Horses for courses. I use OSX, Windows 10 and Linux (currently Ubuntu), the OS I mostly use at home is OSX as it has Ruby and Python built in, ready to go and I like how the OS functions. I don't notice OSX getting slow ever and I like how I have a proper terminal.

Now I can counter all the above arguments I'm making for OSX by saying well I can easily get Python and Ruby working on Windows 10 and once they're setup, they're setup and if you want a powerful command line then you have Powershell.

So what am I saying, I'm saying I use what I need and I'm not prejudice against any one OS, there is no perfect OS and there likely never will be, just as there's no one programming language for anything. You can roughly adapt all of the above to do just about anything you want, however all of the above are slightly better for one purpose or another, the trick is knowing your workload and choosing the correct way of executing that workload, so keeping things simple and efficient and this comes with experience as does most things. I'm still learning and will never stop learning, the same is true of all of us.

Shame this is the 2GB RAM model. Note - these can not have the RAM upgraded.
While Windows 10 can, and will run fine with 2GB of RAM, Once you start loading on non-app stuff, like 3rd party print drivers, chrome/firefox, symantec/avg anti-virus etc they'll start sucking the ram up as soon as you boot the machine.
Otherwise, if you can live with the offerings Microsoft give you by default, and apps, you'll have a really nice machine for the price.

Where do you put the code?

Should note that you can pick one of these up for £160 on eBay with the 20% off code (CUK20) right now but it won't last long http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ASUS-EeeBook-E403-14-Laptop-Windows-10-32GB-eMMC-Intel-Pentium-N3700-Grey-/121842457793?hash=item1c5e605cc1:g:UeEAAOSw9uFW8~yo

​probably the mcafee, i deleted it as soon as i got it. a fresh windows 10 install helps by the way

Shame this is the 2GB RAM model. Note - these can not have the RAM upgraded.
While Windows 10 can, and will run fine with 2GB of RAM, Once you start loading on non-app stuff, like 3rd party print drivers, chrome/firefox, symantec/avg anti-virus etc they'll start sucking the ram up as soon as you boot the machine.
Otherwise, if you can live with the offerings Microsoft give you by default, and apps, you'll have a really nice machine for the price.

Thanks for responding. I learnt something new today.

Hmm you can get IC Chip grinders, but it can be done by hand. The problem with chip grinders, especially the chinese ones is they're limited to certain ICs such as removing cloud lock on iPhones. The iPhone 6 is the only phone worth doing cloud unlock on to be fair. Anyway we don't get in to that, we do stuff such as replace U2 IC (iPhone) and various other ICs on phone mainboards and we don't have a chip grinder.

Here's how an IC grinder works >

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_beuQHuZGY

What you need for most repairs is decent hot air and decent soldering iron and practice.

Apart from the skills I'm guessing you need specialist equipment as well?

Can another owner please confirm, on the power button bottom right is it a lightning symbol or is mine just scratched?

Just picked one up will give it a good text and my excellent Linx 1010b with key red will be up for sale. Who's interested?



E

Wish they would just start making these with 4gb ram and 64gb hard drive. Would be perfect. I'd gladly pay a bit more.

Would this be any good for doing university work, coding and viewing photos when I'm out with my camera. I'm looking for something with a decent battery that is light.

don't kid yourself "just less than £200" are you really that cheap too think of saving literally 1p?

hi. this looks like cracking notebook, anyone know how this compares to a Macbook Air (1st Gen) or later? There was a feature in windows 7 called readyboost I think, where a removable drives memory can be used as RAM, is that also the case in windows 10 and is there a performance hit using this type of memory which is a lot slower to RAM itself?

Can the USB C be used for charging? If so then you could charge the laptop with a powerbank like the new mac air

32GB storage? Do people not store files anymore? Or is this deal 15 years old?

I almost bought this a couple of weeks back. The build quality is really good. The battery life really appeals too, 14 hours is epic, just sling in a bag and off you go. Ideal for Web browsing, office, YouTube and just general day to day stuff. Can't go wrong for £199 - this may be the price to tempt me. The battery alone alone pretty much did that. Have some heat.

you cant replace ssd or rams its builted in motherboard, battery last around 5-6hours on low brightness. with 2gb ram its not enaugh every time i get error ram is full.

