Asus Chromebook Flip C436 delivers a premium Chrome experience

This is the ASUS Chromebook flip, C436. Now if you're saying to yourself, hey, that doesn't look like the generic commodity Chromebook I'm used to seeing. Well, that's because it isn't. This is considered a premium Chromebook [BLANK_AUDIO] It's actually two and one and $800. It's more premium or premium just more premium. It's more premium than we're used to seeing in the category. So Usually a premium Chromebook is about $400 or $500, and this one starts at $800. So, what exactly does it mean to be a premium Chromebook? Well, for starters, this one is made from magnesium alloy, so it's a nice light weight, but still sturdy build. Compared to those plastic cheap models that you're use to seeing. So on top of that the magnesium alloy makes it really lightweight, only weighs two and a half pounds or 1.1 kilograms. So you're not going to notice this when you're traveling around with it in your bag. So when you go and you lift the lid, you've got a nice full HD display here. Unfortunately while the display does get pretty bright. You're, you're still dealing with a lot of reflections off the screen because of that glossy coating. But that's pretty much par for the course with displays these days. Anyway, it is a two in one so you can. Turn it back and forth like that. Anyway, you get a big smooth touch pad down here, with gesture support, and comfortable full size Chrome keyboard, and it's back lid too, which isn't typical of cheaper Chromebox. There's not a lot of key travel while typing, but they do have a satisfying poppiness to them. And up in the right corner here is a fingerprint reader to unlock the Chromebook. Now at first I thought it was the power button too, but that's actually here on the left side with a volume rocker. There are four speakers, one on each side and two at the top between the 360 degree hinges, so you'd have clear audio in any position and they sound decent at moderate levels, just don't turn them up too loud. Now since it is a two in one, you can use it as a tablet and it does support USI active pens. It's just that asis doesn't include one. So add that to your purchase price if you want one asis does include a padded sleeve. So that's something Another nice feature is that if you do go ahead and get the pen, you can access Google Keep straight from the lockscreen which means you can instantly just take notes or whatever you want and then go back to the lockscreen and it'll It will save to your system, to your Google Keep account. So you don't have to worry about losing it. Now a big reason this one is more expensive is because of the components inside. This one has a tenth gen Intel core I Processor in it. eight gigs of memory and 128 gig SSD NVMe SSD inside. Now you can spend $1,000 and get it with a core i five. 16 gigs of memory and a 512 gig SSD which is a lot of components for a Chromebook. You probably don't need that, most people will be fine getting the core i3 model that I. Tested. It didn't really slow down while I was using it, ever. And that included while I was gaming. So, all in all, this is going to fit the needs of most buyers. And if you're concerned about heat, don't worry too much. The fan in here actually kept it pretty cool even when I was gaming. And it didn't even get too loud. You can definitely work and not be too distracted by the fan noise. Also if you're one of the many that suddenly need to use your webcam to get through the workday, the C 436 has a decent one at the top of the display. Video quality from it is fine as long as you have plenty of light and strong connection This does have Wi Fi six by the way, which is a premium bit of future proofing. No option for LTE though, which is kind of a bummer considering Chrome's best when it has a web connection. But really the biggest issue you might have with this model aside from the price, of course, is the battery life. I got 10 hours and 43 minutes of runtime on our streaming video tests, which is good. But in general use, you're looking at more like six hours of straight use. But that's going to depend on your display brightness and what you're doing. Still, it's not bad, but something like Acer's Chromebook 714 lasts a couple hours longer with similar specs It does charge quickly though getting you up to four hours on a 30 minute charge. And with USB C ports on both sides you have more flexibility when you plug in. Basically if you can live with its battery life which again isn't really bad and You can spend 800 or $1,000 on a premium Chromebook two in one experience, the C 436 is a good choice. You might not want to spend that kind of money on a Chromebook, and there's certainly plenty of others out there including the earlier version of this that are a little bit less expensive and Pretty good. But again, if you want a premium experience you're gonna pay a premium price.