ASUS Mini PC Chromebox 5a CHROMEBOX5A-S7162UN Chromebox Review

This Chromebox is a spec sheet Frankenstein's monster with uselessly excessive RAM and a confusing identity. Save your money and buy a normal computer.

The ASUS Chromebox 5a is a weird little machine that feels like it got its spec sheet from a parallel universe. The one thing you need to know is that it's a Chrome OS desktop with a staggering 128GB of RAM, which is about 120GB more than any normal person would ever need for a Chromebox. It's built around a mobile Intel 1355U CPU and pairs it with a professional-grade NVIDIA RTX A1000 GPU, which is a bizarre combo for a system running Android 10. This isn't a general-purpose desktop, it's a hyper-specialized box that makes you wonder who exactly it's for.

The performance story is all about mismatched expectations. That 128GB of RAM puts it in the 99th percentile, meaning it's got more memory than almost any other desktop in our database. It's utterly overkill. The RTX A1000 GPU is solid, landing in the middle of the pack, but it's held back by the CPU, which scores in the underwhelming 39th percentile. You get a ton of ports, which is great, but then you're stuck with a tiny 256GB SSD that's a real weak spot. It's fast for some things, slow for others, and never quite feels balanced.

Worth it? Almost certainly not for you. The listed price range across vendors is a joke, spanning from $800 to over $175,000, which tells you this product isn't being sold to normal consumers. If you can somehow find it for a sane price near the low end, and you have a very specific need for a Chrome OS box with pro-level RAM and GPU, maybe. For everyone else, this is a hard pass.

For a compact mini PC, the Dell XPS Tower Plus offers a much more balanced spec sheet with a proper desktop CPU and storage options. If you need serious GPU power for creative work or gaming, the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i or MSI Aegis are far better choices, giving you a full Windows environment and components that actually make sense together. The ASUS Chromebox 5a exists in a niche those other systems don't even try to fill, and for good reason.

If you're looking for a general-purpose mini PC for your home office or living room, this isn't it. Go get a Dell XPS Tower Plus or an Intel NUC instead. If you need a powerful desktop for gaming or content creation, this Android box is the wrong tool—look at the Lenovo Legion Tower or an MSI gaming PC.

We can't recommend the ASUS Chromebox 5a. It's a fascinating oddity, but not a sensible purchase. The bizarre spec combination, the limited Android OS, and the completely unreliable pricing make it impossible to justify for nearly any user. There are better, cheaper, and more logical mini PCs and desktops for every single use case we can think of.