Asus Chromebook CX9
Targeted at business users, the ultra-light and ultra-quick CX9 is expensive but arguably worth the price
SCORE
PRICE £1,083 (£1,300 inc VAT) from argos.co.uk
M
icrosoft should brace itself for a revolt, because Google is targeting businesses with its Chromebooks – and the CX9 (often called the CX9400 online) fully deserves to lead the charge.
Its key component is Intel’s Core i7-1165G7 CPU. With the help of 16GB of RAM, the CX9 scorched through benchmarks: 160 in JetStream, 737 in MotionMark and 3,714 in Geekbench 5. Overall, that’s around 20% quicker than the next fastest Chromebook we’ve tested, the Core i7-10610U H HP Pro C640 Enterpri Enterprise
( see issue 321, p91) p91).
It’s arguably th the most attractive Chromebook to cr cross our path, too. Its slimline chassis is made d from aluminium all alloy finished in a brood brooding dark grey. There’s attention to detail, too. As you lift up the screen, the rear of the chassis rises to create a slight typing angle – and to add style points.
Build quality is up there with the best. The metal lid provides plenty of protection to the screen, there’s no hint of flex on the base, and the CX9 passed a barrage of MIL-STD 810H tests. For example, it can endure 24 hours in 40°C heat at 85% humidity.
One of the tests is for keyboard durability, with Asus claiming it’s designed for 10 million keystrokes. There isn’t a huge amount of travel to the keys, but I still enjoyed typing on this machine due to the firmness of its backplate. It helps that the chiclet keys are well separated and each cursor key has room to breathe.
The smooth touchpad is a generous 13cm wide, making it easy to use gestures. It holds a secret weapon, too: click firmly on the icon at the top right of the pad and a digital number pad appears, supposedly making it simple for you to enter numbers ers quickly. In use, it didn’t work reliably eliably enough for me to choose ose it over the physical number umber buttons. People le who are sensitive ve to glos glossy sy screens ns should steer clear of the CX9, with h spotlights reflected cted all too obviously b ously in the d display. play. That’s one of the few negatives I can throw hrow at this 4K touchscreen hscreen panel, though, which covers 97% of the sRGB gamut (and 71% of DCI-P3) with an average Delta E of 0.43. Throw in a superb contrast ratio of 1,723:1 and peak brightness of 367cd/m 2 and it’s well suited to a premium laptop. To back up the CX9’s business credentials, Asus provides a fingerprint reader and includes Google’s Titan C security chip. There’s also a physical cover for the 720p webcam, but the quality on offer is disappointing for the price. I was hoping to be blown away with the quality. Instead, I saw the same issues of noise and heavy compression that plague almost every built-in webcam. Similarly, dampen your expectations for the sound system: it’s fine for speech radio, but music lacks depth.
Battery life in our video-rundown test was 8hrs 2mins, which is reasonable for a 4K laptop that weighs a shade over 1kg. It’s chargeable via either of the USB-C ports on the left-hand side of the chassis – both support Thunderbolt 4 – and there’s a full-size HDMI port here, too. Over on the right you’ll find a USB-A 3.2 port, 3.5mm jack and microSD slot.
My final note is on right to repair. Asus loses some marks for its use of Torx screws, but once inside you can swap out the keyboard, LCD panel, M.2 SSD, battery and the motherboard (with the processor and memory embedded upon it) with no glue in sight. It’s not up to Framework levels of modularity ( see p50), but it’s much better than most ultra-sleek laptops.
Is the CX9 the perfect business Chromebook? Not quite: the webcam is a letdown and the glossy screen isn’t ideal for office use. But it can’t be faulted for speed, build quality or local storage, as it comes with a 512GB SSD. It’s expensive, but with OS updates promised ised until June 2029 this is a long-term term investment that will d deliver l er for years. TIM DANTON
SPECIFICATIONS IFICATIONS
4-core e 2.8GHz (4.7GHz burst) Intel Core i7-1165G7 G7 16GB LPDDR4x RAM Intel Iris Xe graphics cs 14in 60Hz IPS touchscreen, 3,840 x 2,160 0 resolution 512GB NVMe PCI-E 3 SSD 720p webcam Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5 2 x USB-C B-C 4/Thunderbolt 4 2 x USB-A 3.2 microSD card slot 3.5mm jack 50Wh battery Chrome OS
322 x 205 x 16-18mm (WDH) 1.05kg 1yr limited ted warranty
“To back up the CX9’s business credentials, Asus provides a fingerprint reader and includes Google’s Titan C security chip”