the X200CA-HCL1104G delivers a 11.6″ 1,366×768 multitouch panel displaying Windows 8, the power-efficient but entry-performance Intel Celeron 1007U dual-core 1.5GHz CPU from the last year’s Intel “Ivy Bridge” Intel platform, standard-sized 4GB of RAM memory, and a smallish 320GB hard drive. The Celeron 1007U will be OK only for lightweight daily web and office tasks plus multimedia playback, with not too much multitasking involved. It’s far better than the AMD E-series chips commonly found in sub-$300 laptops, but it still greatly lags behind the Intel Pentium line.

The system lacks an optical disk drive, but in other aspects the X200CA-HCL1104G is a kind of a fully equipped notebook with an HD 1280×720-pixel camera, stereo speakers, HDMI and VGA video connectors, three USB ports, Wi-Fi wireless, and Gigabit Ethernet LAN.

We have no info on battery life for this model at the time of this writing, but the included small-capacity 3-cell 33 Whrs battery indicates the run time won’t be very long.

Regarding design, the X200CA retains the same styling cues of the VivoBook 200-series models, but instead of combination of silver colored interior and aluminum lid, the new model is all black. It sports a kind of serious business look with matte textured surfaces. The keyboard sports chiclet keys and is accompanied by a large touchpad with integrated click buttons.

When it comes to competition, this laptop has only a few rivals at its price point. The Microsoft Store sells the  HP Pavilion TouchSmart 10-e010nr for $250, whereas Walmart has in stock the Gateway LT41P05u for $270. However, they have smaller 10.1-inch screens, slower AMD A4 and Intel Atom CPUs, and smaller 2GB RAM. The Asus is a no-brainer in this case and you can compare their basic specifications yourself on this Cyber Monday and Holiday laptop deals list. Links to the pages where you can buy them are provided, too. Also, it’s obviously a better equipped machine than the similarly priced and sized non-touch Chromebooks, such as the HP 11 11-1101US or Acer C720. Of course, if you are willing to spend more than three times greater sum of money on a new touch ultraportable you can take into consideration the latest Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11s as likely the bast choice in the form factor. It’s $800. On the other side, if you want to trade in touch capability for a larger 15.6-inch screen, you can take a look at the Asus X502CA-BCL0901D which has the same internal specifications as the X200CA-HCL1104G and a regular 270-dollar price tag.

X200CA-HCL1104G Lid

Asus X200CA-HCL1104G Specifications

  • 11.6-inch 1,366-by-768 multi-touch display
  • Intel Celeron 1007U 1.5GHz dual-core CPU with 2MB cache and Intel HD integrated graphics
  • 4GB DDR3 RAM
  • 320GB 5,400rpm HDD; no DVD drive
  • Stereo speakers
  • Webcam
  • Chiclet-style keyboard and multi-touch touchpad
  • Connectivity: 802.11n Wi-Fi, Gigabit LAN, 1 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, HDMI, VGA, multi-format card reader, combo microphone/headphone jack
  • 3-cell 3300 mAh 33 Whrs battery
  • 1″ x 11.9″ x 7.9″ dimensions; 3 lbs weight
  • Windows 8 OS
  • 1-year warranty

Update: There are new models available.Check them out here and here.

25 thoughts on “Asus X200CA-HCL1104G 11.6″ Touch Ultraportable at Cheap Price”

  1. Hi. I don’t know if this question has been addressed or not, but i purchased this laptop for my son for schoolwork (which has been discussed) and for him to play Minecraft. Will he be able to play Minecraft on this machine? Or should I return it for a better model?

    Reply
    • The CPU inside this laptop supports Minecraft, but it won’t run smoothly on high graphics detail settings. After setting graphics details on lower under Minecraft’s Options, I think gameplay will be quite fluid. At the sub $250 price points, the X200CA-HCL1104G is an excellent choice and you’ll hardly find any notebook which will run Minecraft much better in the $250 – $300 price range.

      Reply
    • You can use trackpad, mouse, and touchscreen. This one has a classic clamshell laptop PC form factor and you can’t detach the screen to use the device as a standard tablet.

      Reply
    • I have been playing TF2 and League on it, obviously settings aren’t very high but I have been having no problem. Honestly this little computer, which I’m on right now, has replace my ageing laptop that is much more powerful but no where as powerful. Something about the touch screen, the portability, native windows 8 on it have won me over as my main laptop. Even though I originally just bought it for doing work when on the road because of the portablity of the thing. Got my finger crossed because I’m going to try Starcraft later today on it.

