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I had a recent work mishap where I put my laptop on top of my car and drove

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away. It's not fully broken, but there's some cosmetic damage I'm not super happy

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about, and it'll probably get worse over time. So, ASUS sponsored this video so I

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can take a look at not one, but two different Chromebooks and decide if I

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actually need like a full-fledged laptop or if I'm okay with just a Chromebook,

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considering all I'm doing most of the time anyway is just either pulling up a

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web page or writing some notes in a script. So, let's see what we got. We're

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going to look at the more premium version first. The CX 3402CV.

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This guy has got it all. And by all, I mean it's got everything you need. Like

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a 14-in screen, 1080p, 60 Hz. You know,

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it's actually not too heavy either. That's my other problem is the laptop they want to give me at work is like

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pretty heavy compared to my old one. Whereas like this is small and sleek.

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And actually, how heavy is it? 1.45 kilos. That's all that's about 3 lb.

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It's pretty close. What else is in the box, though? ASUS has given me a

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charging brick. This thing's got about a 50Wh hour battery, so plenty of juice.

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As long as you're not uh trying to make the screen super bright all the time and

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run it to its absolute limit, it should last you quite a while. ASUS is boasting

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up to 10 hours. I think we tested it at closer to 6 and 1/2. It's a pretty long

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cable. Probably about 6 ft cuz I'm not 6 feet and this thing goes a little

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further than me. I wish I was. >> Uh, one other main feature though, we've

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got one USBC for charging. And on our other side, got another USBC with uh,

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looks like DP alt mode. So, if you want to plug this thing into a bigger screen,

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that's totally valid. Uh, and then we've also got HDMI and then a couple of USBA

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ports and a headphone mic combo jack. Honestly, we'll talk about the price in

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a bit, but that's more IO than I get on

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like my own laptop actually. Otherwise, it seems pretty bog standard. You know,

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you can see the cooling system in here. Actually looks like pretty accessible,

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too. They don't have a ton of uh stickers and other stuff blocking all

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the screws. I don't even think you have to take these feet off. So, it actually seems pretty repairable. I don't know

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how much you want to repair a Chromebook, but it looks like you could.

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Otherwise, yeah, it's pretty light. I like the look of it. It's got a little

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Chromebook plus logo and the rock gray. I like the ASUS there. I just messed

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this up pretty bad. And the fingerprints aren't like hyper visible. You can get

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your grubby hands all You can let your kids get their grubby hands all over

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this thing and it's going to be fine. Um, let's open it up and take a look.

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I'll be honest, I'm not crazy about the keyboard, but this is not meant for

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that. There are a lot of things this device is meant for, and fancy keyboard

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is not one of them. Obviously, it's a Chromebook, so we're using Chrome OS,

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not Windows. Um, but I believe this is a touch screen. Is it? It is. Yo, I don't

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like the touchcreen very much. It does work. We're also missing my coveted

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Windows key. Um, as for the keyboard itself, it's got a okay texture to the

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key caps. And, you know, we're not getting a fancy um, lowprofile

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mechanical keyboard or anything in this, but honestly, I actually don't hate like

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chicklet style laptop keyboards. Um, I find I type on them really well. And

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away we go.

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No, I made a mistake.

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I was going to set a new record, I swear. But honestly, yeah, it's pretty good. I I it's responsive. It types

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things just fine. And one nice thing actually is the keys are nice and spaced

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apart. So you're not going to have that weird moment where you like jam two keys

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at the same time because you've got that hyper condensed keyboard layout. So

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overall it's fine. Sounds fine. Sounds like a laptop chicklet keyboard, which

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frankly they have their they have their place. They're totally okay. As for the

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trackpad, it doesn't like it when I've got two fingers there. How's the palm

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rejection? Palm rejection seems like pretty good actually. As for the clicks,

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click. Yeah, this seems totally okay, actually. Um, let's take a look at the

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specs. And they've got a 13th gen Intel

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Core i5 1334U, 12 threads. That should

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be a two pore chip. So, we've got two pores and then eight ecores, and then

