CES 2020 | Project Athena and NVMe SSDs come to Chromebooks with the Asus Chromebook Flip C436

So far, Asus's Chromebook Flip series including the Chromebook Flip C433 and C434 sported low-power Intel CPUs. Now, Asus has introduced the Chromebook Flip C436 powered by Intel Comet Lake-U processors and other upgraded internals that should make for a smooth Chrome OS experience. 

The Asus Chromebook Flip C436 is among the first Chromebooks to be certified for Project Athena. This basically guarantees that the device will conform to certain specifications for a responsive computing experience. Accordingly, the Chromebook Flip C436 is made of a lightweight magnesium alloy chassis that weighs just 1.1 kg and features a 14-inch NanoEdge FHD touch display with thin bezels (85% screen-to-body ratio). The display covers 100% sRGB and is also compatible with USI styluses with 4,096 pressure levels for pen input. 

The device is powered by Comet Lake-U CPUs with options including the Core i3-10110U, Core i5-10210U, and the Core i7-10510U. The Flip C436 can be configured with 8 GB or 16 GB LPDDR3 2166 RAM options and PCIe NVMe Gen3 storage ranging from 128 GB up to 512 GB. The NVMe drive operates in x2 mode and not x4 mode, which is still plenty fast for a Chromebook and is a much better solution than the paltry eMMC options often seen in most models.

There is no Gigabit Ethernet port, but onboard Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 should take care of most online tasks. Physical ports include two USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C ports, a microSD card reader (up to 2 TB), and a combo audio jack. Additionally, the Flip C436 also incorporates a fingerprint reader for security, and four omni-directional Harmon-Kardon-certified speakers to help with good audio when used in any of the convertible modes. The bundled 42 Wh battery is expected to offer up to 12 hours of runtime. 

Pricing and availability of the Asus Chromebook Flip C436 are yet to be announced but if the previous Flip C434 launch is anything to go by, expect to see the C436 in shelves sometime in March.