The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Go is a budget Chromebook with one stand-out feature: it’s one of only a handful to support cellular networks.
Samsung quietly introduced the laptop last month, and now it’s available for purchase from Samsung.com for $300. Unfortunately the only model available at the moment is a WiFi-only model with rather mediocre specs.
The good news is that all models of the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Go are powered by an Intel Celeron N4500 Jasper Lake processor. That’s a 6-watt, 2-core, 2-thread processor that’s designed to be a low-cost, low-power chip, but it should deliver up to a 35% performance boost over previous-gen Intel Gemini Lake Refresh chips like the Celeron N4020.
We’ll likely see more Jasper Lake-powered Chromebooks in the coming months.
The less good news is that the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Go has a 14 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display rather than a higher-resolution screen. The laptop does have a 180 degree hinge that allows you to lie the screen flat, but it’s not a convertible notebook – you can’t flip the screen all the way around for use in tablet mode, and it’s not a touchscreen.
For $300 you get a WiFi-only model with 4GB of RAM, 32GB of eMMC storage and no support for 4G LTE. And that’s the only version available at launch, although Samsung’s spec sheet for the Galaxy Chromebook Go suggests that models with up to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage may be on the way (in some markets, at least).
The Galaxy Chromebook Go measures 12.9″ x 8.9″ x 0.6″ and weighs about 3.2 pounds. It has a 42.3 Wh battery and comes with a 45W USB-C power adapter.
Ports include two USB Type-C, one USB 3.2 Type-A, a headset jack, and a microSD card reader. And models with 4G will also have a nano SIM card slot.
Other wireless features include support for Bluetooth 5.1 and WiFi 6 (802.11ax). And the laptop has a 720p webcam, a digital mic, and stereo speakers.