The Asus Chromebook C523na is a solid budget offering by Asus that comes with respectable specs and is a very solid package. But like anything in this price range, this Chromebook has its shortcomings, which we will discuss later.
Body and Build
The Asus Chromebook c523na gives a very premium feel with its aluminum build that at first, it seems that this laptop would be way above its price range for its build quality.
It’s very solid and the entire body shows minimal flex and proves to be quite rigid and robust. The build quality is clearly one of the best things about this laptop and Asus did a great job with building this Chromebook.
Ports and I/O
The Asus Chromebook c523na comes with two USB 3.1 Type-A ports, A SD card slot that allows you to expand its storage, and a headphone jack. This Chromebook lacks a full HDMI port, but that is easily made up for by the existence of two USB C ports that is also used for charging.
Other than that, it doesn’t have the latest Bluetooth standard as it comes with Bluetooth 4.0, though it comes with WiFi 5.
Keyboard, Speakers, and Trackpad
Keyboard
The keyboard has proper spacing between the keys that helps avoid accidental taps and has an overall good design. Since it’s a small Chromebook, it lacks a proper Numpad, and there is no backlit either. The laptop keys have little travel, but still, they are very nice to type on, and I believe that you will have a fine experience typing on them.
Speakers
The speakers on the Asus Chromebook c523na sound crisp and clean. But don’t expect to listen to super bassy music on this because it completely lacks bass, and the highs sound very sharp. The speaker on this Chromebook is fine for watching youtube videos or listening to podcasts. But if you really want to listen to music, then headphones are the way to go.
Trackpad
The trackpad also does the job fine and is super responsive, and helps execute all the gestures and swipes the chrome OS supports.
Specs
The Asus Chromebook C523na comes with Intel Celeron N3350, which is a littler power-efficient chip that allows that laptop to have a fanless design and allows the Asus Chromebook to fly through basic tasks like browsing and a single text document however, don’t expect to run really heavy games like Asphalt 9 and Genshin Impact.
The same could be said about the 4GB RAM, which is just enough for basic tasks like web browsing and Word document. Just don’t expect to play games on this laptop with this RAM and CPU.
Other than this, the storage on this laptop will fill up quickly if you are going to download many apps on this Chromebook because its 64GB of eMMC is not enough. This should not be much of an issue since this laptop comes with an SD card slot so you can easily expand it later on.
The Chromebook disappoints a lot when it comes to battery life. Asus claims that this laptop should last 10 hrs on a single charge, but the Asus Chromebook barely reaches that mark by lasting for around 6.5 hrs after a single charge. One may expect a Chromebook to last a little longer, but the Asus Chromebook just does reach our expectations.
Usually, this laptop comes with a 768p display which is not that great, but this one comes with a 1080p display with a webcam too that we are gonna touch on below.
Display
As mentioned, the Asus Chromebook C523na has a 15.6 1080p display and an anti-glare layer. This Chromebook surprised us since Chromebooks in this price range are known not to have that good of displays. Though this laptop doesn’t get that bright, it has decent color reproduction, and they look really vivid. This laptop anti-glare helps avoid annoying reflections, and overall is good enough to binge-watch a couple of TV shows.
This laptop has an optional touch screen model, but I won’t recommend it since this laptop can not fold over 180 degrees so it’s not worth spending your money there.
Future Upgradability and Expansion
The Asus Chromebook C523na came out in 2018. As of writing this, this Chromebook is 4 years old now and it has 4 more years left before this laptop stops receiving software and security updates. Apart from this, since this is a Chromebook, it doesn’t allow you to upgrade its RAM and storage by installing an SSD or a hard drive but it comes with an SD card. But for the most part, you can not do really big upgrades on this device.
Conclusion
So, should you buy this laptop?. Well, it depends on how you plan to use it. I don’t really recommend to daily drive this laptop because these laptop specs won’t hold up in the near future when you are using it daily. But if you plan to just use this as a secondary device for home use to watch youtube and a little bit of Netflix, you can not go wrong with this laptop and I can say comfortably that this Chromebook will do you just fine.
You might wanna read…
ASUS ROG Scar 15 (2022 G533ZW) Review | A Portable Monster!
Best Cooling Pad for Laptops (#9 is Overall Best) – TechDropp
Why is my windows 10 laptop slow? (Detailed Guide)
