Asus X205TA-DH01 / X205TA-SATM0404G / X205TA-RHATMN01 EeeBook Ultraportable for $200

Low-cost PC brand Eee by Asus is back. A successor of 2000’s netbooks, the Asus X205TA-DH01 from the EeeBook series, sold as X205TA-SATM0404G or X205TA-RHATMN01 at Best Buy, retains their cheap pricing, a great portability, low-end performance, and a long battery life.

The 200-dollar X205TA-DH01 / X205TA-SATM0404G / X205TA-RHATMN01 with the exactly same specs sport an 11.6-inch 1366-by-768-pixel display, an Intel Atom processor, 2GB of RAM memory, and 32GB of flash memory for data storage, all packed in a 0.7″ thin plastic chassis with a weight of only 2.2 pounds. With the weight, it’s one of the lightest laptops on the market. The X205TA-DH01 / X205TA-SATM0404G / X205TA-RHATMN01 has a dark blue finish. The keyboard has Chiclet-style keys without backlight, while the trackpad has integrated clicking buttons.

Performance-wise, the ultraportable definitely isn’t a champ. It actually uses components you can find in many cheap Windows 8 tablets. The included Atom Bay Trail-T Z3735F quad-core CPU running at up to 1.83GHz is good for folks who only work in a text editor, browse the web, handle emails, watch movies, and similar. Only 2GB RAM isn’t of a help either, since it lacks multi-tasking capacity of standardly-sized 4GB. The crippled data storage capacity of 32GB is also a source of concerns, especially if you regularly download games and apps from the Windows Store. A microSD card slot (up to 64GB) is included, but you won’t be able to install games and apps from the Store on it because of Windows 8 limitations.

RAM and storage are soldered on the motherboard and thus not upgradeable.

Webcam supports the basic VGA resolution, while for sound there are stereo speakers.

The laptop has a modest, but well selected networking and connectivity feature set. It has Wi-Fi wireless and Bluetooth, two USB 2.0 ports (backward-compatible 3.0 peripherals won’t work at their full speed), an HDMI video output, a combo audio jack, and the aforementioned microSD card slot. Large-size SD memory cards are not supported.

Asus claims the battery life is good for up to 12 hours of web browsing and 14 days of standby power, enabled by the power efficient Atom CPU and a 38 WHr battery unit.

With the pricing and specs, the Asus EeeBook X205TA-DH01 / X205TA-SATM0404G / X205TA-RHATMN01 competes directly against the HP Stream 11. Another alternative worth consideration is a bit pricier Asus X200MA ($230) with the same screen size and similar processor, but with benefits of 4GB of RAM and a traditional 500GB hard disk, plus touchscreen support. Anyway, even full-size notebooks can be found for under $250 these days, so if you’re on a tight budget, your choices are not limited to the cheap and small machines.