Official ASUS Chromebook Flip C433 landing page offers more insights, raises more questions

The ride that the ASUS Chromebook C433 has been on over the past couple weeks has been quite the wild one. From an out of the way database find by our own Gabriel Brangers to the FCC filing and leaked retail images that appeared shortly after, this device went from non-existent to fully-leaked in a matter of days.

Right on the heels of all that, the Flip C433 began showing up in an Amazon listing and was quickly announced by ASUS in a more formal way just a couple days ago via a press release. From not being a Chromebook we even knew existed to an official launch in 16 days is a pretty whirlwind ride for sure, and we can’t wait to get our hands on this new Chromebook from ASUS to see what advantages/disadvantages it holds over its very-similar sibling in the ASUS Flip C434.

While we wait for that first hands-on and unboxing, ASUS has gone and made a new, killer landing page just for the Flip C433. Just like the page built for the ASUS C434 before it, this is a well-built, flashy and beautiful showcase for this upcoming Chromebook. Looking through the site, however, we’re probably as confused as ever when considering exactly why ASUS is debuting this Chromebook.

It becomes clear very quickly that the Flip C433 and Flip C434 are nearly identical in most ways. From promised configurations (we’ve yet to see that i5 or i7 version of the C434) to screens and keyboards, the Flip C433 and Flip C434 are so similar that it feels odd. Don’t get me wrong, I love the look of the C433 and I can’t wait to give it a proper review; but looking at the two landing pages side-by-side I’m realizing the language being used to describe both devices is literally the exact same.

So this begs the question: why has ASUS gone and built a new Chromebook with a new model number that only changes a few, small details of an existing Chromebook that is not even 6 months old yet? Well, we don’t know the answer to that just yet. I thought that maybe they were going to silently retire the C434, but the bottom of this new landing page has a “meet the family” section that highlights not just the C433, but the C434 and C425, too. As it doesn’t seem like the C434 is going anywhere, why make the C433 at all?

We’re still formulating ideas and opinions on that, but for now we just don’t know. If it is priced radically different – higher or lower – then it will either be a device no one buys or its sales will completely cannibalize the sales of the C434 because, again, these are basically the exact same device. Laptop Mag is speculating that this will end up being a more-affordable of the two Chromebooks, but they are basing that on the £499 starting price and we simply never know how those prices translate to US Dollars.

For what it is worth, the current price of the Flip C434 on Amazon is £600 for the model that has 8GB of RAM vs. the 4GB of RAM the C433 will be launching with. Factor that in and the C434 could easily be in the £499 ballpark as well if there was a 4GB/64GB listing on Amazon UK, so I doubt affordability is really going to be the C433’s main selling point. The point is, we just don’t or understand quite a few things about this new Chromebook and simply won’t until the US release happens and we get a unit in-office to really get our hands on.