1. Samsung Chromebook Review
Samsung Chromebook Review
Whenever we review Chromebooks, we alwayscome to more or less the same conclusion:
it's a neat idea, a computer where everything is done online, but it's not worth the money.
That was back when Chrome OS devices were priced at $500, competing with netbooks that
could run not just the Chrome browser, but all manner of Windows apps. Ditto for tablets,
which can be tricked out with many thousands of apps on both iOS and Android.
But what if we told you the price had been slashed to $249? Then could you see yourself
pulling the trigger? That's the gamble Google and Samsung Chromebook are taking with the
new samsung Chromebook, which retails for $249 with an 11.6-inch display, 6.5-hour battery
and a more compact design. All told, it's as good a piece of hardware as any netbook you'll
find, only cheaper. And good luck finding a tablet-and-keyboard combo for less than $250.
There is one major change this time around, though, and that's the Samsung Chromebook's
dual-core ARM processor, instead of something from Intel's Celeron family. The performance
isn't likely to be as good, but will that matter if all you're running is the Chrome browser? Will
the lowered price be enough to lure in parents, travelers and other folks looking for a cheap
second laptop? Let's see.
Until now, Samsung Chromebook have been priced in the $500 range with a build quality a
step above what most netbooks have to offer. As you might expect, now that the price has
been slashed to $249, it feels slightly cheaper than the last-generation samsung chrome
book Series 5 550 but only slightly. With the exception of the palm rest, which used to be
made of inlaid metal, this has the same look and feel as the Samsung Chromebook we
reviewed earlier this year.
Once again, you're looking at a lightweight machine built from matte gray plastic. The whole
thing feels compact, at 2.5 pounds, and because it has a smaller display (11.6 inches versus
12.1) it's significantly lighter than the last Samsung Chromebook, which weighed 3.3 pounds.
The island-style keyboard is just as comfortable, and the trackpad is similarly large. It was a
nice package when it cost $500, but it's reallynice now that the MSRP has been lowered to
$249. You simply won't find a netbook this nice for that little money.
The new Samsung Chromebook is thinner, too, at 0.8 inch thick, but that thinness means
Samsung Chromebook has gone back to not having an Ethernet port. (It was missing from
the OG model, but was added in the one that went on sale earlier this year.) The inability to
use a wired internet connection could be a problem in computer labs, where Chrome OS
devices have proven popular, though we suspect mainstream consumers won't care. Look
closely at the edges and you'll also find an SD card reader, 3.5mm headphone jack, USB 3.0
and 2.0 ports, HDMI output and a 3G SIM slot. As ever, the bottom of the device is sealed,
so that you can't easily mess with the battery, storage or RAM.
KEYBOARD
Given what the Samsung Chromebook is an inexpensive, ultra-mobile device for people who
prefer physical keyboards Samsung really can't get away with offering a shoddy typing

2. experience. After all, back when Samsung Chromebook cost $500, they were priced in line
with both netbooks and tablets. If the keyboard were uncomfortable, there'd be little reason
not to get a cheap PC instead, or use a tablet with either a touchscreen or keyboard case.
The typing experience mattered then, and it matters today, even now that the Samsung
Chromebook is priced less than most netbooks and tablets.
Fortunately, the keyboard is as good here as it ever was, despite the fact that this smaller
model has a little less room to fit all those buttons. The individual keys have a pleasantly soft
finish, and all of the major buttons (Enter, Backspace, et cetera) are amply sized. As on other
Samsung Pcs, the keyboard is a bit shallow, but the learning curve shouldn't be too steep:
we were typing at a brisk clip minutes after setting it up. Additionally, we appreciate the
shortcut keys in the top row, which allow you to refresh pages, switch tabs and page forward
or backward with the press of a button.
As we said, the trackpad is nice and spacious, which makes it easy to pull off two-finger
scrolling. Single-finger navigation is also reliable, but with tap-to-clicking, we sometimes had
to apply a little extra pressure to make those taps register. Overall, though, it's easy to use.
