Chromebook Flip

The premium Chromebook is finally affordable thinks Kevin Lee, as   he tosses another Macbook into the nearest bin. Hats off to Asus!

- Kevin Lee

The premium Chromebook is a concept that has existed for almost as long as Google’s notebook brand itself, and it’s one that rarely found the legs to succeed. Asus has finally come out with a premium Flip model that matches the competition on specifications, but undercuts them on price.

At £599 ($499 Brexit price conversion) it’s firmly in the laptop midrange price point, but there are reasons for that: manufacturers are trying to drag the Chromebook market out of its seemingly permanent budget doldrums.

Like the original Asus Chromebook C100 before it, the C302 is built from an all-aluminium chassis, though, this time it has an anodised finish rather than a brushed texture. Overall, it has a clean, no-nonsense aesthetic and it folds up to a nearly symmetrical slab of metal.

The original Chromebook C100’s long, bar-shaped hinge has been dropped for the ZenBook Flip UX360’s multi-gear, metal mechanism. The smaller mechanism makes this machine feel like less of a toy and helps it to blend in as a regular notebook.