ASUS ExpertBook CX54 Chromebook Plus Review: $699 of premium [VIDEO]

The ASUS ExpertBook CX54 Chromebook Plus has taken a very strange path to get here. While we had hands on it in December of last year prior to CES 2024, it didn’t arrive at that show and didn’t really show up for real until May at Google’s Chromebook Showcase in New York. But it was worth the wait in a lot of ways, and I’m pretty excited to show you why, so let’s get into it.

Premium look and feel

When we first saw this device back in December, I was super-pumped that ASUS was back to making a higher-end Chromebook. It’s sleek, thin, light, all metal, and a Chromebook that just feels great to hold and to look at. Sure, it’s pretty angular, but it pulls it off far better than the CX9 from a few years back and I really do like the overall aesthetic of the CX54 in a lot of ways.

And even though the body of this Chromebook is really thin at only 1.69cm, it’s incredibly rigid and there are still a ton of ports on the outside. I love that so much and it just makes life easier all around. You get a couple USB Type-C’s and Type-A ports, a full-sized HDMI 2.1 port, microSD card slot, headphone/mic jack and a Kensington lock. The USB Type-C ports are also Thunderbolt 4, so you get better multi-monitor support and faster data transfer speeds there, too.

Premium Screen

But cracking this one open is where the magic happens. Right up front there’s a fantastic 8MP webcam with a privacy shutter, and under that is one of the best screens we’ve ever had on a Chromebook. It’s 14-inches, QHD, 16:10, and 500 nits. The bezels are small, the screen feels large, and the animations are buttery smooth with the 120Hz refresh rate. I have nothing negative to say about this panel, and I love nearly everything about it.

But it’s not a touchscreen. I’ve found that generally doesn’t bother me too much, but I know that’s a bummer for some of you. The review unit we have comes with a touchscreen, but the standard model you’ll find in Best Buy stores doesn’t. That’s the one that is $699 and the one I’d recommend most of you buy if you are interested in this device.

You can search for and find upgraded versions out there in the wild, but inventory, delivery, and customer service have been an issue for those in our Chrome Unboxed Plus community who’ve tried to secure one outside of Best Buy, so I just have a hard time recommending you go and buy one from B2B places like CDW.

Premium input with one hangup

Under that screen we have a superb keyboard, a huge glass trackpad, and a fingerprint scanner. All of this works beautifully and I have basically no gripes with any of it save this: I hate ASUS’ gray keys with backlighting.

Most times when the CX54 boots up, the keyboard backlight is around 40%, and it’s usually just bright enough to make the key symbols the same gray as the key caps, and I have to either crank it to max brightness or turn it off completely in order to see the actual letters on the keyboard. Why ASUS struggles to get this right year after year is a mystery to me, but it’s a thing again with the CX54.

Premium on the inside

On the inside, with the Intel Core 5 125U, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, you’re getting all the performance you’d want out of a Chromebook Plus device. Again, there are upgraded models with up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, but getting them delivered can be a real chore. For 95% of you, the configuration at Best Buy is plenty fast with performance headroom to spare. And you can enjoy that performance for about 7-8 on a charge and push closer to 10 hours if you can manage to keep that big, bright screen in check.

Small gripes on an otherwise brilliant Chromebook

My only real gripes with this device are with the speakers and one comfort-related issue I run into quite a bit. The speakers are fine and sound decent, but they are downward firing and don’t quite live up to what ASUS has been doing in the speaker department on their Chromebooks for the past few years. I still marvel at the quality of sound my wife’s ASUS CX5 puts out when she plays a video for me. The speakers on the CX54 are fine, just not remarkable.

And that angular chassis bears its teeth a bit when you leave it in your lap for a few minutes. Specifically, the nubs on the back of the top panel that rest on your knees when you set it in your lap really do grind into your legs. And the discomfort sets in almost immediately. Trust me, if you have your lower thighs (right above your knees) exposed at all, beware of longer lap sessions. And if the nubs don’t get you, the sharp edges will. I will admit that a pair of jeans basically undoes this issue, but I’ve not loved it during the summer.

And that’s the ASUS CX54 Chromebook Plus. It’s not perfect – no Chromebook is – but it does get most of the equation right. If top-notch build quality, rigidity of the chassis, a fantastic screen, incredible typing experience, expansive trackpad, massive port selection and speedy internals sound like your thing, I think $699 is frankly an incredible price for this Chromebook. I have a few hangups, but those are minimal when you consider how good this device is overall; and I think anyone paying this price for an experience this good that gets updates until June of 2034 will be very, very happy with their purchase.