mCover Hard Shell Case for 12.5-inch ASUS Chromebook Flip C302CA series laptop - Clear (C302CA)

Product Information

The stated 5.5mm width of the side bezel is the distance between the edge of the non-active screen display area and the inside edge of the case. The stated width of the bottom bezel is the distance between the edge of the non-active screen display area and the visible edge of the display when the laptop is opened to 90 °. Measured based on standard (not anti-glare) display configuration. ASUS Antibacterial Guard is tested by an independent third-party laboratory according to the ISO 22196 standard (measurement of antibacterial activity on plastics and other non-porous surfaces), using bacterial cultures that include Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, with an antibacterial activity (R) result of R > 2. R = 2 indicates a 99% reduction in bacterial activity compared to an untreated surface. Synthetic benchmark scores aside, the Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 always felt nippy, managing to run even quite demanding tasks in Gimp, Kdenlive, Audacity and Libre Office under Linux without bogging down. This is where the 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage really come into play. It lets you use the CX34 as a real laptop if you want to. On the plus side, the CX34 is pretty light at just 1.44kg and it’s reasonably compact, at 326.4 x 214.3 x 18.7mm. It also has a good selection of physical connections, with two USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 ports and a pair of USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports. Both those Type-C ports support DisplayPort video output and USB charging (you’ll need one to connect the dinky 45W charger to). ASUS Chromebook CX1 laptops undergo multiple laptop quality tests but are not subject to all tests stated. The testing data includes the requirements of both military-grade standards and ASUS quality tests.

Compared to Chromebooks running on Intel Celeron and Pentium Gold chips, the Core i3-based CX34 goes like the clappers. To be clear, its Intel Core i3-1215U is no powerhouse but with two performance cores among its six and a maximum boost speed of 4.4GHz, it’s no slouch, either. If you buy a 128GB or 256GB CX34 you get UFS rather than SSD storage, which naturally reduces performance but it’s better than eMMC storage, which is what many cheap Chromebooks use. The CX34 recorded read and write speeds of 1,361MB/sec and 312MB/sec, which is slow but acceptable for a machine unlikely to be used for shunting large amounts of data around. ASUS Chromebook Flip CR1 undergo multiple laptop quality tests but are not subject to all tests stated. The testing data includes the requirements of both military-grade standards and ASUS quality tests. LTE connectivity is optional. Nano SIM cards are sold separately and can only be used with the LTE SKU.

The antimicrobial treatment is tested by an independent third-party laboratory according to the ISO 22196 standard (measurement of antibacterial activity on plastics and other non-porous surfaces), using bacterial cultures that include Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, with an antibacterial activity (R) result of R > 2. R = 2 indicates a 99% reduction in microbial activity compared to an untreated surface. In the WebXprt 3 test, the CX34 scored 281, which is a good showing, too. The higher-spec Acer Chromebook 516GE is only just in front with 299. It’s a similar tale in our ChromeOS multitasking test, the CX34’s score of 180 lagging behind the 516GE’s 217.

The stated width of the side bezel is the distance between the edge of the non-active screen display area and the inside edge of the case. If the case width is included, the side bezel width is 7.86 mm. The stated width of the bottom bezel is the distance between the edge of the non-active screen display area and the visible edge of the display when the laptop is opened to 90 °. These measurements are based on the standard (without anti-glare) display configuration. The testing regime includes the requirements of military-grade standards, and varies depending on device. MIL-STD-810 testing is conducted on selected ASUS products only. Note that the MIL-STD-810 testing helps to ensure the quality of ASUS products but does not indicate a particular fitness for military use. The test is performed under laboratory conditions. Any damage caused by attempts to replicate these test conditions would be considered accidental, and would not be covered by the standard ASUS warranty. Additional coverage is available with ASUS Premium Care. Unless otherwise stated, all data-transfer speeds are based on theoretical performance. Actual performance may vary.

ASUS Chromebook Plus CM34 Flip is certified with ASUS WiFi Master for ChromeOS. Devices with this certification offer enhanced WiFi stability when a USB 3.2 Gen 2 interference is present, allowing users to stream smoothly when they are up to 225 meters away from a router. Two colourways are available: a blue-grey affair and a white one. The latter is by far the most attractive to my eyes, although the finish on my blue-grey model proved pretty effective at not showing fingerprints. ASUS internal tests show that ASUS Chromebook Flip CR1 can be safely cleaned and wiped using hypochlorous acid water or alcohol from a spray bottle. Individual sprays of up to 3 cc do not affect the performance of the Antibacterial treatment. Actual battery life depends on usage, specifications, applications and environment, among other factors.

The antimicrobial treatment is tested by an independent third-party laboratory according to the ISO 22196 standard (measurement of antimicrobial activity on plastics and other non-porous surfaces), using bacterial cultures that include Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, with antimicrobial activity (R) result of R > 2. R = 2 indicates a 99% reduction in bacterial activity compared to an untreated surface. The antimicrobial treatment is registered by the US EPA and authorized under EU BPR.

If I had to level one criticism, it would be at the plastic display bezels. At 12mm on the top, 8mm at the sides and 25mm at the bottom, they are on the wide side and make the laptop look a little cheap. Besides that, the display is pretty thin gruel, with only 60.1% of the sRGB colour gamut on show. With such a dull display, measuring the Delta E variance is almost a waste of time but I did it anyway, and the number was 6.7, which isn’t great. To be fair, though, this is no worse than the similarly priced Acer Chromebook 317. The absence of colour is noticeable when watching video on the CX34; the picture looks dull and washed out. You could argue a Windows laptop for the same money would be no better but, given the brouhaha surrounding the launch of the Chromebook Plus initiative, I expected more. Only devices that meet early access minimum requirements can run the game. Requirements include-- Operating System: ChromeOS 111, System Architecture: 64-bit (x86_64, arm64-v8a), Processor: Intel Celeron N4500, Intel i3-7130U, Mediatek MT8183, Qualcomm SC7180, AMD Ryzen 3 3250C or better, Memory: 4 GB RAM, Storage: Minimum of 1 GB game installation, maps, and other files.