14 DAY TRIAL // Last month, the unannounced ASUS Chromebooks have been spotted with some on-line retails, but now the company has taken the opportunity to officially introduce the two new laptops.
Just a few days ago, we saw Lenovo introduce its first consumer Chrome laptops and now it’s time for ASUS to step in this increasingly crowded ecosystem. Actually, ASUS is probably one of the last brand vendors to push out a Chromebook.
Anyway, meet the C200 and C300, both of which are powered by Intel’s Bay Trail (Celeron N2830) platform. The C200 is the smaller of the two (11.6-inch) and comes with a glossy display, while the C300 (13.3-inch) is said to be matte (via Techpowerup).
Both models will come bundled with 2GB of RAM and 16GB solid state storage. Of course, customers will also be getting 100GB of free Google Drive storage for two years.
Resolution wise, customers will be confronted with the standard 1366 x 768 pixels, but if you want a boost in this department, you should probably go for the 13.3-inch Samsung Chromebook 2.
Apart from that, the Chromebooks will feature one USB 3.0 and a USB 2.0. ASUS expects the C200 and C300 to offer customers up to 10 hours of battery life, which is more than enough for daily activities.
Something that draws attention here are the larger touchpads. We don’t have the exact sizes but ASUS point outs the two laptops have multi-finger touchpads, something similar to what you’d find on 14-inch notebooks.
Other specifications include Wi-Fi 802.11, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI out allowing you to connect the Chromebooks to a secondary screen and SD card readers.
If you are wondering when you will be able to pick these babies up, the exact availability dates are pretty sketchy, although the C200 and C300 Chromebooks have been confirmed to be arriving by the end of June in the US.
ASUS says the models will start at $249.99 / €181 for the smallest model, which is in league with what other Chromebooks available on the market today cost.
Being a novice in the Chromebook department, it is interesting to see how the two new ASUS models will fear out in terms of sales. Most brand vendors including Samsung, Lenovo, HP, Dell, Toshiba or Acer have already launched Chrome-enhanced devices, so the competition is pretty fierce.