ASUS Chromebook 15 CX1500CKA 15.6″ Full HD Chrome Laptop (Intel Celeron N4500, 4GB RAM, 128GB eMMC, Google Chrome Operating System)

4.0 out of 5 stars Decent
Had this for about two months.

Screen is nice and big. Screen is vivid and clear. Sound is quite loud, which is good.

This Chromebook has a habit of randomly muting itself, with no obvious cause or remedy, but fixes itself after a restart.

Any significant amount of time spent scrolling results in slowdown, to the point where videos struggle playing, but it’s fine after restarting.

Overall I enjoy this machine, considering the price, and have a great time watching movies on it, and using Google Docs.

1.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely useless!
I bought five of these laptops in total for a team of remote youth workers. They simply need to access google docs and join google calls, something most laptops could do easily. These laptops don’t even have enough operating power to do that. You open google meets and opening anything else causes the computers to freeze up and run slowly. Out of five laptops, three of them have lost their touch screen function randomly and every single employee complains about these laptops. Six months on and I am already looking at how we can replace our staff laptops.

Most annoyingly, there is no caps lock key!

Beyond that, ChromeOS is not ideal – Most of the apps you’d want don’t actually support ChromeOS and their desktop programmes are often in .exe format meaning they wont work for the laptop. ChromeOS seems to constantly require updates and lacks basic functionality that you’d expect unless you’re willing to mess around with a Linux Client.

I wasn’t expecting the world with these laptops, but I was expecting to be able to do basic daily tasks.

5.0 out of 5 stars Should have done this years ago (and I’m a tech savvy computer geek).
I’d never owned a Chromebook before and at this price I thought there wasn’t much to lose so I took the plunge. In all honesty I’m absolutely blown away and amazed. I totally now understand why Chrome OS has recently overtook Apple as the second most used operating system.

Boots up in about 6 seconds and is online immediately. Everything is fast including Youtube. It’s sort of comparable in speed to an I7 quad core Windows machine and even then it does some things quicker still. It doesn’t have to load and deal with all the legacy APIs that Windows has to nor does it need any sub-systems. It’s an optimised and extremely lean operating system. So even though it’s only a Celeron N4500 with 4GB of ram it absolutely flies. You also don’t have to worry about updates or viruses and when it does update its seamless and unobtrusive. Everything is nice and super simple. Once you get it you really do appreciate how much of a slow burden Windows was on your computer. Other nice touches are total integration with your Android phone. If your phone is nearby you’ll see your Whatsapp messages come on the laptop screen and if anyone sends you a picture on Whatsapp you’ll see that too and you can download it to the laptop immediately.

The disadvantage of course is that it can’t run Windows software. But I’d say that that is probably irrelevant for about 9 out of 10 people these days as most users are doing everything online now and this trend is accelerating at a rapid pace. Ultimately everything will be internet and cloud based in the end anyway. Also remember that if a computer is used for work purposes then this will usually be provided by the employer. But if you are reliant on specialist Windows applications such as music making software or CAD software then this machine might not be suitable (but even that is changing rapidly too due to online tools).

Google Docs is excellent and for me at least it has totally dispelled the need for Microsoft Office and it’s also a lot better than Microsoft’s Office 365 online version. With Chrome OS being online based it has forced me to look for online browser versions of the things that I use a computer for. And everything is there, even Solitaire!

The machine itself is a dream come true. Most importantly for me (yes most importantly), it is a very stylish and elegant design and itches all cravings for a Macbook Pro with flying colours. It’s very well built and the chassis has military grade certification and is tested. There is a small amount of keyboard flex but I think this is irrelevant at this price point and it doesn’t move when typing. The computer is also nice and up to date and has USB C charging from both the left and right side of the computer. Nice touch.

So it’s a complete winner and a game changer for me and I can’t see myself ever buying a Windows based laptop again. As mentioned in the title I am a computer geek. I’ve used them all right from the ZX Spectrum days and I’ll guarantee you that you won’t regret this. The Chromebook is a winner.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good enough for the price
Needed a laptop quickly whilst mine was being repaired and saw this, saw the price and reviews and bought it.
Now I’m very happy with the laptop in general, the screen is clear and it’s heavy but not so you can’t carry it comfortably in a laptop case/bag, the layout is simple but nice and the start up speed you can’t complain about at all.

However … what is so annoying to me is you don’t know if you’ve got capitals unless you type and then it took me to google just to find out how to type in capitals without holding the capitals key down continuously.

There is no back light on the keypad either which is annoying and would of been cheap enough to add that feature.

Finally .. and I don’t understand why but the screen measured diagonally corner to corner of the screen display (measured how they do in store) it comes to 16.4” not 17” as advertised and this I’m completely flummoxed over as this is a top brand and no matter what tape measure I used or who measured it for me it still came to 16.4” (my son made it 16.5) but nonetheless it isn’t 17” close enough not to complain or return though.

All in all I’m happy to use this as a comfortable spare that’s easy to navigate and has all the basic functionality you need.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great value for the money
Great price for a 2 in 1 laptop and tablet. At this price point can’t find anything that matches it’s specs that has a touchscreen. Positive points: build quality is above average, touchpad is great and responsive, screen brightness is really good, usb ports, usb type c, great battery life (started working at 100% for 6 hours and battery was left at 42%) easy goes for 8 hours of continuous work and browsing, big plus it that it comes with a pen for the screen, lightweight and easy to travel with. Bad bits: flimsy keyboard but you get used to it, poor quality front camera and that is about it. For this price point these are acceptable compromises. Won’t be able to install microsoft office, but you can use it in browser and works well especially if you have a microsoft 365 account. 128gb of storage is enough and another great feature is that you can use multiple accounts on the device. I used to have a 15,6″ windows laptop and switched for this one and don’t regret a thing. I recommend this product especially if you want to use it on the go and rely on browser based work.