ASUS Chromebox 3-N018U

Ok, this thing is great. I love the Chrome OS. This is my 4th Chrome device, and I could be happier to no longer need to use Windows. I can't afford Apples. My first 2 were a low-end Chromebook and Chromebase. ($250 ea.) They worked extremely well for what I was doing at the time. Because I started to do a lot with video, the basic models were no longer up to the task. I then bought a high-end Chromebook with an i5 processor and 8gb of ram. It is crazy fast!So why did I buy a Chromebox? I needed more desk space and I did not want to have to unplug my add-on monitors and other accessories every time I wanted to take my laptop somewhere and re-assemble everything when I got back.So, how do I like it? Yes, 5 stars. The i3 processor is slightly slower than my i5, but it is fulfilling my needs quite well. The small size takes up so little space and has more connections than I will ever use. It doesn't come with a keyboard or a mouse, but I just took one of the 5 I had in the closet.Keep in mind in choosing your device that you are not running Windows, so you really don't really need as much juice for it to be faster. The Celerons were ok for general stuff, but if you are doing the heavy stuff I would highly recommend the i3 or I5. This thing boots in 7 seconds, and shuts down in 5. Updates install in seconds as well.Be sure when you order your chromebox that it is a chromebox 3. There are some major differences and there are a lot of the older ones on Amazon.One last thing that I want to mention. I am paralyzed on my right side. In the "accessibility" settings there are quite a few helpful features I use is the"sticky keys". Using a keyboard with one hand is difficult. Sticky keys allow the user to push the shift key and release it and stays in shift mode until the next key is pressed so you do not have to perform contortion tricks to use the "@" key. Just press shift, release it, press the 2 key and you get "@". Handy!I can't say enough good things about the Chrome products I've used. The first 3 were Acer models, and now this is an Asus. I see no difference in operation at all, and there is virtually no bloatware.What about MS Office? Office 365 works perfectly on it, but I find that Google Docs works out fine for me and it's free.Chrome forever!Ok, I must update this. The unit has 4 GB of RAM. I think for most people this would be quite sufficient. As mentioned above, I do a lot with video, so I wanted to upgrade to 8 GB. I wanted to know what type of ram was inside without popping it open so I wouldn't have to re assemble it again after the RAM arrived. Different sources on line have conflicting answers, so I called ASUS. The 1st time I was told that it wasn't upgradeable, and it was DDR3 1600 mhz. I knew this was wrong, because ASUS literature says you can go to 16 GB. I look further, and get more conflicting info. I called again, and was told that the RAM was DDR4, 2133 mhz. That matched a couple of sources I have seen, so I ordered it. Upon receiving my order, I was quite surprised to see that I actually needed DDR4 2400 mhz! Grrrrrr!I still give the device 5 stars, but ASUS does a horrible job of making sure their call center has the right information.One last thing... The 4 GB of ram from ASUS is 2 GB X 2. in other words, to get 8 you will have to buy 8GB X 1 or 4GB X 2. I recommend 8 GB X 1 because if you want to upgrade to 16 all you need to do is get another 8 GB and you have 16. There is room for only 2 upgrade slots.Bottom line? Open it up before ordering your RAM to see what you actually have.

The N018U is my 2nd Chromebox, replacing the M004U purchased in Oct 2015, and which worked no problems until one day the ChromeOS went missing and or needed repair and which recovery efforts failed. I've only had this Chromebox 3 since November 2018, and no problems until this past week when twice it "froze up" forcing a disconnect from power source to shut it off. It is working now, and hasn't crashed since, but I've read a good number of comments that this is a problem other Chromebox owners have faced.

I'm not sure about the Celeron model, but I threw some DDR4 that I had in a laptop into the i3 model I purchased and it recognized it all and was very speedy. **Update** I originally tested with 16 GB sticks, recently 32 GB modules became available and I ordered some for my laptop but tested them in the Chromebox too, they are recognized and boot normally (though it takes a little bit longer to get anything on the screen while it enumerates all the RAM). While upgrading the RAM I observed that unlike the previous generation (Asus Chromebox 2 aka CN62) this one has holes for both the "short" M.2 and the "long" M.2 SSDs. You simply unscrew the standoff after removing the short drive that comes from the factory and then you can screw it into the long drive hole and install a much higher capacity SSD than is available in the "short" form factor. Currently I have only seen 256 GB or so at reasonable prices in the 2242 size (512 GB was crazy), while there are 1-2 TB drives available in the M.2 SATA 2280 form factor that aren't insanely expensive.This model supports USB-C power delivery input as well as DP Alt Mode for video out, theoretically if attached to a monitor that supplies 60-65W it *should* work with a single cable connected (but has not in my testing with a Samsung monitor with 60W output). If the monitor also has a USB hub you could attach your keyboard and mouse to it and leave your Chromebox easy to unplug and take with you, you'll just want a spare power brick until the monitor manufacturers supply the full 60W early enough for the Chromebox to boot. Somebody else mentioned they also couldn't run this off the USB-C from their Dell monitor, but I noticed that the i5/i7 version apparently comes with a 90W power adapter, and so far I've only seen 1 monitor that supplies that much power, a 34" Dell I think, though I don't have one of those available to test (yet). At this point YMMV for powering it from a monitor, but you could use a USB-C dock/hub with DP or HDMI out and leave the keyboard and mouse plugged into the hub if you want a single cable disconnect.Because all the ports on this are USB3, you may want to pick up a USB2 hub or a "dumb" USB2 extension cable if you are going to use a wireless keyboard and mouse, otherwise you could use a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to avoid that hassle.This Chromebox supports the Play Store (Android apps) and has Linux app support (woot woot) on the beta/dev channels and should be in stable soon. I haven't yet grabbed a USB3/USB-C touchscreen monitor to test with Android apps, but I would imagine it works fairly well depending on the driver required for the screen, hopefully the one I ordered shows up shortly to test.

My wife has Parkinson's disease and I bought this chromebox for her to use to shop online, email, stream video and Facebook. This is my second Chrome OS device. It works great, setup was simple and it loads video and websites very fast. The best thing is that I don't have to deal with fixing a Windows 10 update and virus protection and "cleaning" is a simple "Powerwash" away. As a Google fan, this works with my Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Photos, and Pixel 3XL phone flawlessly. A perfect low maintenance home computer.

I wanted a computer that was fast, easy to use, and didn't update a lot. I had a Windows, but I couldn't stand all the updates that it did. I just needed something to surf the web, log onto Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. It works extremely well for that purpose. Another plus is that it is really small. It fits on a shelf behind my monitor and takes up very little room. The Chrome browser is very fast and it boots up in about 15 seconds.

It's alright there are a lot of things the chrome os will have to add to be a complete replacement for PC or Mac