Unfortunately, it doesn't support pinch-to-zoom, which would have been nice for magnifying
websites with fine print and sprawling maps.
DISPLAY AND SOUND
The best thing about the Samsung Chromebook's 11.6-inch, 1,366 x 768 display is the matte
finish, which means screen glare won't get in your way the next time you're watching a
"Modern Family" marathon on Hulu. Still, a matte finish doesn't necessarily equate to wide
viewing angles. Push the display forward and the screen will wash out, making it very difficult
to read text or follow along with a movie. The brightness is also lower than it was on earlier
Samsung Chromebook: 200 nits compared with 300. Neither of these things should be deal-
breakers; you'll just want to futz with the angle before settling in to work with the Samsung
Chromebook on your lap.
TheSamsung Chromebook's dual 1.5-watt speakers are located on the bottom side of the
machine, very close to the front edge. As you might imagine, the sound doesn't get very loud,
but you still might want to avoid cranking it up unless you really can't hear: even movie dialog
sounds a bit distorted at top volume. As we've often found with tinny speakers, instruments
like electric guitar sound especially grating, but you could get away with listening to softer,
more acoustic music especially if you keep the volume at a more moderate level.
PERFORMANCE AND BATTERY LIFE
If you're a Samsung Chromebook user, you sacrifice very little by buying this for $249 over
the other model for $450.
With steep price cuts come trade-offs, and we're not just talking about the build materials.
Whereas Samsung's first two Samsung Chromebook ran dual-core Atom and Celeron
processors, respectively, this third-gen model moves to a fanless design with an ARM chip
specifically, a dual-core A15-based Samsung Exynos 5 Dual (5250) SoC. Paired with it are
2GB of RAM, 16GB of built-in flash storage, 802.11a/b/g/n and Bluetooth. In the absence of
any quantitative benchmark scores, this is the best way we can describe the performance: it
falls somewhere between the original Atom-based Samsung Chromebook and the current
Celeron-equipped Series 5 model.
The system didn't have any issues playing back 1080p content in YouTube and Hulu. Still,

3. use it long enough and you'll notice some slight delays in response time, even when you're
doing things like opening new tabs. Another problem: Netflix streaming isn't yet supported for
this device. A Google spokesperson issued the following statement: "We're working closely
with Netflix and support will be coming soon. Once ready, your new Samsung Chromebook
will be auto-updated with Netflix support." While we don't have any reason to doubt Google is
working on it, this will nevertheless be a disappointment to many folks unboxing an early unit.
All told, if you're a Samsung Chromebook user, you sacrifice very little by buying this for
$249 over the other model for $450 in fact, you gain in terms of less weight, thinness and
improved portability. You lose the Ethernet and the 3G radio (it's optional now) but you do get
built-in Bluetooth. But what if you're not already a Samsung Chromebook user? Should you
get this or a tablet (or even a netbook)? It depends how much you live in the cloud. When it
comes to text input, the Samsung Chromebook is superior to any tablet (even the
Transformers) because of its great keyboard and because it's more practical than carrying
around a separate keyboard / dock. The browsing experience and performance also beats
any tablet it steamrolls them with a score of 677.3ms in the web browser benchmark
SunSpider, for instance. Then again, of course, there are no native apps.
Netbooks, meanwhile, have come a long way in terms of keyboard comfort and overall
performance, but you won't find anything of this quality for $249. Additionally, of course, they
have the advantage of being able to run lots of legacy Windows apps. If you think you need
desktop programs, though, you shouldn't even be considering a Samsung Chromebook. Ditto
if you need more local storage beyond what your SD card is capable of. And that's always
been the argument for netbooks over Samsung Chromebook, frankly, except now Samsung
Chromebook is half the price. Given that there aren't any similarly nice netbooks in this price
range, it's easier to forgive the Samsung Chromebook's shortcomings and recommend it as a
cheap, secondary computer.
