Asus X502CA-BCL0901D – Affordable and Portable 15.6″ Laptop

The Asus X502CA-BCL0901D is a nice looking, slim, and affordable full-size laptop PC. For only $270 $230, the Windows 8-based X502CA-BCL0901D offers a 15.6-inch display, the Intel Celeron 1007U dual-core 1.5GHz processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive. These components are bare minimums for modern laptops, but they can handle light workloads, such as web surfing, social networking, office document editing, etc.

The processor is one of the most power efficient, but it isn’t as fast as the Intel 2117U Pentium and Intel Core i3-3217U with the same power consumption of 17W, not to mention the full-voltage 35W Pentiums and i3s. The good thing is that the 1007U is still full class ahead of the AMD E-series chips found in similarly cheap laptops.

The HDD offers limited space for your files, so if you have a large movie and music libraries, you’ll probably need an external hard drive or a cloud storage account, since you can’t even burn DVDs. That’s right, the X502CA-BCL0901D, as same as other configurations from the X502 series, doesn’t have an optical drive built-in.

Thanks to that and inclusion of a small 2-cell 38Wh battery (battery life unknown), Asus has managed to squeeze the rest of components in a fairly thin 0.9″ high chassis. The laptop is light for the 15.6-inch category. It weighs only 4.4 pounds, while category’s average is about 5.3 pounds. The notebook looks elegant with its sleek profile, black matte surfaces made of plastics, chiclet keyboard, and seamless trackpad and top cover of the base. As downsides, the keyboard has no backlight and many users still prefer real trackpad buttons, instead of those integrated in the trackpad surface.

The display resolution on the X502CA-BCL0901D is an ordinary one with 1366-by-768 pixel count.

The connectivity and networking feature set is common and satisfactory. It includes Wi-Fi and wired network connections, three USB, ports, HDMI and VGA video connectors, and a media card reader. The notebook also has stereo speakers and a webcam on the top of the LCD panel.

The Asus X502CA-BCL0901D can be exclusively found at Best Buy ($270 $230), while other retailers offer identical configuration under the X502CA-RB01 name for more than $300. If you want a beefier processor packed into similar chassis, you can take a look at the Asus X501A-SI30403X with an Intel Core i3 for $350. On the other side, if you don’t mind extra bulk and want a built-in optical drive, you can select the Toshiba Satellite C55-A5300 with a slightly faster 1037U Celeron and a larger 500GB HDD for $280.

Asus X502CA-BCL0901D Specifications

• 15.6-inch 1,366×768 display
• Intel Celeron processor 1007U dual-core with 2MB cache, 1.5GHz clock speed, and Intel HD integrated graphics
• 4GB DDR3 RAM memory at 1,600MHz
• 500GB 5,400rpm hard drive; no DVD drive
• Stereo speakers
• Webcam
• Chiclet-style keyboard with number pad, mult-gesture seamless touchpad
• Connectivity: Wireless-N, Gigabit LAN, USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, HDMI, VGA, multi-format card reader, microphone/headphone jack
• Li-Polymer 2-cell 38Whr battery
• 0.9 x 15.1 x 10.2 inches dimensions; 4.4-pound weight
• Windows 8 operating system
• 1-year warranty