Though Chromebooks had been initially designed to be cheap laptops that had been mild on assets because of their reliance on Google’s Chrome OS, there may be positively a phase of the market that gives increased efficiency techniques at the next price ticket, in fact. There is a query as to only how giant that phase is — recall that Samsung adopted up its powerhouse Galaxy Chromebook with a Galaxy Chromebook 2 that was far much less highly effective — and, at $550, nearly half the worth
Nonetheless, Google’s personal Pixelbook Go — that includes Intel Core processors and a beginning price ticket of $649 — continues to see periodic challengers to its upscale Chromebook supremacy. The newest comes from Asus, which has simply launched a pair of latest Chromebooks that options the most recent {hardware} and a beginning worth greater than the Pixelbook Go — and configurations that push that worth over $1,000. Each the Chromebook CX9 and Flip CX5 are outfitted with the most recent Eleventh-generation Intel Core processors that make the Eighth-generation CPUs within the Pixelbook Go look just a little lengthy within the tooth.
As a standard clamshell laptop computer, the CX9 is the cheaper of the 2 fashions, although at $749.99 for the bottom configuration, that is hardly low cost within the Chromebook realm. For that worth, you will get a 14-inch full HD show, Core i3-1115G4 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of solid-state storage. It comes with a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports together with Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, and it is the primary Asus Chromebook to sport the corporate’s LED-lit quantity pad that’s constructed into the touchpad — beforehand it has been reserved for Asus ZenBooks.
If that is not sufficient energy for you, there is a configuration that jumps as much as a Core i7-1165G7 CPU, gives twice the RAM and 512GB of storage, and provides touchscreen capabilities to the show. Asus claims as much as 14 hours of battery life for this Core i7 model, a quantity that befits its hefty $1,149.99 sticker worth.
If that price ticket would not elicit a double-take from you, then you definately would possibly need to think about the Flip CX5 as properly. It comes with related specs (similar processor, RAM and storage because the Core i7 CX9) and 14-inch touchscreen show, however is a full 2-in-1 design with 360-degree hinge. It even features a digital stylus that is not included with the CX9. and at $1,049.99 it’ll price $100 much less besides, though you do hand over the touchpad-integrated quantity pad, and claimed battery life is much less at almost 11 hours.
Each the CX9 and the Flip CX5 are constructed ruggedly and have handed a lot of MIL-STD-810H US sturdiness checks for defense towards bumps and bruises of tough dealing with. At this level availability appears to be a much bigger situation than sturdiness: whereas the Flip CX5 is coming quickly in accordance with the Asus on-line retailer, each configurations of the CX9 are listed as briefly offered out, leaving consumers to have to enroll to be notified after they’ll turn out to be accessible once more.