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Asus Chromebook Flip review

Chromebooks are not sexy. Cheap, plasticky and functional — yes — but not sexy.

Asus' all-aluminum Chromebook Flip is arguably the sleekest Chromebook that's not the uber-pricey Chromebook Pixel 2. But the Flip isn't just a laptop. It's also a tablet and a display with a stand thanks to its hinge that rotates 360 degrees.

The Flip's powerful enough for work at a desk, great for surfing the web while lazing around on the couch and perfect for binging through Orange Is The New Black in bed.

Starting at $249, the Flip sounds perfect, but is it? Almost.

Looks more expensive than it is

Let's get design out of the way because it's the first thing you'll notice as soon as you take the Flip out of its wonderful eco-friendly box. Yes, the cardboard box is worthy of a few words; it's made from wheat straw and the text is printed with soy ink.

The Flip is a remarkable piece of hardware when you consider its price. The aluminum body is solid even though there is some flex to it and the edges are chamfered. It's similar to Asus' Transformer tablet/laptop hybrid devices, except the top half doesn't have the company's signature spun-metal design; I actually prefer the Flip's design over the Transformer's.

Unlike plastic Chromebooks where I don't care, even a little, if it falls off my bed or off a table, I definitely cringed when I almost dropped it going up the stairs at work. (I did save it in time, so no dents!)

Runs like every Chromebook

Internally, the Flip has your typical budget Chromebook specs: a 1.8GHz quad-core Rockchip processor, 16GB of internal storage, two USB 2.0 ports, a Micro HDMI port for connecting to an external monitor and a microSD card reader for storage expansion. The $249 model comes with 2GB of RAM. I tested the slightly more expensive $299 model with 4GB of RAM.

Those aren't weak specs per se, as I wrote in my review for the $150 Hisense Chromebook — good enough for surfing the web and light multitasking — but you won't be able to do as much as you would on a $500 Windows laptop with a better processor and lots more storage.

The Chromebook Flip runs Chrome OS. Image: Mashable, Miles Goscha

The Flip runs Chrome OS, which isn't as full-featured as OS X or Windows, but still a capable enough operating system for general computing.

By general, I mean browsing the web, streaming YouTube videos, listening to music through online services like Spotify and Google Music, and using Gmail and Google Docs. All of these things work without fail and you can load up 10 tabs or so before Chrome starts to choke (it's going to be even fewer on the 2GB model).

Storing files in the cloud used to be a crutch, but not these days. Lots of devices, especially Chromebooks, ship with as little storage as possible in order to keep prices low. With Google Drive, you can get tons of free storage for all your files and Google Photos stores an unlimited amount of photos and videos for free, so long as you're fine with photos being capped at 16-megapixels and video at 1080p full HD resolution.

At the end of the day, Google's cloud services have made it extremely convenient to work and live completely online more than ever. And if Google Drive isn't enough, you can also get Dropbox, Amazon Cloud Storage or Microsoft's OneDrive. Or pick up a microSD card for local storage expansion.

I wanted to complain about the slower USB 2.0 ports and the Micro HDMI port (versus a full-sized HDMI), but in all honesty, I realized I never use thumb drives with Chromebooks — all my data is in the cloud. I can also live with the Micro HDMI port as well — adapters cost $4.

Convertible modes

The Flip's convertible design isn't original by any means. Lenovo's Yoga laptop was the first of its kind that could be transformed into three other positions. HP's since copied the idea, too.

Borrowed design idea aside, the Flip is the first Chromebook with the flippable hinge. In most cases, you'll keep it in laptop mode. Fold the laptop all the way back and it turns into a tablet. Fold the screen back to about 90 degrees from the laptop mode and it becomes a kiosk-like stand — great for the bedside table or kitchen counter. Lastly, fold the screen to around 315 degrees and it can be propped up like a tent.

The Flip can be positioned in any way you want. Image: Mashable, Miles Goscha

The Flip is a decent laptop. I'm used to using 11.6-inch Chromebooks (most are), so the Flip's 10.1-inch display felt a little cramped to me. I can't help but feel Asus could have squeezed a larger screen into the Flip instead of saddling it with thick black bezels.

The 1,280 x 800 resolution is nice and sharp and like most low-priced Chromebooks, the display could stand to be brighter. Half-brightness is far too dim and setting it at full brightness burns the battery quicker. The screen's IPS, so it does have wide viewing angles as well.

The Flip's small dimensions mean there's not enough room for a full-sized keyboard; Asus says the keyboard is 97% the size of a regular one. The 3% difference may sound forgivable, but I'm telling you it's not. I found the Chiclet-style keys on the Flip too tiny to touch type at my normal speed and I had to peck more with my fingers. The Hisense Chromebook, despite its $150 starting price, has a better keyboard.

When I review laptops, I usually try to type my entire review (or most of it) to get a good feel for the keyboard, but I couldn't get past 500 words with all the typos I was making.

The trackpad is also really great as far as Chromebooks are concerned. It, too, is a little small, but I could still perform two-finger scrolls with space to spare. I did experience a few laggy points of input, but nothing that I would say qualifies as broken.

The Flip is a great tablet, especially for watching movies. Image: Mashable, Miles Goscha

As a tablet, the Flip is pretty neat since the touchscreen is super responsive. Obviously, since it's running Chrome OS, it doesn't have access to all of the tablet apps from Android. You can run some Android apps like Vine on Chrome OS, but I had problems doing so. Android apps were either buggy or didn't work properly. For instance, Vine constantly crashed; when it did load it only showed my feed, but couldn't access the web cam. In comparison, I had no such problem with Vine on the much more powerful Chromebook Pixel 2.

Besides watching videos and movies, I really enjoyed being able to browse my RSS feeds through Feedly in portrait mode since you get more vertical resolution.

Asus says the Flip can last up to 10 hours on a single charge. I never got 10 hours — the most I ever got was eight — and it varies depending on the mode. But eight hours is about on par with other Chromebooks.

More Chromebooks like the Flip, please

I don't own any Chromebooks. Of the many computers I own, a Chromebook just doesn't fit into my arsenal. I also can't stand budget devices that look and feel cheap.

The Asus Flip is the first Chromebook that fits the premium description I crave, without breaking the bank. (Sorry, but I can't justify forking over $1,000-plus for the Chromebook Pixel 2, as lovely as that laptop is.)

I can't vouch for the $249 model with the 2GB of RAM (it should perform similarly to the Hisense Chromebook), but the $299 model is one of the best Chromebooks in the price range, if you can overlook the smaller keyboard.