Exclusive: ASUS set to launch the world’s first 17.3″ Chromebook

A little over a month ago, I penned my thoughts as to why manufacturers should consider making larger, 17.3″ Chromebooks. While I am not a fan of the massive laptop form-factor, I understand their appeal and the use case for a lot of users. I honestly believed that an OEM would eventually hop on board given the focus that Google has placed on the Enterprise segment but I really thought that it would be a couple of years or more before we actually saw a 17.3″ Chrome OS device in the flesh. Apparently, I was wrong.

We received a tip this morning the ASUS has a new 17.3″ Chromebook in the works and that said device could be hitting the market as soon as August of this year. Our tipster informed us that the new Chromebook would be a budget-friendly model built on the Intel Jasper Lake platform with an option for the Celeron N5100 or the Pentium Silver N6000 from that line of CPUs. There was little else to go with apart from a model number but searching that particular model did produce a couple of results from two sites in Switzerland that confirmed the information from our source. We have no images at this time but here’s a look at what we do know.

ASUS CX1700 Chromebook

• Chrome OS
• Intel Jasper Lake Celeron N5100 or Pentium Silver N6000
• 4GB RAM (8GB possible but not confirmed)
• 64GB storage
• 17.3″ FullHD display
• Silver

That’s not a lot to help visualize this new Chromebook but I presume that it will be a clamshell. The two sites listing the Celeron model have it priced around 520 CHF which is roughly $580 USD. That’s extremely pricey for a budget device even with the largest display on the market. However, our source said that the starting price should be $299 USD which sounds a lot more appealing. The Jasper Lake CPUs are slated to be serious performers compared to the previous generations of Celeron and Pentium Silver processors. If this device does start at $299, it should be an easily marketed device for ASUS. I’ll keep poking around to see if we can unearth some photos or more details on this upcoming Chromebook and let you know what we find. You can keep an eye on the listings here and here.