Asus Chromebook Flip CX5 (CX5500) Review

Chromebooks have in most cases settled into the 13in house, with occasional smaller units providing higher portability. This implies that the ones in search of a bigger computer were left with little to make a choice from during the last few years, however Asus has stepped into the breach with its new Flip CX5 that boasts a beneficiant 15.6in show.

Design & Build

• 358 x 24 x 19mm dimensions
• 1.95kg weight
• Aluminium lid and plastic base

As you could be expecting, the Flip CX5 (CX5500) is a little of a beast. I’ve reviewed many Chromebooks just lately, and the development is against swish, light-weight units. Asus throws this out the window and delivers one thing somewhat other.

The expansive 358 x 24 x 19mm chassis is definitely the most important I’ve encountered for a tool working Chrome OS, to not point out the hefty 1.95kg at which it guidelines the scales. This isn’t your standard, chuck it for your backpack and omit about it Chromebook, however that’s in no way a nasty factor. 

With such a lot of people operating extra from house in this present day of Covid, having a honking giant computer isn’t actually a subject as we handiest have to hold it from the kitchen to the lounge. Plus, a larger show would possibly assist with drained eyes and sore necks that get up from being hunched over smaller displays.

The design itself is somewhat horny, even though, with the aluminium alloy lid lined in a subject matter that Asus states offers it ‘a sublime, ceramic-like texture for a gradual, easy aesthetic’.

Of route, advertising and marketing discuss is in most cases reminiscent of a few LCD-tripping creator with a penchant for poetic license, however the matt white end at the best of the CX5 is modest and blank taking a look, damaged up handiest by way of a silver Asus emblem within the centre, the matt gray Chromebook brand within the best left nook, and the 2 glossy Chrome hinges (which I’ll communicate extra about later) that connect it to the ground of the body.  

Between those, at the rear fringe of the CX5, is house to a protracted line of oblong openings for the interior enthusiasts to expel air, making it glance one thing like a huge harmonica, whilst the bottom options extra grilles for air flow and the dual downward-firing audio system.

Rubber toes make sure that grip whilst on a table, aided by way of the burden of the tool itself. Yes, it’s giant, however the CX5 has a contemporary, minimalist enchantment that may undoubtedly in finding favour with the ones bored of the continual silver laptops that dominate the panorama in this day and age.

Keyboard & Trackpad

• Full-size, backlit keyboard
• Number pad
• Good trackpad

The more space on be offering method Asus has been in a position not to handiest are compatible a full-size backlit keyboard, however it’s additionally sandwiched in a number-pad house. This is slightly cramped, with skinny buttons, and to be fair, turns out one thing of a fudge.

The primary keyboard is at ease to sort on, with first rate journey which means while you’ve hit the keys. But because of the number-pad, it’s offset relatively than immediately below the show, which whilst no longer ordinary for this type of format, simply feels flawed for a Chromebook.

There’s a explanation why Apple by no means places number-pads on MacBooks, because it unbalances the design, leaving customers typing to the left of centre, which isn’t perfect.

Plus, the number-pad itself isn’t that simple to make use of because of the smaller keys, so it doesn’t absolutely justify the inclusion. To be fair, attaching a USB number-pad could be a greater resolution and would make the CX5 a miles nicer tool to make use of however that could be a some other factor to hold round.

The trackpad, once more offset to the left, is clean and spacious, with first rate click on responses and normal accuracy. It’s laborious to discover a dangerous trackpad on Chromebooks this present day, and this unquestionably doesn’t trade that tale. 

One factor I wasn’t anticipating used to be a rather raised edge the place the black keyboard faceplate meets the white chassis that holds it in position. This creates a coarse floor that you’ll really feel below your fingers as you progress them clear of the keyboard.

There also are two rubber strips, clearly there to stay the show from touching the keyboard, which can also graze towards the outside, even though no longer whilst you’re typing. It’s no longer one thing I’ve encountered just lately with laptops and does counsel that over the years the sign up for may open up, which might permit mud and particles to go into the tool. Plus, it simply provides slightly discomfort to the usage of the device. It’s no longer painful or the rest like that, however feels affordable and poorly designed.

Also, the black faceplate is a nightmare for fingerprints, with the matt-surface selecting them up immediately once you contact it. I realized glossy spaces showing at the palm rests and one of the most keys too, after only some days’ use. This would counsel that the skin may put on briefly, leaving it a two-tone aesthetic of glossy and matt spaces very quickly in any respect. 

Screen & Speakers

• 15.6in Full HD IPS
• Thin bezels
• Touchscreen

Now, the cause of this wealth of steel and plastic is the 15.6in display that greets you while you open the lid. Asus calls this a NanoEdge show because of the skinny bezels that run alongside the 2 flanks of the IPS panel and the rather fatter on around the best that has to deal with the 720p webcam, which provides the CX5 an 81% screen-to-body ratio. 

