While I’ve long been a big fan of Google’s Chromebook homepage and the sorting/shopping tool they have built there, I don’t go by to look at things too often. Sure, it is a beautiful site with all sorts of great typeface choices, slick animations, and a well though-out presentation of why you should consider a Chromebook, but I’ve seen it plenty of times by now. Their Chromebook selector is well-made and helpful, but it generally doesn’t showcase unreleased devices and there’s not a ton of info for a Chromebook junky like myself to glean from it.
Still, I end up on the site from time to time and just click around to see how Google is presenting the OS and hardware ecosystem I spend most of my days talking about. And yesterday, I stumbled across a few very interesting nuggets of info that I’m really not accustomed to finding on Google’s sorting tool for new Chromebook buyers.
ASUS Chromebook Flip CX5 and CM5
Though CES 2021 was odd, there was a decent amount of Chromebook news that came from the virtual show, and in our world, there was nothing more exciting that ASUS’ big announcement of 3 new Chromebooks that we expect before the end of June. The ASUS CX9, Flip CX5, and Flip CM5 were all debuted and all of them have interesting pieces to their story. For the power user, there’s the monster CX9 with all the bells and whistles, while the Flip CX5 gives users a more reasonable convertible at 15.6-inches and a black on white paint job that is to die for. The Flip CM5 is the most modest of the bunch with much of the Flip CX5’s outer hardware and AMD on the inside.
While browsing through the Chromebook selector yesterday, I came across both the ASUS Flip CX5 and Flip CM5 on Google’s site and was even more surprised by the fact that they actually have listed MSRP pricing! A big question mark surrounding both of these devices was pricing as we finished up our coverage from CES. In the listings on Google’s site, we can now see the breakdown of not only the pricing, but what those configurations will come with on the inside as well.
For the Flip CX5, there are two builds listed. The first is what I think is the sweet spot: 11th-gen Core i3, 8GB RAM, and 128GB of storage for $549. There is a second configuration for $799, and that bumps things up to the 11th-gen Core i5, 16GB RAM, and the same 128GB of storage. Assuming the build of this Chromebook is solid, these are very competitive prices from ASUS who, in general, tends to be a bit on the high side with their pricing structures.
On the Flip CM5 side, there are three listings. For $499 you get the Ryzen 3, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. At $549, you keep the Ryzen 3 but bump up to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. At $599 you keep the 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage and move up to the Ryzen 5. Again, if the rest of this Chromebook is thoughtfully assembled, these internals are quite promising at these prices.
Bear in mind that there are other configurations that will likely hit the market and these listings aren’t the only options consumers will have. However, Google listing a few options with pricing tells us that not only are we close to the release of these new ASUS Chromebooks, but we can also feel pretty confident about where the pricing will fall. Also remember these are MSRP listings and devices like these are constantly on sale at places like Best Buy, Amazon and Walmart, so you’ll likely be able to snag any one of them for less than what we’re seeing once they arrive. We’ll be keeping an eye on things and fully expect to see an official launch in the very near future for both the ASUS Flip CX5 and CM5.
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