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Unannounced ASUS C302CA-DHM4 Chromebook Hits Newegg, and It Looks Great (betanews.com) 109

Posted by msmash from the new-laptops dept.
An anonymous reader shares a BetaNews article: If you have been looking for a new Chromebook with some modern specifications and features, I have some good news. An all-new convertible touchscreen ASUS Chromebook has hit Newegg. Apparently, the company has not yet announced the laptop, making it quite the surprise. Called "C302CA-DHM4," it has solid specifications, looks great, and best of all, it is reasonably priced. Also cool is the fact that the Chromebook has a backlit keyboard -- very useful for those that work in the dark. It even features dual USB-C ports (also used for charging), but neither are USB 3.1 Gen 2 -- both are Gen 1, which is essentially the slower USB 3.0. If 64GB of onboard storage isn't enough, you can expand using the microSD card port. Luckily, this ASUS Chromebook comes with 4GB of RAM, which I consider the bare minimum nowadays. While some folks may pooh-pooh the Intel Core m3 processor as underpowered, I disagree -- it is a very capable chip. For Chrome OS in particular, I expect it to be quite nimble.
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Unannounced ASUS C302CA-DHM4 Chromebook Hits Newegg, and It Looks Great More

Unannounced ASUS C302CA-DHM4 Chromebook Hits Newegg, and It Looks Great

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  • Looks great? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Called "C302CA-DHM4," it has solid specifications, looks great...

    This thing looks like a MacBook ... which makes that statement heresy.

  • "if you have been looking for a new Chromebook" (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    No one ever has been looking for a Chromebook.
    It's still a mystery how and why they are sold.

    • They are great for schools. The OS is nearly impossible to compromise and they come with a full keyboard unlike an iPad. Plus you can buy two or three for whatever Apple charges.

    • Re:"if you have been looking for a new Chromebook" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jason Levine ( 196982 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2016 @08:58AM (#53559357) Homepage

      Actually, I've been in the market for a Chromebook for my 13 year old son. He uses Google Docs for schoolwork and the new capability of some Chromebooks to run Android apps means that he could do his "Android gaming" on the same laptop. Best of all, it won't break our tight budget. My current front-runner is the Acer Chromebook R11. (The R13 looks much nicer, but is a lot more money.)

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ubrgeek ( 679399 )
        I picked up the R13 and it was quite nice. TBH, nicer than I expected; first time hands-on with a Chromebook. I was contemplating giving my wife my MacBook Air, which I pretty much just use for surfing and using the CB instead, and desktop for real work. But the CB just didn't do it for me. Even with a different workflow I couldn't get past the lack of the Finder - which admitted isn't the best but it's a desktop and folder structure. I'm old and it's what I'm used to.

        • What's a "finder"? It has folders/files and an excellent file finding facility. There's no desktop, that's true.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by ubrgeek ( 679399 )
            I know it runs contrary to the design/intent of the Chromebook OS, but even something like a Downloads folder being missing messes with my workflow. I use the folder as basically a to-review-later folder. I know I could use Paper or something similar but it's not my current workflow. And, I'm old. ;)

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dwater ( 72834 )

              ..but it has a Downloads folder too. Are you sure you've actually used ChromeOS?

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by ubrgeek ( 679399 )
                Yup, certain of it ;) Like I said, it was sufficiently different that it was too disruptive of my I'm-old-get-off-of-my-lawn workflow. I certainly appreciated the concepts, but it just wasn't right for how I work.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by dwater ( 72834 )

                  ok, that's your choice, but it just seems like all your 'issues' aren't actually valid - at least, not any more. Perhaps it's time to have another look, especially now some are coming out that have some actual horsepower - it's surprising how much you need for even a half reasonable number of tabs/windows.

                  • Re: (Score:1)

                    by ubrgeek ( 679399 )
                    It's funny you say that. After reading your responses I said the exact same thing to my wife. Might be time to give it another shot. Thanks :)

      • It is confusing that Slashdot seems to fetishize the Chromebook: a touchscreen centric, cloud only, spyware ridden, closed ecosystem with 0 dev tools that can only run lightweight web apps, while constantly hating Windows 10 for being a touchscreen centric cloud friendly os, which occasionally phones home, has a full blown Linux subsystem accessible through bash and has one of the best suites of development tools available.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by epine ( 68316 )

          while constantly hating Windows 10 for being a touchscreen centric cloud friendly os, which occasionally phones home, has a full blown Linux subsystem accessible through bash and has one of the best suites of development tools available

          When the EULA reads "thou shalt bend over upon request", it seems misplaced to enthuse over the clover.

          One thing worse than picking up pennies in front of a steamroller [wikipedia.org] is picking up cherries under a gorilla (this includes old, tired, dissipated gorillas with weak bladders).

    • It's more or less a tablet with a touchpad and a proper hardware keyboard.

      I get 10+ hours of battery life from mine, it's light (plus the power supply is tiny), it was inexpensive, I don't have to worry about malware. When I'm visiting family over the holidays, or going somewhere for a couple of days, I don't need a full-blown laptop. I just need something that's a bit more comfortable and ergonomic than a smartphone, for web browsing, e-mail and Youtube videos.

      It's a straight-forward device for straight-fo

    • Re:"if you have been looking for a new Chromebook" (Score:4, Insightful)

      by kelemvor4 ( 1980226 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2016 @09:05AM (#53559385)

      No one ever has been looking for a Chromebook. It's still a mystery how and why they are sold.

      People who don't know anything about computers don't know that these are any different from a regular windows laptop. I know at least one person whose father bought one thinking it was a normal computer.

