Back to school is always a great time to pick up a deal on a new laptop for the upcoming semester, and the Asus CX15 Chromebook is available at Walmart for $159. It may not be the fanciest option, but it has a sizable screen and a full keyboard with a numpad, all for less than the cost of a new textbook. If you’re just looking for a no-frills Chromebook for occasional web-based work and a slightly larger display, this is a great deal.
Photograph: Luke Larsen
When it comes to performance, the CX15 isn’t terribly exciting, with an Intel Celeron N4500 and 4 GB of memory. Fortunately, that should be fine for regular note-taking, email sending, and essay editing, with most of that work happening in your browser anyway. The extra-large 15-inch screen is great for putting two windows next to each other while getting some work done, or for watching a movie in the evening, even if the color accuracy isn’t the best.
The Chromebook CX15 is available in two colors, a classic and professional Pure Gray as well as a more fun and friendly Fabric Blue. Both feature the full-size keyboard, which is going to make writing out long paragraphs more comfortable, and the full numpad for you math and science nerds out there. The touchpad isn’t our favorite, with some occasional clunkiness, but you could do a lot worse for the price.
It has only 120 GB of internal storage, which is fairly common for Chromebooks, because it’s expected you’ll lean heavily on Google’s cloud storage options. To that end, the Asus Chromebook CX15 includes three months of the Google One AI Premium Plan, which includes 2 TB of cloud storage as well as a variety of AI-enhanced tools. You’ll also get three months of YouTube Premium, which gives you an ad-free experience while watching videos and listening to music.
If the Asus Chromebook CX15 isn’t speaking to you, there are several other deals currently running on some of our other favorite Chromebooks. We’ve also put together a list of our favorite back-to-school laptop deals if you’re specifically looking for a new laptop to bring to class or the library.