Asus Q302LA Convertible Review

Aesthetically, the Asus Q302 has a sleek and flat profile that already puts it above other budget notebooks in this price range. The brushed aluminum outer lid and base make the notebook look more expensive than it really is while the matte plastic bottom has a rougher texture in contrast to the smooth surfaces on the Lenovo Edge series and Dell XPS 13. Build quality is good considering the price with rigid hinges and base. The lid doesn't twist so easily due to the small screen size and somewhat thick bezel, but pushing down on the center of the outer lid still causes a noticeable depression.

Weight is a tad on the heavy side at just over 1.8 kg. This is a few hundred grams heavier than the competing Acer Aspire V3 (1.5 kg) and just slightly above the HP Pavilion 13 x360 (1.76 kg). For comparison's sake, the popular and more expensive Samsung ATIV Book 9 comes in at 1.4 kg. While the Asus is heavier, it does feel better built than a budget Acer Aspire model. At the same time, however, it can be difficult to hold in tablet mode for longer periods of time.

Keyboard

The Chiclet keyboard (27.5 x 10 cm) provides shallow travel with a firm-but-light response. The keys are relatively quiet, but they lack the tactile feedback that a standard AccuType keyboard would on a Lenovo notebook. The small Arrow keys are even worse with lackluster feedback. There are no additional dedicated multimedia keys outside of the volume rocker on the edge of the notebook.

We do commend Asus for including a backlight for the keyboard on such an inexpensive model. Unlike on recent Yoga models, however, the keys will not automatically depress when in tablet mode.

Touchpad

The touchpad is of adequate size (10.5 x 6 cm) with the same dimensions as on the Aspire V3-371. Unlike on the Acer, it avoids the cheap plastic look with a rigid surface and chrome perimeter similar to the touchpads on more expensive notebooks. Responsiveness and inputs are reliable with no issues around the edges and corners. The integrated keys are on the loud side when pressed, but this in turn means a firm response each time. Multi-touch is supported if the user prefers scrolling and zooming with the touchpad instead of the touchscreen itself.

Color coverage is about 65 percent and 48 percent of the sRGB and AdobeRGB standards, respectively. This is above average for an inexpensive notebook where panels with 60 percent and 40 percent coverages of the sRGB and AdobeRGB spectra are more common. For the target audience, however, this is not significant.

Further color analyses with an X-Rite spectrophotometer reveal inaccurate Blue and Magenta at deeper saturation levels. Colors tend to become more accurate the lower the saturation level for this particular panel. Color temperature is not overly cool unlike on most cheap notebooks, so the grayscale on this Asus is better than expected.

The glossy screen and average backlight both make the Q302 difficult to use outdoors on a bright or overcast day. The 360 degree hinges do help in providing more viewing angle opportunities to reduce glare, but the TN panel puts a damper on getting consistent colors when changing angles. Luckily, the display backlight will not artificially drop in maximum brightness when disconnected from an AC source.

Processor

Synthetic CPU benchmarks place our Asus alongside other notebooks sporting the same processor such as the Pavilion 13 and Aspire V3. Thus, core clocks are not artificially reduced for any thermal reasons. Overall performance is similar to a mid-tier AMD Richland processor, such as the A8-5550M while requiring less power (15 W vs. 35 W). Compared to the previous Sandy Bridge generation, the i3-4030U is just a hair slower than the popular i3-3110M by 5 to 10 percent according to CineBench.

System Performance

PCMark benchmarks return average scores that are expected from Core i3 notebooks with mechanical 5400 RPM drives. Other models with a similar i3 or i5 configuration return very similar scores, such as the VivoBook S301 and Toshiba Satellite Radius P50W. It's worth noting that the final PCMark 7 score of 2614 points is essentially identical to the Pavilion 15 equipped with the AMD A10-5745M APU and Radeon R7 M260 GPU.

Subjectively, system performance is of course not as fast as systems with dedicated SSDs. What we look for instead is consistency in navigation and when launching applications. In this regard, the Asus is lag-free with no skipped frames or unusually long bouts of loading.

Gaming Performance

The Intel HD 4400 is designed for ULV processors and supports DirectX 11.1, OpenCL 1.2, and OpenGL 4.0. Its clock speed is highly variable depending on the CPU it is paired with from as low as 200 MHz up to 1100 MHz if boost is available. On our Asus model, the GPU tends to stick in the 600 to 1000 MHz range.

Gaming power is limited and is most similar to dedicated low-end Nvidia GPUs that are now more than a few years old. For example, the GeForce GT 620M and GT 540M score similarly to the HD 4400 in 3DMark 11 and 3DMark Cloud Gate, respectively. Users can expect to play most games at reasonable frame rates at very low graphics settings, but demanding 3D titles like Thief and Middle-earth are unplayable even on bare minimum settings.

We stress the Q302 under synthetic conditions to test for any throttling or stability issues. With Prime95 active, the CPU is able to maintain its full 1.9 GHz clock while core temperatures peak at 54 C. Similarly with FurMark active, the integrated GPU runs reliably in the 800 to 950 MHz range while core temperature becomes a bit warmer than the CPU at 62 C. Full stress with both Prime95 and FurMark active simultaneously will throttle the CPU to 1100 MHz. The GPU experiences less of an impact and almost never falls below 800 MHz.

Running on batteries will have a very slight impact on overall performance. A 3DMark 11 run on batteries returns graphics and physics scores of 797 and 2644 points, respectively, versus 851 and 2712 points on AC adapter power. Users will still have access to nearly all of the computing power of the Asus should AC power be unavailable.

The integrated 3-cell battery has a capacity of 4430 mAh and is non-removable. Runtimes are a bit above average at just over 5.5 hours of constant WLAN use at 150 nits brightness. This is longer by at least an hour compared to the older first generation Lenovo Yoga 13, though it still falls behind the Aspire V3-371. The latest generation of Ultrabooks, such as the new Dell XPS 13, can last for over two hours longer during WLAN use under similar conditions.