Samsung Chromebook review (2012)

Samsung Chromebook review 2012

Whenever we review Chromebooks, we always come 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 are taking with the new 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 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.

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Samsung Chromebook review (2012) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Nov 2012 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Googler loads Ubuntu on an ARM-based Samsung Chromebook, gives solace to the offline among us

Googler slips Ubuntu on an ARMbased Samsung Chromebook, gives solace to the offline among us

Samsung's ARM-running Chromebook is barely out of the starting gate, and it's already being tweaked to run without as much of an online dependency. By a Google employee, no less. Not content to rely solely on Chrome OS, Olof Johansson has loaded Ubuntu on the Chromebook by partitioning an SD card, mixing OS components and booting from USB. The technique unsurprisingly requires being more than a little comfortable with a Linux command line as well as playing fast and loose with the warranty. It also won't be cheap or quick -- commenters note that you'll ideally have a partitioning-friendly SD card, and running a desktop OS from a slower kind of flash storage creates an inherent bottleneck. Anyone who likes the Chromebook's $249 price, but isn't as enraptured with the cloud as most of the team in Mountain View, might still want to try Johansson's step-by-step process for themselves.

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Googler loads Ubuntu on an ARM-based Samsung Chromebook, gives solace to the offline among us originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ARM-powered Chromebook lands at Play store for $249

ARMpowered Chromebook lands at Play store for $249

Samsung's brand new ARM A15-based Chromebook is now available direct from Google at the Play store. The $249 WiFi only laptop was already available to pre-order through Amazon, but now you can go straight to the source, and Mountain View promises to have one of the light-weight machines in your hands within 3-5 business days. If you're more interested in the 3G-equipped version of the 11.6-incher, you'll still have to take your business to Amazon for now. Though, there's still no word on when the $329 laptop will be released. To order this affordable web-browsing machine now, hit up the source.

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ARM-powered Chromebook lands at Play store for $249 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Oct 2012 16:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google demos Coreboot on Chromebook prototype, hints at Ivy Bridge support (video)

Google demos Coreboot on Chromebook prototype, hints at Ivy Bridge support (video)
Well what do we have here? Our friends over at Netbooknews spotted this Samsung Chromebook prototype at IDF Beijing 2012. Better yet, Google was using the machine to demo Coreboot -- a fast boot open source BIOS replacement for Linux systems -- after recently adding support for Intel's Ivy Bridge platform to the project. Are Coreboot-enabled Ivy Bridge-based Chromebooks on the way? We'll have to wait until Google I/O to find out. In the meantime, there's a video waiting for you after the break -- come on, we know you're secretly big Chromebook fans just like us!

Continue reading Google demos Coreboot on Chromebook prototype, hints at Ivy Bridge support (video)

Google demos Coreboot on Chromebook prototype, hints at Ivy Bridge support (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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