Skip to main content

With Android apps coming, Asus' affordable new Chromebook bulks up on storage

With Android apps on the way for all Chromebooks, you’re going to want more than 16 gigabytes of storage on your next Chrome OS device. Asus is meeting this demand, with a $300 Asus Chromebook offering 64GB of storage.

That may not sound like much, but it’s a lot for a Chromebook at this point. Most of the Chromebooks we’ve reviewed lately offer 32 or even 16GB of storage, because until recently Chromebooks haven’t needed a lot of local storage. So not many devices offer it. Google’s $1,300 Google Pixel offers 64GB of storage, Lilputting is reporting, but not many others do. So the new Asus Chromebook C301SA offering 64GB for $300 is a nice surprise.

Related Videos

The new Chromebook isn’t yet available, but is listed at B&H as “coming soon”. Photos reveal a brushed metal exterior and a thick black bezel.

The Asus Chromebook C301SA is powered by a 1.6GHz Intel Celeron N3160 quad-core processor, and offers 4GB of DDR3 memory. The 1920 by 1080 display is 13.3 inches.

You’ll find a couple of USB 3.0 ports, along with HDMI for external displays. And if the 64GB of storage isn’t enough for all those Android apps you plan on installing, there’s also an SD card slot.

This suggests that Asus expects storage to be on the minds of Chromebook shoppers, something which until recently wasn’t assumed at all.

And it isn’t just laptop makers who are preparing a Chrome OS full of Android apps for the problem of storage. Google added a storage manager to a recent Chrome OS release, allowing users to closely monitor how much free storage they have and what’s taking up all that room. It’s not the kind of feature the web-oriented system bothered to have until now.

It will be interesting to see how other Chromebook makers follow up. 64GB solid state drives aren’t likely to drive up the price of Chromebooks by much, and could soon become a key selling point, especially as Google rolls out Google Play and Android apps to more devices.

Editors' Recommendations

The biggest Apple design fails and screw-ups of all time
Apple Pencil

Apple is world-famous for its design success stories, from the iMac G3 to all the best iPhones. But things don’t always go according to plan, even for the most design-savvy tech firm on the planet.

No, Apple has had its fair share of design howlers over the years. Here, we’ve rounded up eight of the most egregious design sins Apple has ever committed. It’s a good reminder that no one is above dropping a few absolute clunkers -- even Apple.
The butterfly keyboard

Read more
Microsoft’s Bing Chat waitlist is gone — how to sign up now
Microsoft Edge browser showing Bing Chat on an iPhone.

It appears Microsoft is doing away with the long Bing Chat waitlist. As originally reported by Windows Central, new users who sign up for the waitlist are immediately given access to the AI chatbot, without having to wait, and Digital Trends has confirmed this to be the case.

Microsoft hasn't officially killed the waitlist, but it should go away in short order. On Tuesday, Microsoft bolstered OpenAI's launch of the GPT-4 model by confirming that it was the model behind Bing Chat. Microsoft is also set to host an AI-focused event on Thursday, where we expect to hear about AI integrations in Microsoft's Office apps like Word and PowerPoint. It's possible Microsoft could remove the waitlist during the presentation.

Read more
Dell’s first Windows 11 ARM laptop is priced like a Chromebook
A woman using a Dell Inspiron 14 laptop.

Dell just launched a new Inspiron 14 laptop with a Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2, and it's priced like a Chromebook, costing only $500. The advantage of using a Qualcomm chip is the long battery life, and Dell claims the Inspiron 14 can last for 16 hours on a single charge.

The budget laptop includes a respectable 8GB of memory and 256GB of SSD storage, which should be sufficient for productivity and browsing. A 14-inch antiglare screen has an LED backlight and offers 1080p resolution.

Read more