Chromebooks
for the most part have followed a model to be inexpensive 11- to
13-inch machines without much deviation. This year we're starting to see
that mold break apart with the Acer Chromebook 15 and now Asus has unveiled a new convertible Chromebook called the Flip.
Available
later this spring for $249 (about £167, AU$327), the Asus Flip is just
as affordable as any Chromebook, but if features a screen that you
can…well, flip back a full 360-degrees to turn it into a Chrome OS
tablet. The screen itself is a 10.1 inch IPS panel with a 1280 x 800
resolution, which is just a tiny bump up from the traditional 1,366 x
768 resolution screen most 11-inch machines come with.
While the
Lenovo N20p has the honor of beating the Flip to the convertible
Chromebook, this machine also features an all-aluminum chassis that 15mm
thin and weighs less than two pounds.
For the computing guts,
Asus has gone with 4GB of RAM, a 16GB SSD and a fanless Rockchip 3288
CPU. That might not be a household name next to Intel's Core M but it's
an ARM chip based on a 32-bit quad-core Cortex 17 design. On paper this
2GHz quad-core processor should be more than adequate for web browsing,
meanwhile benchmarks from CNX-software have shown it running laps around an Intel Baytrail Atom processor. The Acer Chromebok C201On
top of the Flip, Asus 11.6-inch Asus Chromebook C201, which will also
feature the same Rockchip 3288 processor. The new machine is due to go
on sale at Amazon this May with a starting price of $169 (about £ 113,
AU$221) for the 2GB version alongside another 4GB model.
New players
We also have a new players in the Chromebook space with Hisense and Haier, two electronics manufacturers from China.
Firstly,
there's the Haier Chromebook 11, an 11.6-inch Chromebook that comes
sporting a Rockchip 3288 chipset with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage.
Haier claims its first Chromebook will have a battery life of 10 hours
and it's already available on Amazon for $149 (about £100, AU$195).
The
Haier also has plans to release a Chromebook 11E made specifically for
the education market that's more durable with a spill proof keyboard as
well as a removable battery.
Hisense, meanwhile, announced its own
Chrome OS laptop will be available for preorder on Walmart for $149
(about £100, AU$195). For the price you'll get an 11.6-inch cloud-based
machine with 8.5 hours of battery life with practically identical specs
as the Haier Chromebook 11.
