First Impressions: Asus Chromebook Flip
Posted on July 23, 2015 Posted by John Scalzi 17 Comments
I have a number of Chromebooks here at the house — some of you might remember I was given a CR-48, the beta version of the Chromebook, by Google back in the day — and I like them quite a bit for what they are, which are cheap and cheerful computer terminals that back up to a mainframe we now call “the cloud.” We have a few around the house and I use them for casual writing and cruising the Web, and Athena and her classmates use them at school for classwork. They’re a good solution for a lot of things that people use computers for.
My most recent Chromebook was an HP 11-incher which has developed a couple of problems — its charging cord isn’t working anymore and every other cord I get for it say it’s “charging at low power” and the trackpad is getting wonky — so I was planning to do an upgrade soon. Then Asus brought out the Chromebook Flip, a Chromebook that has a 10-inch touchscreen that you can flip over and use as a tent display or a tablet, with 4GB of memory, all for less than $300. The reviews have been pretty good, so I thought I’d check it out. It arrived yesterday evening and I’ve been playing with it, as a laptop and a tablet, since then.
So far? I’m pretty impressed. It’s slightly smaller than the Chromebooks I’ve been used to; you might not think there’s a big different between a ten-inch device and an eleven-inch device, but it turns out there is, and as a consequence I’m doing a tiny bit of retraining my brain where all the keys are on the keyboard, which is a bit more cramped than on my other Chromebooks. This is a pretty minor thing and I don’t have a monster hands in any event. The track pad is also very nice, if small. Acclimate yourself to the idea that everything on this thing is a little small, and you’ll be okay.
What I really like is that when you flip it over and use it as a tablet, it’s a size that makes sense to be a tablet — big enough to give you real estate to look at, not so large that the whole thing feels horribly awkward in your hands. As a point of comparison, I also own the Dell XPS 12, which has a screen which you can also flip over and use as a tablet. It’s a great laptop which I highly recommend (or did; Dell retired it for the also apparently excellent XPS 13), but I almost never use it in tablet mode because the 12.5-inch screen is just too big, and the whole package weighs in at over three pounds, which is a lot in that form factor.
The screen here, on the other hand, is 10.1 inches — basically, it’s a ten-inch tablet. The whole thing comes in at under two pounds, so it’s easy to walk about with it in tablet mode, or to sit with it in bed in that format. The 1200×800 screen isn’t brilliant compared to other mobile devices, but it’s fine and on par with first generation tablets. In fact, the whole thing basically feels like a first-gen iPad in your hand. It’s not as modular as a typical tablet — everything still runs through the browser because this is ChromeOS, not Android — but if what you’re mostly doing is browsing the Web, I don’t think you’ll notice much difference. There’s an onscreen keyboard in Tablet mode that will be very familiar to Android users.
The hinge that you use to transform the computer is nicely stiff, at least so far; we’ll see how it holds up to lots of use. In tablet mode, the keyboard disables itself and faces outward, opposite the screen. I understand some people find this weird and maybe a little uncomfortable, but honestly it didn’t bother me. Some of the reviews I’ve seen have griped about the screen’s large bezels; I agree they could be smaller, but then again in tablet mode they give you a decent amount of space to grip the thing without activating the screen, so again, I think it’s fine. The touchscreen itself is pretty good. I haven’t had any problems with touches not registering, or stuttering when I scroll. I suspect it might actually be a better as a touchscreen than the screen on my XPS 12, which was rather more expensive (but admittedly, released a couple of years ago).
Other notes: The body of the Flip is aluminum, not plastic, which makes it look and feel nice. The keyboard, aside from its being a little small, is responsive and about as good as you’re going to get on a device this size. The keys are not backlit, but if you’re expecting backlit for under $300, then bless your heart, I’d say (I would still love a Chromebook with a backlit keyboard, though).
Two USB ports, HDMI mini out and SD mini card in. Battery life seems to be pretty good so far (but it’s waaay too early for me to say). For what I use Chromebooks for, it’s handling everything I’m throwing it, but as with any Chromebook, don’t expect miracles with multimedia or standalone programs; again, this is a terminal, not a full-featured standalone laptop. If you’re looking at these things, I really do recommend spending the extra $20 for the 4GB model. The internal storage is 16GB (utterly standard), but you can add via the mini SD port, and everything is designed to store to the cloud in any event. In all the years I’ve been using Chromebooks, running out of storage on the laptop has never ever been a problem.
All of which is to say that if you’ve been waiting for a perfectly good Chromebook that you can also use as a perfectly good tablet, and for under $300 to boot, this is going to probably work for you really well. I like it a lot, and will probably use it for wandering about the house and also for short trips where I know a) I’m going to have a consistent Internet connection, b) I won’t have to be doing a whole of work that relies on specific programs. This covers a surprisingly large number of trips. I don’t think I’d write a full novel on it; but I might write a few pages of one, while I was traveling.
