As expected, Samsung is expanding its line of Chrome OS laptops with a new Samsung Chromebook 2 powered by an Intel Celeron N2840 Bay Trail processor.
The new Chromebook features an 11.6 inch display, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage. It sells for $250, which makes it cheaper than a model with an ARM-based chip. Samsung charges $300 and up for a Chromebook 2 with an Exynos 5 Octa processor (although you can often find one for less).
The new Samsung Chromebook 2 XE500C12-K01US features Intel’s 2.58 GHz dual-core processor, a 1366 x 768 pixel display, stereo speakers, and up to 9 hours of battery life.
The notebook measures 11.4″ x 8.6″ x 0.66″ and weighs 2.65 pounds. It also features a fanless design for silent operation.
Like the ARM-based version, the Chromebook 2 with an Intel processor has a sort of fake stitched leather padding on the lid.
The notebook supports 802.11ac WiFi and Samsung says the Chromebook 2 features reinforced corners for drop protection, ports that are protected by metal, and a metal frame around the display.
One thing that helps set Samsung’s new Chromebook apart from the competition is a new “get help” button. As CNET reports, customers will be able to press the on-screen button to get support from a Samsung representative over the internet. It’s sort of Samsung’s answer to Amazon’s Mayday button for Fire tablets and it could be helpful for folks who are new to Chrome OS or to computers in general.
The Samsung Chromebook 2 with an Intel Celeron N2840 processor should be widely available starting October 20th.
I really want to like these machines, and they have a lot going for them, but the “sort of fake stitched leather padding on the lid” is a bizarre design choice. It’s like a physical dig at Apple (who finally ditched all those skeuomorphic stitched and brushed design elements).
Finally somebody get it right, this is an instant purchase for me, since I have a couple of 128 and 256gb SSD drives lying around after the upgrades to my macbook pro 2013 and flex 2 14, this will be an amazing device to me running ubuntu and slackware. praise to samsung. those handicap chromebooks shouldn’t cost more than $250.
Please tell me more about your plans. Are you going to put those SSD drives in this Chromebook? Are you going to install Linux on this Chromebook? You do know that the community support for installing Linux on the Bay Trails aren’t as good as on the Celerons, right?
Yes, I’ll definitely get the SSD drive installed on my upcoming chromebook 2(when it gets released), yes I will install Linux on it as well, and already have several leads on the few issues you encounter when you put Ubuntu on it, fortunately Ubuntu 14.4 now supports Linux graphic driver installer for intel HD GPU’s, if not I can always install it manually. cheers!
On the original Samsung ARM chromebook the SSD was soldered on (eMMC), so no way to upgrade that. It might be the same deal with this version…
The problem I mentioned about the Bay Trails is that it seems most of them ships with a Coreboot without the SeaBios payload that is needed to boot regular Linux distros. That means you need to find/compile a custom firmware, or go with the ChrUbuntu approach, which limits you to the ChromeOS kernel and modules.
I love Samsung’s keyboards. Notice how the keyboard goes almost edge to edge of the computer? They put a bigger keyboard in their 11″ laptops than a lot of companies do in their 13″ machines! I wish more would follow suite!
I don’t have many nice things to say about Samsung, but I can’t deny this. Some of the best keyboards I’ve used outside of the ones on my Macs over the years, but at at least 1/8th the price.