Practical Laptop for Education & Work.
Since the pandemic has been with us, a lot of things have changed. One of them is the way we work and study everyday. Laptop is one of the essential tools of our everyday lives. Today we will look at the ASUS BR1100, a budget minded laptop that is meant for productivity and education.
Design
The ASUS BR1100 design is all about simplicity and durability, with the added element of practicality needed in a package. The keyboard is comfortable enough for your everyday typing for all your authoring and documents with a good amount of key travel to it. The keyboard has no backlight, but I would expect kids should be working with the laptop in a bright room environment. Since this is a touchscreen laptop, you can use it in 4 modes, Tent, Laptop, Tablet and Stand mode. There is also an active stylus included for writing, drawing and some scribbling.
One of the outstanding features of the BR1100 is that this laptop is built to surpass the US military-grade MIL-STD-810H durability standards that can withstand occasional drops up to 120CM. Moving the display panel from normal laptop mode to tablet mode is sturdy and stable, with no noise or creaks over the hinge when switching over. Over to the trackpad, this is a fairly spaced trackpad that features Windows Precision Drivers which means that all Windows 10 trackpad gestures and navigation is properly supported.
There are two webcams on this laptop, one located slightly above the keyboard and another one located above the screen. Both webcam are configured at 720P on video mode with a 13MP capture resolution. Overall experience with the webcam is pretty good and well more than enough for conference and virtual learning classes usage, which is perfect for all round everyday use. Another outstanding feature of the webcam is it has a privacy shutter, which is good for users who accidentally turn on the webcam.
Ports and Charging
The ASUS BR1100 comes with a standard supplied charger that supplies charging from 10% to 100 % around 2hours and 20minutes on average. Over on the left side of the laptop you will spot 1 AC adaptor port for charging, USB C port for charging and peripheral, 1 USB 3.0 port and 1 HDMI port for extending to a second display. Over on the right side, there is 1 USB 3.0 port, a headphone/mic combo jack should you wish to plug in your favorite headphone , Ethernet port, with power and volume button.
Thermals and Heat
The BR1100 does a good job in the thermal department, hovering around 40 degree celsius in a normal temperature room while working on documents with very minimal noise over the fan heatsink giving it a pleasure working with the laptop. Even on heavy load on editing, it’s only a slight noise over the fan which does not bother me at all
Display
Over in the display department, the ASUS BR1100 features an LCD 768P 11.6 inch display with blue light filtering. Furthermore, looking at the display is not glaring and comfortable, perfect for those who are using it for long hours for minor work editing and multimedia use. Viewing angle wise, as long you are working in front of it, it’s perfectly OK.
Benchmarks & Scores
The ASUS BR1100 features the Intel Celeron N4500 dual core processor with Intel UHD graphics, 4GB of system RAM and 128GB of EMMC storage. Below are the benchmark results.
| GeekBench 5 Vulkan | 1995 |
| GeekBench 5 OpenCL | 2108 |
| GeekBench 5 CPU (Single/MultiCore) | 627/1140 |
| PCMark 10 Work | 1668 |
During benchmark we observed that the temperature rose up to about 55 degree celsius but it dissipates faster after that to its idle temperatures. Overall such scores are expected since this is a multimedia and work laptop.
Performance
This is definitely not a gaming laptop, it is still able to play light games as long the settings are set on low, you still be able to play games like Minecraft or Asphalt 9 at a very acceptable frame rate without issues.
Over general performance, from Microsoft Office to web browsing, it works pretty well and is satisfying. Over to streaming, you can stream up to 1080P without issues encountered.
Technical Specifications
| Processor | Intel Celeron N4500 Processor |
| Graphic Card | Intel UHD Graphics |
| System Memory | 4GB DDR4 (On Board Soldered) |
| Display | 11.6 Inch 1366 x 768 Multi-touch screen with stylus support |
| Primary Drive | 128GB EMMC storage with MicroSD slot expansion up to 1TB |
| Ports | 1x USB 2.0 Type-A 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C support power delivery 1x HDMI 1.4 1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack 1x RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet 1x DC-in |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 6 AC combo Bluetooth 5.x |
| Battery and Charger | 42Wh Battery with 45w AC adaptor |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Professional |
| Weight and dimensions | 294.6 x 204.9 x 19.95 mm @ 1.4KG |
Verdict & Thoughts
With its retail price of RM1699, we can recommend this laptop for those who want something that is easy to carry, work, study and some light gaming. Besides that the design of the laptop is simple yet practical for starters and able to withstand drops, as all productivity laptop looks should be with its comfortable keyboard and touchpad that also comes together with a great 11.6 inch display with touchscreen and an active stylus.
Special thanks to ASUS for loaning us the product to review
For more information on the ASUS BR1100, click here