$85 ASUS Chromebit CS10 Turns Your Old Monitor, TV Into Versatile Chrome OS PC

We first brought you news of ASUS’ Chromebit on April Fool’s Day, but now Taiwanese OEM and Google are ready for the official retail debut of the Chrome OS-powered computing stick. The Chromebit CS10 is a dainty little device, fitting into the palm of your hand and measuring just 12cm long.

And since it’s running the lightweight Chrome OS, you won’t exactly need a lot of firepower to meet your productivity and streaming needs. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that it is powered by a Rockchip RK3288-C SoC with 2GB of RAM, Mali T764 graphics that support up to 1080p resolutions, 16GB of eMMC storage, a USB 2.0 port, HDMI port, Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi.

All you need to do is find an old monitor or television, a mouse and a keyboard, and you can have a fully functional PC up and running in minutes. And if you’re heavily invested in Google’s ecosystem, logging in with your Google account makes personalization a simple affair from the first moment you boot up the Chromebit.

Now we know what you’re thinking, “This sounds familiar!” Well, the Chromebit is Google’s take on the similar devices like the Intel Compute Stick, InFocus Kangaroo and ASUS’ own VivoStick. However, all of those PCs-on-a-stick come with more potent Intel Atom processors and are capable of running a fully functional copy of Windows 10.

When ASUS first announced the Chromebit back in April, it stated that the device would cost $100. However, the device is shipping now with an MSRP of $85 and comes with 100GB of free Google Drive storage (which you can increase to 1TB if you have some free time on your hands). That’s quite a bit less than what ASUS charges for the VivoStick ($129.99) and $15 less than the more versatile InFocus Kangaroo ($99.99). ASUS says that the Chromebit will be sold at Amazon, Fry’s and Newegg, but as of this writing, we don’t see it listed on any of those sites.

The price is definitely attractive, but do you think that pricing advantage is enough to give it the edge over Intel power and Windows 10 compatibility? Sound off in our comments section!