Although I’ve been a big fan of Google’s Chromebook homepage and the sorting / shopping tool they built there for a long time, I’m not going to look at things too often. Of course, it’s a beautiful website with all sorts of excellent fonts for choice, smooth animations, and a thorough presentation of why you should consider a Chromebook, but I’ve seen it a lot by now. Their Chromebook selector is well made and useful, but it usually does not show devices that have not yet been released, and there is not enough information for a Chromebook junky like me to get out of it.
Yet from time to time I end up on the site and just click to see how Google presents the operating system and hardware ecosystem that I talk about most of my days. And yesterday I came across some very interesting pieces of information that I really am not used to on Google’s sorting tool for new Chromebook buyers.
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ASUS Chromebook Flip CX5 and CM5
While CES 2021 was weird, there was a decent amount of Chromebook news coming out of the virtual show, and in our world there was nothing more exciting than the big announcement from ASUS about three new Chromebooks we expect before the end of June. The ASUS CX9, Flip CX5 and Flip CM5 have all been debuted and all have interesting pieces in their story. For the power user, there’s the Monster CX9 with all the bells and whistles, while the Flip CX5 gives users a more reasonably convertible 15.6-inch format and a black-on-white paint job for which you have to die. The Flip CM5 is the most modest of the group with much of the Flip CX5’s outer hardware and AMD’s inside.
While browsing through the Chromebook voter yesterday, I came across the ASUS Flip CX5 and Flip CM5 on Google’s site and was even more surprised by the fact that they actually listed MSRP prices! A big question mark around both of these devices was pricing when we finalized the coverage of CES. In the complete list on the Google website we can see not only the prices, but also on the inside of the configurations.
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For the Flip CX5, there are two collections. The first is what I think is the sweet spot: 11th generation Core i3, 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage for $ 549. There is a second configuration for $ 799, which includes the 11th generation Core i5, 16 GB RAM and yields the same 128 GB of storage. Assuming the build of this Chromebook is solid, it’s very competitive pricing from ASUS, which is generally a bit on the high side with their pricing structures.
On the Flip CM5 side, there are three offerings. For $ 499 you get Ryzen 3, 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage. At $ 549, you keep the Ryzen 3, but bump up to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. At $ 599, you keep the 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage and move on to the Ryzen 5. If the rest of this Chromebook is carefully put together, these internal products are very promising at these prices.
Remember that there are other configurations that are likely to come on the market and this complete list is not the only option consumers will have. However, Google mentions a few pricing options that not only are we close to releasing these new ASUS Chromebooks, but that we can also feel pretty confident about where prices will fall. Also keep in mind that these are MSRP list entries and that devices like these are constantly on sale at places like Best Buy, Amazon and Walmart, so you will probably be able to pin one of them for less than what we see once they arrive. We’ll be watching things and expect to see an official launch for the ASUS Flip CX5 and CM5 soon.
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