Asus announced three new Chromebooks back in January, including the ultra-premium CX9 that offers ridiculous specs for something running ChromeOS. Despite being listed on Asus' German website for a while, it's been strangely absent in the US. That finally changed this week as the CX9 is once again on the US Asus store and is available for pre-order.

There are two variants of the CX9 listed, starting with a non-touchscreen 11th gen i3 model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for 9. That should be more than powerful enough for a Chromebook, but if you want something more, the second model features a touchscreen, 11th gen i7, 16GB of RAM, Iris Xe G7 graphics, and 512GB of NVMe storage for 49,99. The CX9 also touts two M.2 expansion slots, so upgrading the storage further down the line should be simple. There's meant to be a 4K model, but the two models available in the US max out at 1080p. That's my biggest issue with the i7 model, which should definitely have a higher resolution display for this price.

$1149.99 might sound expensive, but keep in mind the original Pixelbook started at $999 and only had an i5 with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. When compared to that, both CX9 models sound quite reasonable. If you want a Chromebook with enough horsepower to run heavier Android games or even titles from Steam, this could be one of the best options. Despite the fact it's starting to show its age, I still do the majority of my work on the Pixelbook, and this could be the replacement I've been looking for.

As noted by Chrome Unboxed, both versions of the CX9 are available to pre-order now and are expected to start shipping on the 22nd of July and are available at the links below.

Buy: i3/128GB, i7/512GB