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the two pores are hyperthreaded to get you 12 threads total. It says boost of

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4.6 GHz. This doesn't clarify that that's a boost, but that is a boost

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clock. There's no way this thing runs at 4.6 uh base. But then we've got 8 gigs

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of RAM and I'm only using two gigs of it right now. So, let's open some more

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Chrome tabs. So, we got a video playing. We've got a web page up. We got email

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open. Uh some other random tabs. WebGL

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aquariums running. How are we doing? I'm using less RAM now. I'm down to 1.5 gigs

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of memory. How did that happen? I don't know. But the fact is, you're not buying

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this to game. Like, let's try to play Batro. Okay, we've got Bolatro

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installed, but that's totally fine because we've got 128 gigs of uh UFS

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storage. I know this game can run on mobile, but like, hey, it's playing

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Batro. The display itself isn't terrible either. It does 250 nits, which is

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bright enough. You're not going to really be enjoying this outside too

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much, but you know, how's the speakers on this thing? I guarantee there's not going to be any bass, but like

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these are not the worst speakers I've ever heard in my life.

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That's with it cranked. Let me check out a more realistic thing. I want to hear

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dialogue cuz you're going to be using this as like a school aid or a work aid.

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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

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like when someone's talking to you. >> Meta launched their Meta Rayban.

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>> That sounds pretty good. I could hear that. If someone's talking to me over a

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meeting, I could totally uh understand them. Let me check how the webcam is

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though. So, and the microphone as well because I can hear them, but can they

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hear me? This isn't half bad. It's a full HD webcam with AI enhanced audio

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and video. I think this is a very reasonable um meeting webcam. I don't

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know how good the audio is on my side because I can't hear the mic, but I hope

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that you're using this as a good way to determine if it's a good enough

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microphone for you if you're looking into buying a new Chromebook for whether

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that's work or school or just like uh walking around the house. That's what I

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want this one for is to like just walk around with a light laptop, super

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lightweight with a script on it and just like check stuff out and read things and

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um that's it. I want like a super tablet. I guess it's pretty durable. If

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I drop it, I'm not super worried about it. Andrew can attest to how uncareful I

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am with the company laptops. The uh hinge should 180. And look at this. Now

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you can use it as like a tablet. Maybe you want to use Photoshop and a stylus

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and use it kind of like a tablet. Um, it is optimized for creative apps,

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Photoshop, Express, Lumaf Fusion, and Google Workspace. And while there wasn't

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an Ethernet jack, uh, during the IO tour, it is Wi-Fi 6E, which is honestly

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pretty fast. We connected to our network here, no problem. We were streaming

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video without issues, so it should be totally fine for you as long as your network. Don't forget that you have to

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have a network that's also Wi-Fi 6E, otherwise it's just going to default to

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whatever your slowest speed is. And you can get all this for $5.99, which is

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their this is their most premium of Chromebooks. And that $599 does come

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with a year of Gemini. So that's like a pretty that's what over another $100

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worth of subscription savings that you'd get. So overall, the value is pretty

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solid. And I'm personally leaning towards this one just because like I

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want to play Bellatro with the slightly better mobile CPU that's in this guy.

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But if 600 bucks is outside of your price range, I've got kind of a treat

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for you because this guy, guess the price. Guess the price of what the

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slightly bigger one is, cuz this is a 15 or a 16in screen. Uh, like our other

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box, by the way, basically just Chromebook, charge cable, some other

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random ASUS stuff. Have you guessed it yet?

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>> $30. >> $30. This is the Asus CB CX15 15.6 in

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screen and >> fabric blue. And it's only 160 bucks.

