Some more details have popped up about the ASUS 11-inch Chromebook and we’re inching ever closer to its release. According to the source who was able to get a hold of one before launch, they describe the Chromebook as being surprisingly light and an easy fit in the hand, which tells us that it’s easy to carry around without fear of dropping it. Unless you have freakishly small hands, then maybe you should double palm it. All jokes aside, hearing that it’s light and that you can fit it one hand easily is a plus in our book. The ASUS C200 is the smaller model of two that are to be released in the near future, with rumors that we’ll see the 11-inch model sometime next month. Who knows, maybe we’ll see both. The C200 has a screen size officially of 11.6-inches, and has a slightly smaller keyboard than standard size.
The Chromebook was also ran through some performance tests to see just how well it would perform when compared to other recent models like the HP 11 and the Toshiba 13. Between those two it seems to have fallen squarely in the middle, which isn’t bad by any means at all. Official scores received by all of those Chromebooks when using the Google Octane Utility were 10,400 for the Toshiba, 7,387 for the ASUS C200, and 5,300 for the ARM based Hp 11. When you stack it up it doesn’t really look too bad, although we’re hoping for a little more performance out of the C200’s larger counterpart, the 13-inch C300 Chromebook that should be getting a release in the near future as well.
What is probably the most notable piece of information about its hands on time, is the battery life that seems to be getting all sorts of praise. The team at Promevo was able to use it through most of the day without having to keep it plugged in. As they state, they used it literally the entire day with battery power alone, and still had some juice left when the day was done. Impressive. The official full set of specs is as follows: 10-hour battery life, 11.6-inch screen with 1366—768 resolution, Intel N2830 Celeron CPU clocked at 2.16 GHz, 2GB RAM, Intel HD Graphics, 16 GB Solid State Drive, 1 USB 3.0 port and 1 USB 2.0 port, memory card slot, and of course an HDMI output. Overall it seems like a compelling choice for what you get, especially when you look at the price tag and the battery life, and compare it to other Chromebooks at the same cost or less. The ASUS C200 is going to cost $249.99, but we think we’ll hold out on a decision till we see what the C300 will cost.