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I've posted about this before on HN, there are some pretty nifty Asus chromeboxes with i7's in them that can be had for cheap. You'll need to reflash the bios to put Linux on them (or Windows, if you really want to). They tend to be pretty cheap second hand because people don't know what to do with them.

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Agreed. They are generally very solid hardware compared to semi-generic Chinese systems. They even have an embedded CEC control which is not found in any other x86 sytems AFAIK. Open source firmware that can do EFI or BIOS payloads. Look up MrChromebox for details.

Do you recommend any specific models? Can you only do this with some Chromeboxes? If I could get one with a better iGPU than a mobile Haswell i7's, that would be useful.

This is the one I know works for sure:

https://www.asus.com/Displays-Desktops/Mini-PCs/Chrome-OS-de...

If you run into any trouble re-flashing mail me, I'll probably be able to help you out.

I'd take a look at https://mrchromebox.tech/#devices to check before purchasing any particular Chromebox. There are (or were) other firmwares you could flash, but MrChromebox seems like a pretty sold place to start.

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