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Like, I honestly can't believe the day

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and age we live in where I'm getting a laptop that's like this big, has an okay

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screen. Like, that's crazy. Now, that price is a little bit too good to be

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true. It's technically 220 at MSRP. However, ever since this thing launched

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at Walmart, you can get it for 160 and we do expect that sale to last for quite

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a long time. What do you get for 160 bucks? Well, we get a little less than

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on our more premium guy, but we've got one USBC, HDMI. Always really nice to

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see when you're trying to hook up uh to a monitor. And then uh USBA. And we've

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also got uh mic and headphone jack. Let's smudge this guy up. Barely any

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smudges. And I actually really like the aqua blue. Like that's one thing is uh I

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sticker bomb all my stuff cuz I like color. And this is way more up my alley

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in the sense that like it's a nice shiny pretty blue. Now it is bigger. We've got

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a whole extra like inch and a half of screen space here. So, it is going to be

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heavier, but it's really, you know, I can still one-hand it.

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I get to the pizza here. I'm going to guess 1,600 g. The other one was 1450.

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I'm so close, you guys. 1586. So, it's

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actually pretty light even though the screen is bigger. But, this does have a

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significantly weaker mobile processor in it. But, hey, the value is there cuz

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this thing is still going to do most of what that could do. And I will say I

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actually kind of like this keyboard a bit more just because it's more in line

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with what I'm used to because I tend to use Windows laptops. But we've got this

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little Google button here, which is basically the Windows button. We've also got a nice function and and alt layout

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here. Tell you right now, at least just based on the keyboards, I strongly

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prefer this one just cuz it's got like a numpad and we've got that Google button.

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Unlike the other one, like I said, you're getting a little less because you're paying for a lot less, but you're

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still getting Wi-Fi 6, 128 gigs of storage, I want to say. In this one,

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we're getting a slightly smaller battery. It's advertised as 3550

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milliamp hours, but we are getting a much more entry- level CPU with a

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Celeron N4500. This is a twothread chip

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running at like 2.8 GHz. Um, and we're only getting 4 gigs of memory, so

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significantly less memory as well. However, if you're doing a lot less, you

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don't need as much. So, like, let's bring up Okay, we've got a YouTube web

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page up. We're going to have the same like docs thing where I have a document

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up. And like don't get me wrong, there's definitely a bit more of a delay as I'm

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navigating just like Chrome tabs and whatnot and opening Google Docs, but the

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reality is this is like it's still totally usable. None of these are delays

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that upset me or anything like that. And as for the display, perfectly

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serviceable. Again, I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm just watching some 1080p

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video on a 15 16in screen, but it looks

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pretty good and it's getting bright enough. Like, we're talking about a workhorse here. And when you've got like

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a workhorse that needs to plow a field, you just wanted to do that thing and do

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it well. Let's check out the speakers really quick.

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That's enough crab rave, but that's about what I'd expect. Honestly, I'm

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pretty impressed. And so, you're going to be probably watching a lot of YouTube on this thing and just using like AI to

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summarize stuff for you. And that's great because it comes with 3 months of

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Google 1 AI Premium as well as YouTube Premium. Even at the 220 price, I think

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that's still a decent price, but man, if you can get this thing for 160, I think

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that's a steal. And I mean, it's honestly still pretty solid. We didn't

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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

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see on laptops because even at home, I keep like a sticky note over my webcam.

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It's got a physical privacy shutter. Boom. There it goes. Pretty decent

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quality overall. I think it's totally usable. I don't know how the microphone

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is because again I'm recording this into the laptop. So I'm going to have to play

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it back to actually know um how good the quality is, but I'm sure it's fine. And

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on top of the physical shutter for the webcam, it's got a Titan C security chip

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from Google just for that little bit of added peace of mind. And you know what

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else gives you some added peace of mind? Just how durable this thing is. They're saying it's military grade and that you

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know it can withstand tumbles and

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fumbles and drops. I bet you it's fine. Look at this. Boom.

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is great. As much as I love the value town that you're reaching with this guy,

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I probably lean towards the CX34, I mean, 600 bucks is definitely a higher

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price to pay, but, you know, it's a little bit more premium, too. So, pick

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whatever you like the most. Feel free to check out either of those or a few of

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Asus's other Chromebook models, which we'll have linked in the description below. Thanks again, ASUS, for

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sponsoring this video, and thanks for watching ShortCircuit. I'm Floof. These

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are Chromebooks.