The show itself is Full HD (1920 x 1080), with a most brightness of 250 nits. This implies that issues glance pin-sharp, with excellent colors, however you’ll battle to paintings out of doors in vivid daylight. As it is a touchscreen too, with the necessary shiny display, you’ll wish to keep away from sturdy assets of sunshine if you’ll, in a different way you’ll finally end up doing the hinge-dance to check out and keep away from any glares. 

Thankfully, you do have somewhat a variety of angles to make a choice from, because the hinges at the CX5 paintings via 360 levels, permitting you to make use of the tool in the usual computer mode, stand it up in tent mode for looking at motion pictures at the 16:9 side ratio widescreen show, or wrap it proper spherical to shape a tablet-style tool, albeit one who’s unwieldy and some distance too heavy to make use of for lengthy. 

A show mode the place the keyboard is dealing with the table could also be conceivable and will also be to hand in puts like trains the place you may have a small desk to put it on – so long as you don’t want the keyboard.

You can use a appropriate USI 1.0 usual stylus to make notes, annotate paperwork, or doodle away on one of the most apps that enhance such behaviour. It’s additionally a pleasant method to navigate across the working device in the event you fancy a transformation. Yes, there’s no longer lots of a very powerful actions you’ll do with the stylus, however it doesn’t harm that you’ve that as an choice.

Below the keyboard you’ll see the emblem ‘Sound By harman/kardon’ which is a great signal. This is subsidized up while you pay attention to track or flow video at the CX5 as the quantity is loud, simply filling a room, whilst heading off being shrill.

Yes, there’s nonetheless a lack of any severe bass like maximum laptops, however the sound separation method you get a 3-D impact that presentations off the combination in songs and lets in film soundtracks to stay an immersive part. It’s about as excellent as you’re going to get in a tool at this worth. 

Specs & Performance

• Eleventh-gen Intel Core i3
• 8GB RAM
• 128GB PCIe SSD

My assessment style is provided with an Eleventh technology (Tiger Lake) dual-core Intel Core i3-1115G4 processor clocked at 3GHz that may spice up to 4.1GHz. Tiger Lake chips introduced again within the Autumn of 2020, and we haven’t noticed many in Chromebooks to this point, with the CX5 and HP Chromebook X360 14C being the one two but to reach in our trying out lab to this point.

This is paired up with 8GB LPDDR4 and 128GB M.2 NVME PCIe 3.0 SSD, which is a lot of house for a Chromebook, as nearly all of information and device is meant to be saved within the cloud. To facilitate this, Google will provide you with 100GB of unfastened garage on its Google One Cloud provider for three hundred and sixty five days, through which time you’ll understand how highest to make use of the platform.

The aggregate of elements does a excellent activity of preserving the whole thing transferring alongside all of a sudden. During on a regular basis use, surfing the internet, streaming leisure content material, scripting this assessment and different duties of a identical ilk, the CX5 used to be a cast performer with out a stutters or system defects. 

Playing video games used to be a combined bag. PUBG labored neatly, with responsive controls and a tight body price, however as I’ve noticed with different Chromebooks, the detection of the Android emulator brought about issues, with the sport periodically throwing me out.

Trying the gentler Alto’s Odyssey used to be a sadness, as the sport stuttered so badly it used to be totally unplayable. I’m assuming that is because of the Android emulator all over again, so in the event you’re making an allowance for purchasing the CX5 as a gaming device it’s possible you’ll wish to persist with products and services like Google Stadia (for which you get a 3-month unfastened trial incorporated with the CX5) and Nvidia GeForce Now which each paintings on Chromebooks.

For those that like benchmarks, the CX5 attained 1123 (single-core) and 2505 (multi-core) on Geekbench 5, 1114 in Basemark 3.0, and 149 on Jetstream 2. This places it best of the checklist in the case of rankings, making it the quickest Chromebook I’ve encountered to this point. 

Should you need to spice up the ones rankings even additional, then you’ll go for the Core i5 or Core i7 variations that include a most of 16GB of RAM and 512GB of garage. But, I believe it’s secure to mention that this Core i3 configuration will have to be sufficient for many customers.

Ports & Connectivity

For this sort of huge tool, you could be expecting an enormous number of ports, however Asus has been relatively restrained on this house.

You do get two USB-C ports, one USB-A, 3.5mm headphone jack, a microSD slot, plus a HDMI port. It’s a excellent vary of choices that are supposed to swimsuit most of the people’s wishes, and you’ll at all times connect a USB hub if you wish to have extra connections.  

If you favor the wi-fi path then you definately’ll be capable of benefit from the Bluetooth 5 and WiFi 6 features presented by way of the CX5. 

