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Update: ASUS has reached out to let us know that the C436 was NOT supposed to be listed for order. The listing has been removed. AT this point, it appears that the late-April release date is, in fact, accurate. We are not sure what will come of the orders that may have been placed prior to the removal of the listing.
April is shaping up to be one of the most exciting months in the history of Chromebook releases. Unless something drastic happens, the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook should be in stock and available at Best Buy and Samsung this coming Monday. On the “Flip” side, (see what I did there?) the ASUS Chromebook C436 is slated for release this month as well but we haven’t received an official release date yet. That didn’t stop Amazon from listing and selling the Comet Lake convertible but after quite a few people go their pre-orders in, the listings were pulled and have not returned.
Regardless of the “official” date, we have a unit in-house and have already done an unboxing and that’s a solid indicator that the Flip C436 will be available from various retailers very soon. That said, I was poking around the web to see if there were any deals to found and when I headed to the ASUS Store, I was greeted by a very pleasant surprise. It appears that ASUS has already pushed out a soft launch of the Core i3 8GB/128GB model on its own website.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a listing like this from ASUS. The C302 followed a similar pattern but when you tried to order one, ASUS quickly prompted you that the device was currently unavailable. That does not seem to be the case this time. I went through the order process with no hiccups and was even given the option for Next Business Day shipping if I wanted to pay an extra $35. The Core i5 model is in the store but still listed as “Coming Soon.” However, the Core i3 is probably powerful enough for the majority of users and at $799, it’s a great price-point. You can find the Flip C436 at the link below.
