ASUS has announced a new Chrome OS tablet, increasing the options of those who are interested in this form factor by one. The new ASUS Chromebook Detachable CM3 arrives as a competitor to the Lenovo Chromebook Duet, but is it a better choice?
The ASUS Chromebook Detachable CM3 has an aluminum unibody with a matte finish. It is 7.9mm thick and comes with a stain-repellent cover that gives it a classy look. There is only one color variant available called Mineral Gray.
ASUS’s Chrome OS tablet has a 10.5-inch screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio and a 1920 x 1200 resolution. There are thick bezels around the display which is not uncommon for a lot of tablets.
Powering the ASUS Chromebook Detachable CM3 is MediaTek’s MT8183 processor which is practically the Helio P60T but specially designed for entry-level Chromebooks. It is an octa-core chipset with four Cortex-A73 cores and four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 2.0GHz. It also has an Arm Mali-G72 MP3 GPU clocked at 800MHz.
The processor is paired with 4GB of RAM, and buyers will be able to pick between a 64GB version or a 128GB version. Just like Lenovo’s own tablet, this too is missing a MicroSD card slot, so you can’t expand the storage.
What it does have that the Duet doesn’t is an audio jack and a USI stylus with a silo for storing it. When inserted in the slot, the stylus automatically charges and ASUS says that a 15-second charge will provide 45 minutes of use. Lenovo’s USI Pen has to be purchased separately and it costs $39, though it is much thicker and feels like a regular pen. It also uses a replaceable battery.
The ASUS Chromebook Detachable CM3 has a keyboard that connects via four pogo pins at the bottom of the tablet. The keyboard has an ErgoLift design, a 1.5m key travel, and a trackpad. The stand cover, which can also be removed can be adjusted to up to 90° when in landscape mode. It can also be used to prop up the tablet in portrait mode.
There is an 8MP camera on the back of the tablet while the front camera is a 2MP sensor. ASUS has packed a 27Whr battery into the tablet which it says should last up to 12 hours on a single charge. A 45W charger is included in the box for charging. The tablet has dual-band WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2, and a USB-C port.
The ASUS Chromebook Detachable CM3 is priced at $350 for the 64GB version and $370 for the 128GB version. Both are currently listed as Coming Soon on the official ASUS store. ASUS states that there is a 1-year Free 100GB Google One trial which expires from Google by the 31st of January 2022.
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