One main omission from this mannequin is a backlit keyboard, which is disappointing if you wish to use it at the hours of darkness. Older CX34 fashions got here with a backlit keyboard, so, curiously, Asus opted to not ship one on this up to date model.
The excellent news is that, regardless of the shortage of a backlight, the keyboard is snug to make use of for lengthy durations. It has a strong quantity of journey and by no means feels onerous to sort on. If I needed to identify one quibble, it’s the small measurement of the home-key ridges on the “F” and “J” keys, which make it a little bit tougher to touch-type.
The trackpad is giant and spacious, although the fabric it’s fabricated from creates extra drag in your finger than I’d like. I additionally encountered one bug with the trackpad throughout testing the place it was unresponsive after waking the CX34 from sleep. This gave the impression to be a one-off and was remedied by a restart (a fast course of for Chromebooks), however it’s price noting.
For on a regular basis work and internet searching, the contact show on the CX34 is implausible. It’s a 14-inch, 1,920 x 1,080 pixel panel that appears crisp and cuts down on an honest quantity of glare with a matte end. It isn’t the brightest show on the market although, and it could possibly battle when working outside on a sunny day.
{Photograph}: Daniel Thorp-Lancaster
Whereas the 16:9 display ratio is fairly commonplace for laptops, I’d have favored to see Asus go for a barely taller 16:10 show right here. The elevated vertical area on a 16:10 display is nice for the productiveness work the CX34 is concentrating on. You’ll be able to see this in motion on rivals like Acer’s Chromebook Plus Spin 714.
Port choice on the CX34 is fairly good, with two USB-A ports, two USB-C ports, an HDMI slot, and a regular headphone jack. The USB-C ports can cost the laptop computer with the surprisingly compact 45-watt charger Asus contains within the field, however they can be used for DisplayPort over USB-C connections to exterior displays.