More details later if my opinion changes substantially, but so far: Thumbs up.
For those curious: I wrote this review on the Chromebook Flip itself.
Thanks for reviewing this, John. I’m looking for a replacement for my laptop+iPad for short travel stints, and I think that something like this is exactly what I’m looking for.
Just how well suited is ChromeOS for a touchscreen environment? I picked up an ASUS Transformer running Windows 8.1 a couple months back. So far, it’s been exactly the kind of tablet I wanted: one which handles media well, but on which I can do actual computer stuff. As maligned as “Metro” is, Windows 8 makes remarkably effective use of the one-hand touchscreen interface. However, Chrome is still my browser of choice, but I find myself struggling with it using touch controls. Too often, it’s easier to just reattach the keyboard/touchpad to do browsing.
I agree about backlit keyboards. I bought a Chromebook for about $125 at Christmas and didn’t realize how useful backlighting would be until I had it awhile. Looking online at the time, there were only one or two that offered backlighting and they were very expensive in comparison. I keep hoping that they will make this a standard feature. It doesn’t cost much to add. I’m surprised that they don’t have it on more Chromebooks.
I’ve long liked the idea of the Chromebook: lightweight and inexpensive, good performance, data storage in the cloud (and via USB drives and SD cards). If there were something similar that was compatible with Mac apps—because those are the tools I use, and I’m heavily invested there—I’d be very interested in trying one out.
docrocketscience:
I’ve been having no problem with the ChromeOS interface in tablet format, but again I’m primarily in the browser, and not trying to use a lot of the Chrome Apps (which in most cases are just shortcuts to Web pages/sites anyway). If you like Win8, I would say stick with that — until next week, anyway, when Win10 comes out.
For your HP, did you get “charging only” cables? They have the data pins shorted, which means that it’s okay to pull full power, beyond the base USB spec, without negotiation. You can also get little dongles that do the shorting to convert any USB cable into data only.
Yes, I got charging only cables (more accurately, I got dedicated chargers).
I lurve my Chromebook. It’s a first-gen Samsung.I did have to replace my charger (got a cheap off-brand one that works fine) but I am notoriously rough on chargers. I always ruin them at the end that plugs into the machine. So YMMV.
I really don’t need a full computer. I’ve got a console to play games on the big TV. I don’t write books or reports. I can tote this baby in a manila envelope. I read my email, surf the web, blog, Google Plus (it’s FB minus the stupid) make short documents, download stuff (I’ve yet to run out of internal memory after 2.5 years, incl. two Hugo packets), and can Chromecast anything to the TV if I want to see it big. It’s even somewhat useful when you don’t have wi-fi.
I think it would be ideal for kids, non-techie senior citizens, etc. You can’t write a novel or run Excel (though it does have spreadsheets, a Powerpoint knockoff, word processor, elementary paint program). Updating the software takes a one-minute reboot whenever they tell you to.
It’s just the best.
what do you use to write your novels? Thanks
$3.4 million contract and all you bought is a cheap laptop. Sport the bling. Iif you really want to piss off your critics show up at cons with gold chains. Get a diamond earring like Michael Jordan. Will drive the gamergaters crazy and that will be worth the expense.
I love me some ASUS. Absolutely adore my Transformer laptop, great hardware. They seem like a company that take intelligent risks. Which are, of course, the best kind of risks.
Guess:
“if you really want to piss off your critics show up at cons with gold chains.”
Eh, I piss off my critics enough by simply existing. Also, gold doesn’t look great on me.
I bought an Asus C201(?) for going to Berlin and Prague last month. I normally travel with a MacBook Air but wanted to cut weight and reduce theft vulnerability, I’d be a lot less concerned about having a $200 Chromebook stolen rather than my $2000 Air. The Chromebook was an excellent replacement, I installed a 64 gig card and will be upgrading it to Linux soon. All I used it for was web surfing, email, uploading pix to Facebook and my web site (I shot some 1300 images between my Canon 6D and my Lumix) and copying the day’s photos to multiple flash drives for backups. Three days in Dresden were a fantastic time and highly recommended: they have a porcelain carillon!
Do you have enough drive-time with an iPad to compare one with a Bluetooth keyboard to your Chromebook ? (other than price, of course)
dhuff:
I have an iPad 3 with a logitech keyboard. I like it just fine but I find the keyboard not being physically attached means it’s not a great substitute for an actual laptop.
John: “For those curious: I wrote this review on the Chromebook Flip itself.”
Ah, that’s why it was so positive – the GooglePRReWrite app :)
Thanks for the review – I’ll probably get one of those when my iPad bites the dust.