I had a recent work mishap where I put my laptop on top of my car and drove
away. It's not fully broken, but there's some cosmetic damage I'm not super happy
about, and it'll probably get worse over time. So, ASUS sponsored this video so I
can take a look at not one, but two different Chromebooks and decide if I
actually need like a full-fledged laptop or if I'm okay with just a Chromebook,
considering all I'm doing most of the time anyway is just either pulling up a
web page or writing some notes in a script. So, let's see what we got. We're
going to look at the more premium version first. The CX 3402CV.
This guy has got it all. And by all, I mean it's got everything you need. Like
a 14-in screen, 1080p, 60 Hz. You know,
it's actually not too heavy either. That's my other problem is the laptop they want to give me at work is like
pretty heavy compared to my old one. Whereas like this is small and sleek.
And actually, how heavy is it? 1.45 kilos. That's all that's about 3 lb.
It's pretty close. What else is in the box, though? ASUS has given me a
charging brick. This thing's got about a 50Wh hour battery, so plenty of juice.
As long as you're not uh trying to make the screen super bright all the time and
run it to its absolute limit, it should last you quite a while. ASUS is boasting
up to 10 hours. I think we tested it at closer to 6 and 1/2. It's a pretty long
cable. Probably about 6 ft cuz I'm not 6 feet and this thing goes a little
further than me. I wish I was. >> Uh, one other main feature though, we've
got one USBC for charging. And on our other side, got another USBC with uh,
looks like DP alt mode. So, if you want to plug this thing into a bigger screen,
that's totally valid. Uh, and then we've also got HDMI and then a couple of USBA
ports and a headphone mic combo jack. Honestly, we'll talk about the price in
a bit, but that's more IO than I get on
like my own laptop actually. Otherwise, it seems pretty bog standard. You know,
you can see the cooling system in here. Actually looks like pretty accessible,
too. They don't have a ton of uh stickers and other stuff blocking all
the screws. I don't even think you have to take these feet off. So, it actually seems pretty repairable. I don't know
how much you want to repair a Chromebook, but it looks like you could.
Otherwise, yeah, it's pretty light. I like the look of it. It's got a little
Chromebook plus logo and the rock gray. I like the ASUS there. I just messed
this up pretty bad. And the fingerprints aren't like hyper visible. You can get
your grubby hands all You can let your kids get their grubby hands all over
this thing and it's going to be fine. Um, let's open it up and take a look.
I'll be honest, I'm not crazy about the keyboard, but this is not meant for
that. There are a lot of things this device is meant for, and fancy keyboard
is not one of them. Obviously, it's a Chromebook, so we're using Chrome OS,
not Windows. Um, but I believe this is a touch screen. Is it? It is. Yo, I don't
like the touchcreen very much. It does work. We're also missing my coveted
Windows key. Um, as for the keyboard itself, it's got a okay texture to the
key caps. And, you know, we're not getting a fancy um, lowprofile
mechanical keyboard or anything in this, but honestly, I actually don't hate like
chicklet style laptop keyboards. Um, I find I type on them really well. And
away we go.
No, I made a mistake.
