Deal | Asus Vivobook 14 with Core i3-1215U down to $229 (Ends 8/12)

ASUS fans or those on the lookout for a cheap laptop, but not wanting to resort to refurbished or used models, should take a long look at this deal on offer from Best Buy. The ASUS Vivobook 14 is now down to a mere $229.

For the price, you're getting a fairly capable Intel Core i3-1215U processor, 8 GB of soldered RAM with an extra slot available, and a 128 GB NVMe drive, which you can swap out if needed. The display is a lower-end IPS LED model that can only get up to about 250 nits of brightness, set at a resolution of 1920 x 1080. The color space coverage is most likely far from ideal at around 60% sRGB, since panels with 100% sRGB tend to have 300 nits of brightness or more. While not great for gaming or outdoor use, students, workers, and more casual users should find this display more than satisfactory. The onboard graphics chip is the integrated 64 EU UHD Graphics, Intel's basic iGPU counterpart to the Alder Lake lineup. It will get you decent performance in most casual games at low settings, and is adequate for basic processing tasks like minor video and photo editing.

Speaking to the quality and niche of the machine that this hardware powers, you're looking at an elegant plastic body that's fairly sturdy, if not quite up to the level of something like a lower-end Lenovo ThinkPad. That's paired up with a fairly basic chiclet keyboard, a large touchpad with switchable numpad functionality, and a basic webcam with a manual shutter. As to port selection, you have two USB-A ports available, as well as a 3.5 mm headphone jack. You do get a single USB-C port, but it can't be used to charge the laptop.

While this is a great deal on a more than passable machine, there are a few caveats to keep in mind before adding it to your cart. For starters, the laptop ships with Windows 11 in S mode. While this won't be a problem for the vast majority of users, anybody looking to use legacy apps or play games that aren't on the Microsoft Store will have to take steps to disable it, or install another OS. Even with those limitations in mind, this is still one of the best deals you're going to find on a modern laptop of this caliber without resorting to the used and refurbished markets.

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