      For many people, a computer is a web browser and a web browser is a computer.

    • If your needs are basic productivity software, email, and web, it's a great option. I have two (and not coincidentally I have two kids). You can program Arduino from them, Lego makes Mindstorms software for them, Khan Academy works - even niche stuff like Quirkbots and the USB microscope. When the kids get "virus notifications" from shady web advertisements I can laugh and tell them to ignore it. If it gets Fubar'd (which hasn't happened), give it the secret salute on boot and it wipes it back to factory, r

      • If your needs are basic productivity software, email, and web, it's a great option.

        And if you want it to be a real computer then put Ubuntu on it. 64 GB of flash is plenty, the SD slot just sweetens the deal.

    • No one ever has been looking for a Chromebook.

      "No one," Anonymous Coward?

      This thread is full of examples of people who are happy with their Chromebooks.

  • 4 Gig ram, 64 gig SSD, 1080p display, 500 bucks. I'm sorry but most phones come with more storage and a multiple of that resolution. Even as a minimalist tool, a phone alone works better already. When doing serious writing or reading (a high resolution screen is pivotal when reading long, especially with technical documentation) its important to have a decent resolution screen, have a solid keyboard, have a local library and programs (which work also if the internet connection is off and where it is not l

    • Re:is it really that great? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by KozmoStevnNaut ( 630146 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2016 @09:05AM (#53559383)

      I don't care that whether a phone has the same or even higher resolution, as long as it's only ~5" big. 1080p at 5" and 1080p at 13" are two vastly different use cases. And web browsing on a phone is an absolutely horrible experience.

    • When doing serious writing or reading (a high resolution screen is pivotal when reading long, especially with technical documentation) its important to have a decent resolution screen.

      I disagree. I suspect that you still possess good eyesight in spite of the middle-aged-plus status suggested by your low user ID. I'm not so lucky. I have a 32" monitor with some godawful-high native resolution that makes most things tiny even on that big a screen. I run it at less than its native res, so it's not as sharp as it could be. Lower resolution would be better for me, and I'm far from being the only one in that position. And if you ARE as young as your apparently good vision would indicate, then

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Desler ( 1608317 )

        I run it at less than its native res, so it's not as sharp as it could be. Lower resolution would be better for me, and I'm far from being the only one in that position.

        Why wouldn't you just run the monitor at a higher DPI? DPI scaling is old hat at this point.

  • A slashvertisement? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by darthsilun ( 3993753 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2016 @09:07AM (#53559399)
    And Newegg has already pulled the listing. Double Fail.

  • Extremely shoddy hardware, with the cheapest possible components and glitchy, jerky operation owing to defects in communication between the glitchy slow components and other parts of the hardware. You would do much better to buy ACER or Lenovo, which is why they were the big winners in sales figures last year while ASUS did poorly.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drewsup ( 990717 )

      agreed, the Acer Chromebook 14 , while only having a celeron , seems a better deal, better looking too, why would i pay an extra 200 for an i3M ?

      • I bought my wife an Acer Chromebook, I think it has a 15 inch screen though. At any rate, she loves the thing. The Haswell? Celeron is very capable, the construction is good, has a nice bright 1080p IPS screen, the works. And all for 250 bucks. I'm not sure what the deal is with Acer as their Windows laptops in my experience suck but they make pretty good Chromebooks. It's like two different companies. I have a 10 inch Acer 2-in-1 I picked up on a whim a few months ago and it is horrible. The keyboard and t

        • My main concern about this device is that the Intel chip in it - at $281, amounts to 56% of the retail cost. Give me the same thing in ARM please, and pass the savings through.

    • Extremely shoddy hardware, with the cheapest possible components and glitchy, jerky operation owing to defects in communication between the glitchy slow components and other parts of the hardware.

      Haha, you're making that up. It would be bad business for Asus to put out a machine with weak components that break immediately, causing huge return bills and massive hit to reputation. For that reason, the low end is where you will find serious reliability... high return rate would break the business. (BTW, this doesn't apply to Dell, just avoid.)

      The dominant fact of life about this form factor is the thermal envelope, which limits the processor clock. Just suck it up... that's the cost of the sexy thin pr

  • That puppy costs 499$, While the specs are not bad, they are not that great either at that price point given that the system is nothing more than a browser on steroids.

    • Very good point. I agree $499 is way too high.

    • I thought half the point of a Chromebook was that it was supposed to be cheaper than a standard laptop? I'd say the sweet spot is around $800or so now, but you can pick from a number of pretty decent laptops for around $500.

      • I thought half the point of a Chromebook was that it was supposed to be cheaper than a standard laptop?

        I'm sure that was the case at first as they were going up against the extremely dominant Windows platform and they felt like positioning the Chromebook as, among other things, a value was a good way to get some market share. Now that they have traction and people are buying Chromebooks on other merits like security, ease of use, and simplicity, the OEMs are taking a shot at going up market. Now the message can be, you know that Chromebook you like so much, yet was slow and cheaply constructed? Well now by j

      • I thought half the point of a Chromebook was that it was supposed to be cheaper than a standard laptop?

        This form factor is more like an ultrabook, so compare to that.

  • Fool me once*, shame on you. Fool me twice**, can't get fooled again. Fuck you Asus!

    *with the Transformer Prime and it's shitty ass WiFi, and GPS so bad you actually expected me to use a dongle to get a usable GPS signal

    **with the Transformer Infinity, and it's piece of shit software upgrades (and from what I understand to be somehow due to inferior memory bandwidth?) that render the thing slower and slower with every update, to the point that I can do a factory reset on my Inifinity, install absolutely no

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