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Ever since we laid eyes on the upcoming ASUS C434 in January at CES, we’ve all been eagerly awaiting the day when it shows up at the office for review. After such a long wait following the excellent C302, the ASUS C434 looks to be every part the proper successor to its beloved predecessor.
We’ve known about the release date of March for a little while now, but with Chromebooks from anyone other than Google, loose release windows can come and go without warning. Even Google goofed a bit when releasing the Pixel Slate not until late November last year, pushing the release back to the last week of November after showcasing it in the first week of October.
What I’m trying to say is, when manufacturers give us round-a-bout dates for release, I tend to take those with a grain of salt and wait for some real evidence to show up before I get excited about an imminent arrival. Just a few days ago, we got wind of the C434 clearing the FCC and that is one of the final hurdles a device needs to go through in order to hit store shelves. This alone was enough to make us feel like March is going to be the month we see the C434 in the office, but a new tidbit from a reader seals the deal.
Right now, you can head here and see the ASUS C434 listing on Amazon UK in every way, shape and form ready to go on sale. It is currently unavailable and will likely stay that way until ASUS is ready to begin sales, but the FCC filing and this fully-formed listing point to a release that can’t be more than a few weeks away.
It is worth noting the price: £599.99. Internal storage isn’t mentioned in the listing and this model at this price is equipped with the 8th-gen Core m3 and 4GB of RAM. If that price holds, we’ll likely see the Core m3/4GB model for $599 here in the US and that feels a tad steep for a 4GB device. With devices like the HP Chromebook x360 and Lenovo Yoga C630 shipping their entry-level models with 8GB of RAM, I feel like the $599 price should be for the Core i5/8GB variant we are sure will be offered. Don’t read too much into the pricing just yet, though, as fluctuations are bound to happen and what gets offered in the UK and what gets offered in the US are rarely on parity with one another.
It looks like early March will be our time, though, and we’re not only excited to see ASUS deliver a bit early on their release window, but also at the prospect of having one of these in the office for review in the very near future.
In so many ways, the ASUS C434 is not just a successor to a great Chromebook: it is one of the best overall packages we’ve seen to date. As long as a stylus isn’t necessary for you and ASUS keeps the pricing in check, we could be looking at one of the best-selling Chromebooks of 2019.
