Just like the mediocre quality of the display, the touchpad is quite medium. I used worse, but its plastic surface is not as smooth and responsive as the glass surface. The click mechanism is very large and it takes too much effort to press it. It’s also loose, so you can dent the touchpad without registering a click. All of this is common in cheap laptops, and over time I think I can get used to it. But when you go back to something more quality, you find a huge difference. The keyboard isn’t that cumbersome, but the keys are indeed softer than I like. I don’t mind the furry texture on the keychain.
There are many port options, including HDMI 1.4, USB-A 3.2, USB-C 3.2, USB-C port for charging, and headphone jack. It’s round, but there’s one problem: they’re all on one side. You will only find the Kensington lock slot on the right side of the device. Unfortunately, this means you can only charge your laptop from the left.
Enough strength
Photo: Luke Larsen
There are now two versions of the Asus Chromebook CX14. My comment unit is a more expensive configuration with more everything – faster CPU, twice as much (8 GB) as RAM (8 GB) and twice as much storage (128 GB). The processor is the Core 3 Series 1, also known as the Intel Core 3 N355. Compared to the regular Celeron chip dual-core setup, this is an interesting chip that uses only eight efficiency cores and no performance cores.
There’s nothing to write about performance, although it’s 38% faster in the Speedometer 3.1 benchmark than the Celeron-based Asus Chromebook CX15 tested last month. This means that web applications will feel more picky and faster, especially when you are doing a lot of things at the same time. It’s hard to argue with the price of this cheaper configuration (especially when it’s sold), but if you plan to use the CX14 for active work or learning, you’ll appreciate the improvements in performance and additional storage.
Asus claims the CX14 lasts for eight hours. In my tests, it lasted about this long. Note that this is on local video playback, the 100 lux on the screen is not entirely a heavy burden. I used a lot on normal working days and of course I need to charge it. So, no, that’s far from the lasting effect of the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14, nor is it comparable to more premium laptops like the MacBook Air or Surface laptops. But for a laptop of this price, it’s pretty good.
