Last 2016, Intel quietly launched Apollo Lake, a SoC targeted to be mounted on budget notebooks and 2-in-1s. The new processor from Intel became available alongside their flagship and more expensive line, the Kaby Lake.
Due to the noise created by a lot of gaming laptops, which all of them are obviously powered by Kaby Lake, we rarely see the Apollo Lake be incorporated to a 2017 laptop. But today, we’re seeing ASUS offering a notebook that’s powered by Intel’s economical merchandise.
The new ASUS Vivobook E12, despite not having an official price tag, looks like it’s being targeted to those who are fishing for a device in the budget area. This staples the company’s presence in every price category in the market today. We’ve seen ASUS release a lot of crazy expensive laptops in the past few months, and it is nice to see that they’re not forgetting those who are in the market for budget-friendly computers.
The ASUS Vivobook E12 will be available in two models. Both of these models will be sharing the same design and features, but only with one difference – the type of storage laptop used. The E2013NAH will be running on a hard drive, while the E203NA will have a faster eMMC flash storage.
Which is better, HDD or eMMC?
Having either a hard drive or eMMC has its pros and cons. An eMMC is relatively faster, but it is only available for 32GB, 64GB and 128GB. On the other hand, hard drives have a larger storage space. The E203NAH gives you an option to have either 500GB or 1TB of hard drive space, although these type of storage has been known to be fragile due to its mechanical nature. So if you’ll be deciding what ASUS Vivobook E12 to get, weigh in your needs.
But other than the storage type, everything will be pretty much the same. Both of the ASUS Vivobook E12 variants will be having the same 11-inch display that has 1366 x 768 resolution, a VGA camera, and a 10-hour battery. Both of these devices are also packed with ports and antennas: there’s a WiFi 802.11 ac, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI, microSD card reader, headphone ports and two USB 3.1 Type A and one USB 3.1 Type-C.
Asus Vivobook E12 Specs
Operating System | Windows 10 Home Endless OS |
Processor | Intel® Celeron® Dual-Core N3350 Processor or Intel® Pentium® Quad-Core N4200 Processor |
Chipset | Intel Apollo Lake |
RAM | 2GB DDR3L 1600MHz SDRAM, expandable up to 4GB SDRAM |
Graphics | Integrated Intel HD Graphics |
Display | 11.6" (16:9) LED backlit HD (1366x768) with 45% NTSC |
Storage | 32GB / 64GB / 128GB eMMC (E204NA) 500GB / 1TB 5400RPM SATA HDD (E204NAH) |
Keyboard | Chicklet |
Webcam | VGA |
Networking | WiFi 802.11 ac Bluetooth 4.1 |
Interface | 1 x Combo audio jack 2 x Type A USB3.0 (USB 3.1 GEN1) 1 x Type C USB3.0 (USB 3.1 GEN1) 1 x HDMI 1 x AC adapter plug 1 x microSD card reader |
Audio | 2W Stereo Speakers And Digital Array Microphone |
Dimensions | 286 x 193.3 x 16.9 mm (E204NA) 286 x 193.3 x 21.4 mm (E204NAH) |
Weight | 0.98kg (E204NA) 1.2kg (E204NAH) |
Battery | 2 Cells 38 Whrs Polymer (E204NA) 3 Cells 42 Whrs Polymer (E204NAH) |
Judging by the spec sheet, it is safe to say that the ASUS Vivobook E12 is also meant for students, which makes this device a candidate to be also made available with Windows 10 S. We’ve already seen HP and Acer’s take on Microsoft’s new software, and it would be more interesting to see diversity in the available notebooks sporting the budget hardware-oriented operating system.
Based on the product images, the ASUS Vivobook E12 has a Blue, Pink and White color variants. Pricing and availability are yet to be announced at the time of this writing.