It’s not hard to find great reviews of the Asus Chromebook Flip [UK Link]. Whether, from a big name site such as Engadget or lesser known sites, its not hard to find an overall positive review. What you may have noticed, is how they tend to focus on use in laptop mode and skim the Asus Chromebook Flip tablet functionality. This is where this article steps in, as I’ll be looking at the tablet functionality (with a little help from Itchy) to help those considering buying the Flip.

Look and Feel

Thankfully, when you flip the keyboard back it is disabled. This is really important as when you hold the Chromebook Flip as a tablet you cannot help but depress the keys. If there was an option to enable the keyboard it would be a nightmare.

In hand as a tablet the Asus Chromebook Flip tablet is a little bit cumbersome when compared to the iPad. It is a fair bit thicker and at 880g it is unlikely you will hold it in one hand for too long. The wide bezel around the screen ensures that holding with two hands isn’t a dexterity challenge as it’s easy to keep it in hand without accidentally pressing the touchscreen display. Some may long for a narrower bezel, but for me the proportions work.

The Chromebook Flip also feels robust. There is no plastic-y feel or bendy-ness whilst being held that gets in the way of a positive experience – well done Asus.

Responsiveness

I’ve been using the Asus Chromebook Flip for a couple of weeks now and find that the screen rotation can be laggy. Thats not to say it doesn’t get there eventually, just you sometimes need to give it a shake to get it to operate in portrait from landscape. As portrait is my preferred mode of tablet use, this is a niggle, but not a deal breaker. I suspect that is less to do with the responsiveness of the processor and more to do with other components – such as the internal gyroscopic sensor.

Onscreen Keyboard

The onscreen keyboard responds as well as onscreen Android keyboards – which to the very observant can feel slow. Therefore, if you are coming from iOS and are used to typing super fast, you may need to slow up a little, not much, just a little. But, if you are holding the tablet and typing with two thumbs, I’d be surprised if you found this problematic.

When required, the onscreen keyboard appears promptly and you can choose layouts with a few screen presses. For most situations the compact layout gives everything you need, however it’s useful to be able to access a full keyboard layout and have access to Cap Lock, Ctrl, Alt etc…

Just like Android, you can also get a full set of Emoticons via the keyboard – great for Hangouts.

The Shelf

One neat design touch is the shelf. You can easily swipe it in and out to make the most of the screen real estate. I have my shelf on the right anyway, but it appears to be there by default on the Asus Chromebook Flip. This works well, no matter if you hold the tablet in landscape or portrait mode.

Reading eBooks

Whether you are reading books from the Play Store or Kindle Cloud Reader once you’ve switched the view to fullscreen you have a very capable eBook reader. Everything formats well and just like a Kindle you can use onscreen presses to move about your book. Swiping between pages is not an option from either Play Store or Kindle Cloud Reader apps.

Watching Films / Listening to Music

I’ve found that if I want to watch a film, tv show or listen to some music that I use the keyboard / hinge arrangement to get the device into either tent mode or stand mode. These show of the strength of the hinge and demonstrate how versatile this little beauty is.

Being as my music either comes from Google or Amazon – which both have very capable cloud players, I’ve had no issues getting used to using the Asus Chromebook Flip for playback. The speakers are decent quality – but not terribly loud. This means they are good for listening along whilst working, but aren’t going to start the party.

I’ve had to rip the DRM from iTunes movies I own, so that I can play them on the Flip. After the DRM rip, films playback in a very similar vain to that of my iPad Air 2 [UK Link]. Occasionally there are a few artifacts, either from the ripping process or because there is other stuff going on. You cannot do much about the odd bit of green showing at the bottom of the movie, but a reboot tends to solve scene transition issues.

It’s not an iPad and that’s fine

Most people (myself included) hold the iPad up as the gold standard when it comes to tablets. With great battery life, excellent apps and as thin as you like, it still is an amazing device. If you are hoping the Flip in tablet mode can be compared directly to the iPad you may be disappointed.

When you realise, not only is the Flip much cheaper than the iPad and runs a complete (not mobile) browser compatible with the majority of the content out there, it’s appeal becomes apparent.

Whilst I may be suffering from new gadget blindness, if you asked me which I’d choose to purchase today, it would be the Chromebook Flip. This is because it does most of what I use my iPad for, plus it allows me to insert a relatively cheap 128gb Micro SD card [UK Link] and have a keyboard for writing with.

Fortunately, I do not have to choose, so will be keeping both. Hurrah!

Value for Money

The Asus Chromebook Flip rocks in value for money stakes. Not only do you get a capable (if not perfect) tablet you also have a great Chromebook which allows you to be productive on the go. The IPS screen is great to use and is better than many other non-IPS devices.

The Flip performs very well when under normal use. I couldn’t discern any noticeable lag in use (I typically have about 5 tabs open before I start closing them down). And the premium feel of the device makes a difference about often you want to go back to it. All in all its one hell of a package for £249 / $279.

Following the success of the Asus Chromebook Flip, don’t be surprised if more convertible ChromeOS devices come onto the market. As a consequence you can expect improvements in the way ChromeOS works as a tablet and develop on from the already sound foundation.