IFA 2014 — Cheap Windows PCs are starting to emerge this week to take away Chromebooks market share. The first company to announce a cheap $199 laptop is ASUS with the EeeBook X205, a device running the free version of Microsoft’s operating system, Windows 8.1 with Bing.
In terms of tech specs, you can’t expect much for a $199 machine. The EeeBook X205 features an 11.6-inch display with a 1366 x 768 screen resolution, running an Intel Atom Bay Trail processor (with InstantGo) with 2GB of RAM, and Asus claims up to 8 hours of battery life.
The laptop is compact and features an ergonomic design. It’s not too heavy, it only weighs less than 2 pounds with a full-size keyboard. The touchpad is large with support for Smart Gestures while using Windows 8.1.
First look at EeeBook X205
ASUS is also including 100GB of free OneDrive storage for 2 years, which is expected as the company also offers similar offers with Google Drive with every Chromebook. It’s become clear that Microsoft is trying to stop Google from expanding its Chromebook idea, by making Windows really cheap or even free in new devices to lower the cost and trying to move users to finally trust the cloud.
The ASUS EeeBook X205 cost $199 and it will be available in the U.S. and Europe in November.
Source ASUS