ASUS Chromebox CHROMEBOX5a-SC081UN 2024, Celeron 7305, 8GB, 128GB SSD, Eco Black

The ASUS Chromebox 5a is a compact ChromeOS desktop built for basic productivity and easy IT management. It drives four 4K displays, which is its best trick, but the Celeron CPU and 8GB RAM are near the bottom of our charts. Worth it for fleets and browser-only users, skip it if you need real performance.

The Celeron 7305 is a 5-core chip that handles ChromeOS smoothly for everyday tasks. Opening a dozen tabs, streaming video, and running Android apps from Google Play all work without much drama. The 8GB of DDR4 is enough for ChromeOS, but it's a tight ceiling. The 128GB SSD is small, though ChromeOS leans on cloud storage anyway. The real standout is connectivity: Thunderbolt, dual HDMI, DisplayPort, and USB-C mean you can run four 4K monitors off this thing. That's wild for a Celeron box. But the GPU is integrated and weak, and our scores put CPU, RAM, and storage in the bottom 15% or worse. It's fine for what it's built for, and nothing else.

Stacked against the Apple Mac mini M4, this thing gets absolutely smoked on performance. The Mac mini costs more but runs circles around the Celeron in every benchmark we track. The Minisforum UM760 Slim is a closer price match and brings a much stronger Ryzen CPU, though it runs Windows instead of ChromeOS. The HP OmniDesk and Dell Tower are traditional desktops with more upgrade room but way bigger footprints. If you need ChromeOS specifically for zero-touch enrollment and easy IT management, the Chromebox 5a makes sense. If you just want a small cheap PC, the Minisforum is the better raw value.

Pricing is all over the map depending on where you shop. In the US you're looking at USD 410 to USD 449, which is reasonable for a managed ChromeOS fleet device. But in Europe the spread is wider, EUR 688 to EUR 760 across vendors, and in Canada it swings from CAD 620 to CAD 862. That's a huge gap. If you're buying in EUR, shop around because the cheapest listing saves you EUR 72. In CAD, the gap is CAD 242, so the low end is the only one worth considering. At the low end of those ranges, it's a fair deal for a business or school. At the high end, you're paying too much for a Celeron.

The ASUS Chromebox 5a is a tiny ChromeOS desktop aimed at offices, schools, and anyone who lives in a browser. This config pairs a Celeron 7305 with 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD, which is fine for Google Workspace, video calls, and light multitasking. Just don't expect it to flex much beyond that.

It's compact, quiet, and can drive up to four 4K displays, which is honestly impressive for a box this small. But the internals are entry-level, and our database puts the CPU, RAM, and storage near the bottom of the pack. This is a purpose-built machine, and that purpose is basic productivity.

Skip this if you need to run Windows or macOS software, do any kind of gaming, edit video, or push heavy multitasking. The Celeron 7305 and 8GB of RAM will frustrate you quickly. Also skip it if you're a tinkerer who wants to upgrade RAM or storage later, this box is not built for that.

This is a fleet machine. IT departments rolling out ChromeOS to a bunch of desks will love the zero-touch enrollment, automatic updates, and VESA mount. Individual buyers should think hard. If all you do is browse, stream, and use Google Docs, it's fine. But the weak CPU and limited storage mean it'll feel dated sooner than you'd like. Buy it for the OS and the management features, not the horsepower.