It obviously depends what hardware you're running it on and you are clearly not the user this comment was intended for. Do you think the majority of people in this thread care about programming languages? This is about out-of-the-box experience for the most part - and those looking at an Asus E403SA probably want to turn Windows on and for it to run well.

I would hazard a guess that you're running higher-end or at least better hardware than many others including your OS X machine - but OS X, even from a fresh install, is slow and laggy on older hardware whereas this wasn't the case before.

​its not specifically the eMMC which means long battery life, more like the systems which use eMMC generally use very low powered hardware meaning a system which overall doesnt consume much battery.

as a side note, the eMMC in this model is a samsung bgnd3r eMMC 5.1 drive with speeds of up to 250MB/s reads and 125MB/s writes. pretty respectable

​they are pretty much the same to be honest, (within 5% of each other) with the n3540 in the 402 requiring slightly more power (7.5w vs 6w). paired with a much smaller battery, the e403 will last much longer on a charge. depends what is more important as the 402 offers flexibility to add a 2.5" disc drive

I agree, these eMMC Memory Laptop's have ridiculously LONGGGGG Battery Lifes attached to them for real!, luvvvvvvvv it!.

If only some of them could have BIGGER Internal Memories built-in to them, huh?, lol. :-)

Ah no worries just assumed it was a DSG special to avoid price matching.

Looks as though the 402 has a slightly better CPU, for the sake of saving £30 I'll probably stick with it.

Will Lighroom tether to this OK?

Is it much better specs then the Linx1010b with keyboard deal that I got at Xmas?

Everything is replaceable if you have the skills, are the parts in this laptop user replaceable, as in can Joe Bloggs and his mates do it? Nope.

http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/compatible-upgrade-for/ASUS/e403sa

Where I work we can upgrade the NAND flash in an iPhone to a larger size and replace tiny I.Cs such as U2 IC. That's the sort of skills you require to upgrade this laptop, so in theory it's possible, in practice you need excellent skills.

Horses for courses. I use OSX, Windows 10 and Linux (currently Ubuntu), the OS I mostly use at home is OSX as it has Ruby and Python built in, ready to go and I like how the OS functions. I don't notice OSX getting slow ever and I like how I have a proper terminal.

Now I can counter all the above arguments I'm making for OSX by saying well I can easily get Python and Ruby working on Windows 10 and once they're setup, they're setup and if you want a powerful command line then you have Powershell.

So what am I saying, I'm saying I use what I need and I'm not prejudice against any one OS, there is no perfect OS and there likely never will be, just as there's no one programming language for anything. You can roughly adapt all of the above to do just about anything you want, however all of the above are slightly better for one purpose or another, the trick is knowing your workload and choosing the correct way of executing that workload, so keeping things simple and efficient and this comes with experience as does most things. I'm still learning and will never stop learning, the same is true of all of us.

According to the reviews of the 402, there's space for a 2.5" drive in there as well.

Balls, I just pulled the trigger on the e402MA from John Lewis for £170. Looks like this has a slightly better CPU and the USB C thing.

Yeah I've had those before at work but this was with a 1k compact laptop which was suitably compact but packed a punch tech wise

​both soldered unfortunately, however i am on the hunt for a low profile SD adapter which sits flush with the housing to augment the internal storage without sticking out the side of the chassis. once i get one of those it should be fine

​completely agree, i have 2 'hipstreet w7' tablets (which are essentially copies of the linx 7) for HTPCs in the lounge and bedroom, only £49 each and they have only maxed their RAM when trying to stream high bitrate files due to caching to RAM. the atom Z3735 really is a remarkable little SOC, and the CPU in this notebook is essentially the new version of that on the braswell architecture (quad core, passive cooling with respectable performance). its processors like this which dont really reflect their actual performance in benchmarks

The Linx 7 (and other similar tablets) with 1GB RAM are surprisingly efficient - for all the slating Microsoft gets, their latest OSes are very frugal with resources, dare I say it, better than OS X these days (which seems to almost demand 4GB and an SSD to be remotely useful). The Intel Atom Bay Trail and Cherry Trail processors are perfect for light-use and never really feel slow either.

Anyone know how this would compare with the Toshiba C40-C? Looks like a similar spec (including 14 inch screen) but the Toshiba has a Intel Celeron N3050 processor. I'm guessing this Asus would be more powerful.

Only asking as I'm looking for a cheap laptop for around the house and the C40-C is £150 at Very at the moment.

Not bad for what it is.