As for battery life, it's rated for six and a half hours of runtime. Indeed we logged six hours
and 33 minutes in our usual rundown test, which involves looping a video off local storage
with WiFi on. That's better than most Ultrabooks we've tested recently, though that isn't
saying much. For years now, Atom-powered netbooks have been capable of 10-hour battery
life. The latest crop of Atom-powered Windows 8 tablets also claim about 10 hours of juice.
Not to mention, many ARM-powered tablets last nine or 10 hours we're talking products like
the latest iPad, the ASUS Transformer Pad TF700 and the Surface for Windows RT. So,
while six and a half hours is nice, it doesn't compare that well to what you'll get from other
low-cost mobile devices.
SOFTWARE
$249 seems like an appropriate price for this sort of device.
The layman's explanation for Chrome OS: it's the Chrome browser you're used to using,
except that's all you see when you boot up the computer. That's the caveat we'd make to our
low-tech friends who noticed Best Buy is selling a Samsung laptopSamsung laptop for $249,
and are wondering if it's a good deal. For the rest of you, we'd say this: Chrome OS has
evolved quite a bit over the last year and a half, and looks more like a traditional OS than it
did when we reviewed the first Samsung Chromebook. If you read our review of version 19
from a few months back, you should be up to speed. As we described then, Chrome OS now
has a "desktop," of sorts. We use quotes because the desktop isn't a space where you can
pin shortcuts to websites or documents you might be working on. You can, however, change
the wallpaper and pin favorite apps to the bottom of the screen. Ultimately, though, it's not a

4. desktop in the conventional sense of the word; it's more of a visual flourish that should help
newcomers feel more at home with their Samsung Chromebooks.
Speaking of the sort, the first time you sign on you'll see a welcome box containing the
following: a primer on apps, the touchpad, saving / accessing files, working offline,
documents and working with photos. Everything happens in the browser, if that wasn't
already clear. And while there haven't been any major UI changes, Google has, at least,
added more functionality to its web apps. With build 19, for instance, Chrome OS got a photo
editor with light editing tools. The media player supports more formats than it used to.
Google+ is now integrated, Hangouts included. You can do more and more offline in the
event you lose your internet connection this includes working on documents and, as of build
19, reading Google Books. Chrome Remote desktop lets you access other devices, and also
share your screen with others. What's more, Chrome OS syncs open tabs from your mobile
devices, as well as any PCs you use that are running Chrome.
There are some new features in build 23, however. With this version, the OS gets a new log-
in screen; more wallpapers; a new apps list; a mosaic photo filter; and deeper integration with
Google's cloud storage service, Google Drive including 100GB of free storage for two years.
The list of native apps has also expanded to include Calculator, Camera, Docs, Sheets,
Slides and Google Play Movies.
WRAP-UP
No matter how cheap Samsung Chromebook get, they will always be a polarizing class of
product: there are some people who couldn't be paid to use a laptop where everything is
done in the browser. That said, $249 seems like an appropriate price for this sort of device
more so than $450, certainly, which is what the last-gen model sold for. At $249, this device's
faults (a dimmer display, less processing power) are the sorts of shortcomings you can easily
deal with. Our biggest complaint is that it doesn't currently support Netflix streaming, but we
believe Google when it says it's working on a fix. After all, it's already brought streaming to
other Samsung Chromebook, so we have no reason to believe this model will get left out in
the cold. Again, we might mind these things more if the device cost twice as much, but as is,
it's priced in impulse buy territory.
So who's this for? For starters, we've always felt that Samsung Chromebooks could be useful
in computer labs and one-to-one laptop programs in schools, but now they're priced
aggressively enough that mainstream consumers might want them, too. We're thinking
travelers who need a lightweight machine for the road, or parents who cringe at the idea of
spending $600 on a laptop for their kids. And these were always the target customers, really,
except now they're unlikely to find a tablet or equally nice netbook for the same amount of
money. In that regard, a price cut goes a long way.
source :
Samsung Chromebook
http://www.samsungchromebook.net