      Reply
  2. Is it possible to get the laptop loaded with MS Office and security software if you buy it online? Bitdefender seems to be the cheapest available. Is that sufficient, do you think?

    Reply
    • I wasn’t able to find info on this, but generally the Celeron 1007U and the Inte HM70/HM76 Express chipset which are used in this laptop support up to three displays. However, I’m not sure if this feature works on the X200CA.

      Reply
      • Awesome, thanks for the reply. Any word if these are in store only or available for online purchase also? Thanks

        Reply
        • Well, Best Buy’s Black Friday page is a bit confusing and I couldn’t figure out if a deal is online or in stores only, but in their Black Friday video they say Doorbusters are available in stores only, starting Thanksgiving Nov. 28th at 6PM (tickets will be handed up to 2 hours before store opening). The Asus X200CA-HCL1104G belongs to Doorsbusters. You can take a look at that page and video yourself here: http://bit.ly/1eLrxyx

          Reply
          • Hi.I am not sure if you are still on this blog..But I was able to pick up the unit for $199 yesterday. I was not planning to buy this it all, it just sort of fell into my lap. It is for a 10 year old who gets school projects/HW and needs to write report (ie word) and likes to listen to music…(she likes to go to youtube but perhaps would do pandora or something if I showed her). Sometimes she will play a website game or an internet learning/game site like ixl.com. She does not ‘game’ or big games at all. However she is currently monopolizing my MAC book pro that I use for work..and I cannot afford for her to accidentally delete or send out files. . My other choice was a chromebook (Guess she would have to use google docs)…

            Do you know if this machine would be adequate for what I described or is the chromebook better? I’m hoping someone answers about OFFICE….I also would like to know if there is a smaller version of office I could put on here or can anybody suggest something else? I don’t want to plug up the drive with programs and make it useless. She as I said uses Word for the most part and some internet based things like glogster. Perhaps photos she would put on but she could always do that on the cloud/dropbox if I teach her.

            Any advice in advance would be appreciated.. Thanks for the review…I was searching out reviews before I bought the machine. I hope it works out-for her age and needs I ‘seemed’ to be ok….It’s either this on the chrome…TX….D

            Reply
            • For these web based tasks plus Word documents, the X200CA-HCL1104G will be fine. It’s not a high-performance machine but she don’t need that anyway for learning websites, online games, and Word. She can do that with Chromebook also, but there’s no possibility to install Microsoft Office on it, as same as other Windows software. She will be able to use only Google Docs and online version of Office.

              For the price of $200 you can’t find a Chromebook which can compete in terms of features against this Asus model, because the latter has a touchscreen display and 4GB of RAM. The $200 Chromebooks have 2GB RAM, which can slow down the system in some scenarios.

              Regarding Office, it’s possible to purchase for instance only Word as a standalone application, but weirdly it has the same price as the whole 2013 Office Home and Student suite. They’re about $110 currently. You should check if the Asus came with a trial version of Office pre-installed and if it’s there you can just purchase a product key for it.

              I assume it’s possible, but haven’t tried to remove some unused parts of Office (maybe Excel, Power Point…). But I don’t think it’ll affect speed of the laptop.

              Overall, the X200CA is better than any Chromebook with similar price. The only important thing that can be a problem is virus protection, so be sure you have enabled at least Microsoft’s built-in Windows 8 anti-virus (it’s enabled by default.)

              Reply
              • Thanks so much. FWIW the Chromebook I found was $249 but it has 4GB…..I should have mentioned that…But, yes the $199 price for the X200CA was very attractive:)

                I spent Friday playing with these 2 devices in the store to get a feel and discovered another ASUS…..The ASUS T100 Transformer (32 GB/4GB )..Hybrid Tablet for $299. It actually comes with Windows already in it (Home office) and it is a removable tablet and bluetooth keyboard. However, it is only10 inches (I don’t like that personally) and tablet was not my main requirement at all..:)..I was not looking for one.

                So, the Acer is $249/Your ASUS X200 $199/ and the ASUS T100 $299 (with windows included)

                .Now I have 3 to compare and I’m not looking anymore! I like all 3 for different reasons..However, the T100 having office is a big plus…Thanks for responding….and if you have experience/comparision on the 2 ASUS’ let me know….I need to get this over with and wrapped…..THanks..D

              • I should add that I just saw your other reviews as well..Funny I see you liked the ASUS X502CA…(colors). I almost bought that one actually. There was a good deal on it too.I think I could have purchased it for $199..I quite liked it when I saw it Friday…

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