The email from Michael K. rolled in just moments ago and it took me a moment to digest the news that ASUS has finally come through on delivering a top-end version of one of my favorite Chromebooks.
The Core M5 variation of the Flip C302 has been available for a few months now and we knew the souped up Core M7 version existed but it was unclear if it would ever make it to market for general consumers as ASUS has been pretty tight-lipped about U.S. availability.
That all just changed.
According to Michael’s email, Adorama had just listed the Core M7 C302 along side another new variant containing the original Core M3 but upping the RAM to 8GB which is something we’ve begged for since it’s release last January. Oddly enough, this model looks like it cut the storage to 32GB.
I checked around using the model number from Adorama and sure enough, there are multiple listings for the newest C302. Adorama’s listed the ASUS for $899 originally but has since raised the price to $929 which is still significantly less than some of the other listings our there.
A thousand bucks may seem off the charts but relatively speaking it’s probably as good a value as the next-gen Core i7 Pixelbook that comes in at $1649 MSRP.
The Core M3 model with 8GB RAM is listed at $549 which could be a hard sell considering you can get the Core M5 C302 for around $600. You lose the extra RAM but you get twice the storage and a significant processor boost.
It’s not clear if the ASUS is shipping from Adorama yet but you can place your order now there and other third-party retailers. ASUS’ official store has yet to list the new models.
In stock or not, I’ve been looking forward to this device for almost a year and am very much excited to see how it performs.
Check out the new ASUS C302 lineup at the link below.
Thanks to Michael K. for the email!