Asus launches Chromebox, a Chrome OS computer, in India; prices start at Rs 21,000

Mumbai: PC and motherboard manufacturer Asus launched Chromebox, a compact home or office computer that runs on Chrome OS, in India.

"There has been an increase in demand for small form factor mini and home theatre PCs and the Chromebox would be a great alternative for such applications," Asus Country Head-Component Business Vinay Shetty told reporters here.

The product has the latest Haswell processors and supports 4K ultra high definition video playback. Besides, it also has built in virus protection system and updates automatically.

"With Intel's latest Haswell processors and 4k ultra high definition video playback and running Google's Chrome OS, the Chromebox is a great new device for customers looking for a mini PC," Shetty said.

The Chromebox works right out of the box with apps for work, play and communicating online or offline, he said.

The product comes in three models ranging between Rs 21,000 and Rs 58,000.

The three models are-Asus Chromebox CN60 (Celeron) at Rs 21,000, Asus Chromebox CN60 (Core i3) at Rs 36,500 and Asus Chromebox CN60 (Core i7) at Rs 58,000.

The company will initially make these products available in its 40 exclusive stores across the country.

"We have around 112 exclusive stores in the country and in the first phase, we will make the products available in 40 stores. Besides, it will also be available through online platform. If the acceptability of the product grows, we will also sell them through large formats," he said.

Explaining the features of the product, Shetty said, "Chromebox boots up in a flash and instantly syncs with Chrome across all the devices so you can bring the bookmarks, preferences and extensions with you. With 100GB of free Google Drive space free for two years one can access all the data and files in the cloud by logging into their Google account."

The box comes with high performance 802.11 b/g/n dual-band wireless, four USB 3.0 ports for fast data transfer, HDMI and DisplayPort for connecting to the latest displays and HDTVs, including support for dual displays and an SD card reader for easily accessing stored photos and documents, he said.