I was going to set a new record, I swear. But honestly, yeah, it's pretty good. I I it's responsive. It types
things just fine. And one nice thing actually is the keys are nice and spaced
apart. So you're not going to have that weird moment where you like jam two keys
at the same time because you've got that hyper condensed keyboard layout. So
overall it's fine. Sounds fine. Sounds like a laptop chicklet keyboard, which
frankly they have their they have their place. They're totally okay. As for the
trackpad, it doesn't like it when I've got two fingers there. How's the palm
rejection? Palm rejection seems like pretty good actually. As for the clicks,
click. Yeah, this seems totally okay, actually. Um, let's take a look at the
specs. And they've got a 13th gen Intel
Core i5 1334U, 12 threads. That should
be a two pore chip. So, we've got two pores and then eight ecores, and then
the two pores are hyperthreaded to get you 12 threads total. It says boost of
4.6 GHz. This doesn't clarify that that's a boost, but that is a boost
clock. There's no way this thing runs at 4.6 uh base. But then we've got 8 gigs
of RAM and I'm only using two gigs of it right now. So, let's open some more
Chrome tabs. So, we got a video playing. We've got a web page up. We got email
open. Uh some other random tabs. WebGL
aquariums running. How are we doing? I'm using less RAM now. I'm down to 1.5 gigs
of memory. How did that happen? I don't know. But the fact is, you're not buying
this to game. Like, let's try to play Batro. Okay, we've got Bolatro
installed, but that's totally fine because we've got 128 gigs of uh UFS
storage. I know this game can run on mobile, but like, hey, it's playing
Batro. The display itself isn't terrible either. It does 250 nits, which is
bright enough. You're not going to really be enjoying this outside too
much, but you know, how's the speakers on this thing? I guarantee there's not going to be any bass, but like
these are not the worst speakers I've ever heard in my life.
That's with it cranked. Let me check out a more realistic thing. I want to hear
dialogue cuz you're going to be using this as like a school aid or a work aid.
So, you're going to be using it to watch lectures or attend a meeting or something. So, I want to see what it's
like when someone's talking to you. >> Meta launched their Meta Rayban.
>> That sounds pretty good. I could hear that. If someone's talking to me over a
meeting, I could totally uh understand them. Let me check how the webcam is
though. So, and the microphone as well because I can hear them, but can they
hear me? This isn't half bad. It's a full HD webcam with AI enhanced audio
and video. I think this is a very reasonable um meeting webcam. I don't
know how good the audio is on my side because I can't hear the mic, but I hope
that you're using this as a good way to determine if it's a good enough
microphone for you if you're looking into buying a new Chromebook for whether
that's work or school or just like uh walking around the house. That's what I
want this one for is to like just walk around with a light laptop, super
lightweight with a script on it and just like check stuff out and read things and
um that's it. I want like a super tablet. I guess it's pretty durable. If
I drop it, I'm not super worried about it. Andrew can attest to how uncareful I
am with the company laptops. The uh hinge should 180. And look at this. Now
you can use it as like a tablet. Maybe you want to use Photoshop and a stylus
and use it kind of like a tablet. Um, it is optimized for creative apps,
Photoshop, Express, Lumaf Fusion, and Google Workspace. And while there wasn't
an Ethernet jack, uh, during the IO tour, it is Wi-Fi 6E, which is honestly
pretty fast. We connected to our network here, no problem. We were streaming
video without issues, so it should be totally fine for you as long as your network. Don't forget that you have to
have a network that's also Wi-Fi 6E, otherwise it's just going to default to
whatever your slowest speed is. And you can get all this for $5.99, which is
their this is their most premium of Chromebooks. And that $599 does come
with a year of Gemini. So that's like a pretty that's what over another $100
worth of subscription savings that you'd get. So overall, the value is pretty
solid. And I'm personally leaning towards this one just because like I
want to play Bellatro with the slightly better mobile CPU that's in this guy.
But if 600 bucks is outside of your price range, I've got kind of a treat
for you because this guy, guess the price. Guess the price of what the
slightly bigger one is, cuz this is a 15 or a 16in screen. Uh, like our other
box, by the way, basically just Chromebook, charge cable, some other
random ASUS stuff. Have you guessed it yet?
>> $30. >> $30. This is the Asus CB CX15 15.6 in
screen and >> fabric blue. And it's only 160 bucks.
