The new ASUS Chromebook CX9 is one of the most powerful Chromebooks to hit the consumer market in quite some time. Featuring Intel Tiger Lake CPUs, up to 16GB of RAM, and up to 512GB of storage, this is an impressive device. If you're in the market for a new Chromebook for school or college, the ASUS CX9 is likely on your shortlist.

With a starting price of $749, this might be a bit too expensive for K-12 students. On the other hand, this is absolutely an amazing device for college students. Let's talk about three reasons this is the perfect college Chromebook.

Plenty of power and storage

Chromebooks are typically not considered powerhouse laptops. Most people think of Chromebooks in a lower class, behind PCs and Macs. With the ASUS CX9, that's absolutely not the case. The current top-tier model of this device has a Tiger Lake i7 processor with Intel Iris Xe graphics. Those specs are enough to run demanding programs for school and get some gaming done when official Steam support comes to Chrome OS later this year. You can even run desktop-class programs for engineering courses, like MATLAB, with no issues on this device.

If you want to use your laptop for editing photos and videos, the Core i7 can easily handle that as well. This processor can handle anything you throw at it. You can find most programs you need for school via Android apps or Linux apps on Chrome OS.

When it comes to storage, the CX9 is also exceptional in the Chromebook landscape. Starting at 128GB of storage for the base model, you'll have plenty of space to store everything you need. Keep in mind Chrome OS is also excellent at working in the cloud, so you get the added benefit of Google Drive at your fingertips.

All of this power comes to life on the 14" FHD display. The $1,149 configuration also features a touchscreen. The display is beautiful and looks nearly bezel-less with the NanoEdge design.

Amazing touchpad and keyboard

Typing out long term papers can take a toll on your fingers and wrist. An uncomfortable keyboard and touchpad are unacceptable on a Chromebook for school. Thankfully, the ASUS CX9 has one of the most comfortable keyboards I've ever used. The touchpad is awesome as well.

The keyboard on this Chromebook has just the right amount of travel, making it easy to type quickly and accurately. You can type on this keyboard for long periods of time with very little fatigue. In addition, the touchpad has an LED number pad built-in. If you need to crunch some numbers in a spreadsheet, this is the perfect Chromebook for the job.

This is truly one of the more innovative features we've see from a Chromebook release in the past few years. The number pad embedded into the touchpad allows you to preserve the compact and light form factor, while gaining a dedicated keypad for numerical computations

Battery life and enhanced security features.

ASUS claims the CX9 can get up to 14 hours of battery life on a single charge. I can tell you this is definitively false, but the battery life is still good. Considering the overall power of the machine, you can get 5-7 hours of battery life with the display on 50% brightness and a robust workload.

If you are willing to crank brightness to 30%, you can get to 10 hours screen time with a reduced workload consisting of mainly browsing the web. That should be enough to last you a full school day, or at least several class periods without your charger.

Those that have privacy concerns will love the the built-in fingerprint sensor and webcam privacy shutter on the CX9. Both of these features make your Chromebook more secure when using it on campus.

Conclusion

Overall, the new ASUS CX9 is an excellent choice for college students. Not only does it have the requisite power, it also boasts a number of premium features you'll use when not in class. It's also weighs barely 2 lbs, perfect for carrying from class to class all day. There aren't many Chromebooks out there that pack this much power into such a light and portable chassis. This is definitely one of the best Chromebooks ASUS has ever made.