In today’s world of work-from-home and virtual learning, laptops have played an essential role. Not only do they offer the freedom of mobility, but depending on how much you spend, you can get quite the powerhouse.
But what if you’re not ready to spend all that much money, is there anything like a laptop that you can get?
Well, yes, and that's where this Asus Chromebook 14 C423 comes in.
Design
At first glance, the C423 looks like a pretty well-designed and well-built laptop. If you don’t notice the Chrome logo in the corner, there’s nothing to say that this isn’t a Windows laptop, especially in this silver colour.
Even when you open it up, everything is quite conventional, and it’s not until you turn it on that you realise that this isn’t a regular Windows laptop.
The C423 weighs 1.34kg, since this is the model with the touchscreen, and it isn’t all that heavy to carry around.
Despite being quite slim at around 16mm, it is pretty large thanks to its 14-inch screen, so it’s not the most compact Chromebook, but if you do want something smaller you can opt for the C223 Chromebook. That one weighs only a kilo and gets a more compact 11.6-inch screen.
Now the C423 has a fairly modern-looking chassis, with rounded edges and a screen that opens flat, at a 180-degree angle.
The chassis is also strong enough to rest on your lap and type, with little to no keyboard flex.
The hinge also feels sturdy and should hold up for a long enough time without giving trouble.
Something I appreciate is that Asus has fitted little rubber pads around the edges of the keyboard to ensure the screen doesn’t end up getting scratched by the keyboard when you shut the device.
Display
Like I said before, the C423 sports a large 14-inch display, and this particular variant is also fitted with a touchscreen.
The screen gets quite bright, even in outdoor conditions. With 16 brightness levels available, I found myself using it mostly at level 10 for day-to-day work indoors.
Now this is only an HD screen, so the resolution is 1366 x 768 pixels, which I’ll admit isn’t the best. The screen colours are also a bit on the flatter side, and being an LCD panel, viewing angles aren’t all that good either.
However, the screen does offer a good amount of real estate for tasks that require it like online classes, or basic web browsing and document editing.
The C423 also sports what Asus calls the NanoEdge display, which basically means the bezels are quite slim, and the screen-to-body ratio is a respectable 78%.
It’s worth noting though, that if you want a higher resolution screen, you can opt for the Chromebook 15 C523, which gets a 15.6-inch full-HD display.
Hardware & Utility
Under the hood, the C423 runs an Intel Celeron N3350 processor with integrated Intel HD Graphics 500.
There’s 4GB LPDDR4 RAM here, and storage is 64GB eMMC, which is expandable up to 2TB with a microSD card.
Speaking of microSD card, there’s quite a few ports on the C423, including that card slot.
There’s a USB Type-C charging port, a 3.5mm audio jack, two USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, and another USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 port for data transfer.
The C423 also gets an HD VGA webcam that isn’t the highest quality, but it gets the job done.
For connectivity, there’s Bluetooth v5.2, which is good to see, along with 802.11ac dual-band Wi-Fi 5.
The keyboard on the C423 is surprisingly good, there's enough key travel to make the typing experience enjoyable, and the keys are well spaced and didn't feel cramped at all.
If I had one complaint, it's that I wished the keyboard was backlit, it would make things easier while using the device in low-light conditions.
Software
Like I said initially, it’s not until you open up the device that you realise it’s not a conventional Windows laptop, because this being a Chromebook, runs on ChromeOS.
Now ChromeOS is pretty user-friendly and easy to operate, and almost everything is operated using the Chrome browser. You have quick-access icons at the bottom, which include things like Gmail, YouTube, Google Docs, all of which end up opening through the Google browser itself.
For apps, you have the Google Play Store at your disposal, that lets you download a large number of apps, games, movies and much more.
Another noteworthy feature is the Google Assistant, which can be brought up by pressing the Search button on the keyboard. This allows you to search the device and the web together, making it a really handy feature.
Now while ChromeOS isn’t a full-blown desktop-grade software like Windows or macOS, it does allow you to get a fair bit of tasks done on quite a few different apps.
You also get a File Manager application that lets you sort through downloaded documents, and also gives easy access to Google Drive.
Moreover, since Google makes both ChromeOS and Android, the C423 also comes with Nearby Share for quick and easy wireless file transfers.
Performance
Performance on the C423 Chromebook is good but depends mostly on what you’re trying to get done.
It’s fairly competent for browsing the Internet, taking video calls, writing essays or documents, and even makes for a pretty decent content consumption device for children.
4GB of RAM is somewhat lacking though, especially if you plan on keeping a lot of tabs open on Google Chrome and running any graphic-heavy apps or games.
Battery Life
The C423 houses a 38Wh battery that claims to last up to 10 hours, and in my light to medium usage of mostly document editing, web browsing and a bit of gaming, I got around 8 hours of usage with the brightness level at 10.
What's particularly good is how quickly this thing tops up though. It took me around an hour and 15 minutes to go from under 15% battery to full, which is quite good.
Verdict
Like I said in the beginning, if you're looking for the laptop experience on a budget, the Asus Chromebook 14 C423 is there to fill that gap, and I reckon it does it better than a lot of budget Android tablets out there. It offers good battery life, a large screen, and a simple and user-friendly operating system, all for a price of ₹23,999.