Asus just may have saved Chromebooks this year

$200 laptops are the bread-and-butter of Chromebooks, but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen any good offerings at that price.

Lost in the sea of press releases and new devices, Asus has quietly announced a new series of Chromebooks at CES 2025 that could finally shake things up for ultra-budget laptops. The Asus CX14 is a budget Chromebook starting at $199 — but you’d probably never guess that by looking at it.

Despite its price, it looks like a fairly modern laptop. It’s not overly thick, the bezels aren’t embarrassingly large, and it even comes in some attractive colors. The exterior has a nice, textured plastic, too. Importantly, it has a 14-inch 1080p display.

Of course, there are compromises. It uses only a three-year-old, dual-core Intel Celeron N4500 processor, for starters. The entry-level model comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage — not uncommon for a budget Chromebook. The screen has a 16:9 aspect ratio, only goes up to 250 nits, and is a TN panel. You’ll likely notice a drop in quality compared to an IPS panel.

It also only has a 720p webcam. Those are all older specs, for sure. But you have to make cuts to get the price down to $200, and those just might be justified compromises to make.

In addition to a larger 15-inch model, there’s also going to be a Chromebook Plus version of the CX14, sporting faster Core i3 and Core i5 processors, as well as starting at 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The webcam gets an upgrade, too, bumped up to 1080p. Those are all requirements of the Chromebook Plus designation.

But here’s the thing — there are lots of good high-quality Chromebooks out there right now. That’s largely thanks to the Chromebook Plus program.

Truthfully, though, the entry-level CX14 is the model I’m most excited about. It’s about time students don’t have to be embarrassed about the laptops they have to carry around.

Asus hasn’t announced the timing of when exactly these new Chromebooks will be available.