The Retina MacBook is a really fantastic netbook. Unfortunately, it also costs north of $1,000, which is an unconscionable amount of money to pay for a portable Netflix machine.
That’s why I’m interested in a recently-leaked Asus Chromebook. According to a Newegg listing spotted by ChromeUnboxed and then quickly pulled down, the ASUS C302CA is a 12.5-inch, 1080p touchscreen Chromebook with a thin aluminum chassis, reversible display and Intel m3 processor.
There should hopefully be versions with 4GB and 8GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, 2 USB-C ports and a microSD slot. If that all comes in at the leaked price of $500, it could be an awesome portable PC.
Chrome OS is still not quite as capable as macOS or Windows 10, but if you assume this is going to mostly be used for web browsing and document editing in Google Docs, I don’t think you’ll be too limited by software. Provided you can get a version with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage (or at least add some more storage with a microSD), it should provide 99% of the functionality of the MacBook for half the price.
You can expect to see the full details on display at the annual techfest known as CES, which takes place early next month.
