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For weeks, the most powerful Chromebook on the planet has eluded me as I daily search for active listings of the ASUS Chromebook CX9. Since its announcement months ago, only ASUS proper has listed the Chromebook as available but the powerful Tiger Lake laptop was quickly sold out with the painful “Notify Me” button taking the place of the beautiful “add to cart” button. Just in case you missed this sleek Chromebook, here’s Robby’s unboxing to show you what all the hype was about.
I can say that I was more hyped about this Chromebook than any other device to come out of 2021. Rocking the 11th Gen Intel Core i7, 16GB of RAM and, 512GB of NVMe storage, there’s practically nothing I can’t throw at this thing. It doesn’t hurt that this thing is absolutely gorgeous. It stands out from any other Chromebook on the market and features a segment-first numeric keypad that’s integrated directly into the touchpad. It has a 400 nit display, Thunderbolt 4, and a well-placed fingerprint sensor. Did I mention this thing is drool-worthy? Apart from the fact that it’s a bit of a fingerprint magnet, this is pretty much my dream Chromebook.
Anyway, one of our Patrons mentioned that he just received his CX9 directly from ASUS. I was a bit confused as my daily checks still showed the Chromebook as unavailable. Robby took a quick look to discover that clicking into the ASUS Store listing actually showed both the Core i3 and Core i7 models are available and ready to add to the cart. The Core i3 model comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage and honestly, this is more than enough Chromebook for most users. The big advantage to the Core i7 model is the beefier G7 graphics and the 16GB of RAM. If you plan on getting this for Steam gaming down the road or perhaps Linux development environments, it’s the better option.
One of the best things about both of these devices is the price. the Core i3 model retails for only $749 and that’s a very respectable MSRP for a Chromebook that offers just about everything a discerning user could want. The monster Core i7 version, which we have, is priced at $1,149 and that may sound steep but this is the most powerful Chromebook you can buy and it’s wrapped in some of the best hardware to ever grace a Chrome OS laptop. You can find both models ready for purchase at the link below.
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Shout out to our good friend Matthias K. for sharing his new Chromebook purchase with us.