Battery Life

• 57Wh Li-ion battery
• 45W apapter
• USB-C Charging port

Buried within the chassis of the CX5 is a 57Wh Li-ion battery that delivers a tight point of staying power for the computer. In our usual streamed HD video loop check, the Chromebook went from 100% right down to 0 in round 9 hours and 40 mins.

That’s a decent end result, which will have to simply see you remaining all over a full-working day with no need to be close to an influence socket. 

Should you set up to exhaust the battery, then plugging the 45W AC adapter into one of the most USB-C charging ports for thirty mins will go back you to 45%, whilst the entire price is replenished in round one hour and fifteen mins. 

Software

• ChromeOS
• Offline features
• Online variations of widespread device

If you’ve learn this some distance then I’m presuming you realize what a Chromebook is. If no longer, then it’s a computer that runs on Google’s ChromeOS working device. This is essentially centered on the net, with many of the methods you employ all being on-line variations.

You received’t get the full-fat Word or Photoshop enjoy, even though you’ll use stripped again iterations. Instead, the Google suite of workplace gear and the Chrome browser itself opens up an enormous quantity of features for those trendy machines. 

The interface is just like the usage of Chrome however with a document supervisor hooked up and that simplicity makes it simple to familiarize yourself with them very quickly in any respect.

If you don’t use pro-level programs or have very particular device wishes, then you definately’ll in all probability discover a Chromebook can do the whole thing you need, all with the safety that viruses and malware are a miles decrease possibility than on a Windows PC. 

You too can use a spread of the apps while you’re offline, corresponding to Google Docs, which is able to then sync up any adjustments while you reconnect to a community. For extra rationalization on what you’ll do with a ChromeOS tool, learn what’s a Chromebook and will have to I purchase one?

Price & Availability

Asus provides the Flip CX5 CX5500 Chromebook for £649.99 in the United Kingdom, however on the time of writing you should handiest get the Core i5 model with 16GB of RAM in the US, with a price ticket of US$869.99 or US$892.99 at Insight.

Of route, the Flip CX5 is to be had from a lot of different outlets, with Argos and Very pricing it at £499.99 in the United Kingdom. John Lewis has it for a similar worth or the Core i5 for £599.99. Over at Amazon you’ll get a unfastened FitBit Inspire 2 for £557.98.

In the USA, Newegg has it for US$683 (transport from Canada) and Amazon only has the similar CX5400 at US$724.99 on the time of writing. Meanwhile, Best Buy has an an identical taking a look tool, even though referred to as the ‘C536EA’, for an important US$469.99.

This places it in the similar bracket because the superb HP Chromebook X360 14cc, which once more prices £599.99 in the United Kingdom or US$519.99 immediately from HP USA, and Google’s personal Pixelbook which you’ll select up for £629/US$649. 

To see the opposite units vying for the highest spot, ensure that to try our information to the most efficient Chromebooks. 

Verdict

The Asus Flip CX5 Chromebook is a combined bag. Its Tiger Lake processor guarantees that issues run rapid and clean for the majority of actions, even though I did enjoy some unusual issues of some video games.

Battery lifestyles could also be excellent, with round ten hours from a unmarried price, plus the massive display is a pleasant length for operating on paperwork, spreadsheets and streaming content material. 

That being mentioned, the display is simply too dim to make use of out of doors on a vivid day, plus the reflective nature of touchscreens too can motive issues in that setting.

While the keyboard is first rate, the small keys at the quantity pad make it really feel too compromised to be helpful, particularly when it spoils the Chromebook ethos of simplicity by way of skewing the design off to at least one facet. 

Worst of all is the tough edges across the edges of the keyboard plate, which really feel like a susceptible level within the building and may briefly transform a subject. 

If you need energy and a big display, then the Flip CX5 delivers, however it does so with some curious caveats. One to check out before you purchase if you’ll.

Specs

Asus Chromebook Flip CX5 (CX5500): Specs

• Chrome OS
• 15.6in IPS FHD show (1920 x 1080), 16:9, 250 nits most brightness, 81% display to physique ratio, touchscreen, stylus appropriate
• Intel Core i3-1115G4 Processor 3GHz (6M Cache, as much as 4.1 GHz, 2 cores)
• Intel UHD Graphics
• 8G LPDDR4 on board
• 128GB M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD
• 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
• 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C enhance show / energy supply
• 1x HDMI 2.0a
• Micro SD card reader
• Backlit Chiclet Keyboard with Num-key, 1.4mm Key-travel
• 720p HD digicam
• Dual harmon/kardon audio system
• Wi-Fi 6
• Bluetooth 5
• 57WHrs, 3S1P, 3-cell Li-ion battery
• Titan C Security Chip
• 358 x 24 x 19mm
• 4.3lbs/1.95kgs