14 DAY TRIAL // Google has just unveiled the "new Chromebook." What's new about it is the price, the new Samsung Chromebook is just $249, €190, the lowest price by far any of these devices has sold for, comparable to the underpowered netbooks that were popular only a few years ago.
The regular Samsung Chromebook Series 5 550 goes for $449, €342 so the price difference is considerable. But, obviously, you're not getting the same machine for that money.
For one, the screen is slightly smaller, 11.6 inch compared to 12.1 inch. However, the resolution is better, 1366x768 compared to 1280x800 in the more expensive model.
The new device is lighter too, 2.5 pounds or 1.1 kg compared to 3.3 pounds or 1.48 kg. The battery lasts longer too, 6.5 hours compared to 6 hours.
The Series 5 Chromebook has 4 GB of RAM, but there's no word on how much the new device has, presumably less, maybe 2 GB, which should still be enough for browsing the web.
Other lower specs are a VGA camera compared to an HD one, no Ethernet port and no 3G mode, just a dual-band WiFi. It also comes with a simple HDMI port compared to the DisplayPort++ in the Series 5 (which supports HDMI, DVI and VGA output.
On the plus side, you get one USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0 port , the Series 5 only has USB 2.0 ports.
Still the differences don't sound that major, certainly not enough to account for such a major price reduction. That's until you get to the processor since that's the biggest surprise.
The new Samsung Chromebook is powered by Samsung's very own Exynos 5 Dual processor. That's an ARM processor, the same one you get in your smartphone. There's now data on the clock rate, but the Exynos 5 Dual is regularly clocked at 1.7 GHz.
The new Chromebook will be available online next week, in the Play store, on Amazon and other places, and also in brick and mortar stores in the US and UK.
