Samsung Chromebook Review

Introduction

According to Samsung, their Chromebook is a new, faster, and easier kind of computer. But why “new”? It looks like a laptop (or, better said, a “netbook”), because of its screen and keyboard size, but its internal hardware makes it more similar to a tablet, with an ARM CPU and flash storage, and running the Google Chrome OS. What makes it different, however, is that it is designed to have its programs and data stored in the “cloud”, not locally. Let’s take a look at this curious portable computer.

The Chromebook we tested is the XE303C12 model, which uses a Samsung Exynos 5 processor, has 2 GiB of RAM and 16 GiB of storage. It has an 11.6” screen with 1366 x 768 resolution, and a VGA webcam.

Figure 1 shows the Samsung Chromebook box.

Figure 1: package

Inside the package, besides the device, we found the 40 W power supply and the users manuals.

Figure 2: accessories

Figure 3 unveils the Samsung Chromebook. It looks like a common netbook, with a silver-colored plastic cover.

Figure 3: the Samsung Chromebook