
Just yesterday, I was trying to convince myself that I didn’t need to buy the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook even though I could pick one up for only $480. For the record, I did not pull the trigger and the main factor in that decision was the fact that 11th Gen Intel Chromebooks are just over the horizon. The promise of significantly more powerful graphics processing that will come with Tiger Lake’s Xe GPUs helped to keep me from making a rash decision despite how delicious the deal was. While we didn’t have a solid release date for the first Tiger Lake devices from ASUS, it appears that the first-ever 11th Gen device has hit the ground and it is available and shipping from Best Buy.
The highly-anticipated ASUS Chromebook Flip C536 just showed up at Best Buy with the expected retail price of $569 and that could make every other 10th Gen flagship on the market irrelevant so long as you’re okay with a 15.6″ device. The Flip C536 comes rocking Intel’s Tiger Lake Core i3-1115G4 complete with Iris Xe graphics. Now, before you go grabbing your wallet, remember our report earlier this month about the difference between this integrated G4 GPU and the more powerful G7 graphics that come with the 11th Gen Core i5. The Core i3 will most definitely outperform the current 10th Gen UHD graphics but it doesn’t compare to the G7 in Core i5 and Core i7 Tiger Lake chips. That said, this will be more than enough horsepower for even serious users that want to leverage Linux and Android applications. The Core i5/i7 will likely be geared more towards power developers and hopefully, gaming in the future.
There’s very little about this device that isn’t 100% awesomeness. The only nit I can come up with based on the listed specs is the fact that the display is listed at 250 nits. Flagships should be 300 nits at the bare minimum but we’ll rant about that when we get to the review later this month. The 15.6″ Chromebook is Full HD with a touch display and convertible form-factor. It also supports a USI stylus which you can pick up from ASUS or grab a different pen from the maker of your choice like the one from Penoval. It comes equipped with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of zippy NVMe storage. Around the outside, the Flip C536 sports 2 USB-C ports, a single USB-A and HDMI, and a MicroSD card slot. Of course, there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack because – nostalgia. Other goodies include a backlit keyboard, massive trackpad, Harmon Kardon audio, and a coated aluminum chassis in Immersive White.
All of this sounds great but we’ve saved the best for last. A comparable 10th Gen Chromebook like the HP x360 14c or ASUS 713 runs $629 retail and they’re worth the money. However, the all-new 11th Gen ASUS Chromebook Flip C536 has an MSRP of only $569 which is absolutely incredible because ASUS’s last flagship, the C436, was priced so high that we won’t recommend it to anyone. Anyway, we have on one the way and we’ll get an unboxing and review together as soon as possible. If you’re already sold, you can grab the ASUS Chromebook Flip C536 from Best Buy today and have it in your hands as soon as this weekend.
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