Like, I honestly can't believe the day
and age we live in where I'm getting a laptop that's like this big, has an okay
screen. Like, that's crazy. Now, that price is a little bit too good to be
true. It's technically 220 at MSRP. However, ever since this thing launched
at Walmart, you can get it for 160 and we do expect that sale to last for quite
a long time. What do you get for 160 bucks? Well, we get a little less than
on our more premium guy, but we've got one USBC, HDMI. Always really nice to
see when you're trying to hook up uh to a monitor. And then uh USBA. And we've
also got uh mic and headphone jack. Let's smudge this guy up. Barely any
smudges. And I actually really like the aqua blue. Like that's one thing is uh I
sticker bomb all my stuff cuz I like color. And this is way more up my alley
in the sense that like it's a nice shiny pretty blue. Now it is bigger. We've got
a whole extra like inch and a half of screen space here. So, it is going to be
heavier, but it's really, you know, I can still one-hand it.
I get to the pizza here. I'm going to guess 1,600 g. The other one was 1450.
I'm so close, you guys. 1586. So, it's
actually pretty light even though the screen is bigger. But, this does have a
significantly weaker mobile processor in it. But, hey, the value is there cuz
this thing is still going to do most of what that could do. And I will say I
actually kind of like this keyboard a bit more just because it's more in line
with what I'm used to because I tend to use Windows laptops. But we've got this
little Google button here, which is basically the Windows button. We've also got a nice function and and alt layout
here. Tell you right now, at least just based on the keyboards, I strongly
prefer this one just cuz it's got like a numpad and we've got that Google button.
Unlike the other one, like I said, you're getting a little less because you're paying for a lot less, but you're
still getting Wi-Fi 6, 128 gigs of storage, I want to say. In this one,
we're getting a slightly smaller battery. It's advertised as 3550
milliamp hours, but we are getting a much more entry- level CPU with a
Celeron N4500. This is a twothread chip
running at like 2.8 GHz. Um, and we're only getting 4 gigs of memory, so
significantly less memory as well. However, if you're doing a lot less, you
don't need as much. So, like, let's bring up Okay, we've got a YouTube web
page up. We're going to have the same like docs thing where I have a document
up. And like don't get me wrong, there's definitely a bit more of a delay as I'm
navigating just like Chrome tabs and whatnot and opening Google Docs, but the
reality is this is like it's still totally usable. None of these are delays
that upset me or anything like that. And as for the display, perfectly
serviceable. Again, I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm just watching some 1080p
video on a 15 16in screen, but it looks
pretty good and it's getting bright enough. Like, we're talking about a workhorse here. And when you've got like
a workhorse that needs to plow a field, you just wanted to do that thing and do
it well. Let's check out the speakers really quick.
That's enough crab rave, but that's about what I'd expect. Honestly, I'm
pretty impressed. And so, you're going to be probably watching a lot of YouTube on this thing and just using like AI to
summarize stuff for you. And that's great because it comes with 3 months of
Google 1 AI Premium as well as YouTube Premium. Even at the 220 price, I think
that's still a decent price, but man, if you can get this thing for 160, I think
that's a steal. And I mean, it's honestly still pretty solid. We didn't
even check out the webcam yet. Let's take a look and see how good the webcam is. Uh, one nice thing that I love uh to
see on laptops because even at home, I keep like a sticky note over my webcam.
It's got a physical privacy shutter. Boom. There it goes. Pretty decent
quality overall. I think it's totally usable. I don't know how the microphone
is because again I'm recording this into the laptop. So I'm going to have to play
it back to actually know um how good the quality is, but I'm sure it's fine. And
on top of the physical shutter for the webcam, it's got a Titan C security chip
from Google just for that little bit of added peace of mind. And you know what
else gives you some added peace of mind? Just how durable this thing is. They're saying it's military grade and that you
know it can withstand tumbles and
fumbles and drops. I bet you it's fine. Look at this. Boom.
is great. As much as I love the value town that you're reaching with this guy,
I probably lean towards the CX34, I mean, 600 bucks is definitely a higher
price to pay, but, you know, it's a little bit more premium, too. So, pick
whatever you like the most. Feel free to check out either of those or a few of
Asus's other Chromebook models, which we'll have linked in the description below. Thanks again, ASUS, for
sponsoring this video, and thanks for watching ShortCircuit. I'm Floof. These
are Chromebooks.