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Samsung Chromebook (Wi-Fi) $249.00

350X

350X

Android Expert
Samsung Chromebook (Wi-Fi) $249.00

How useful is it really? GF was wanting to get her son a laptop for school, that price looks awful inviting.

To bad its not also a touch screen.

can it play games?

install MS like software?


price is probably to good to be true?
[A 32GB nexus 7 more useful? ]

can you put in a much larger HD?

https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=chromebook_samsung_wifi

Tech Specs
Screen
11.6" (1366 x 768) HD display
Low-glare matte, 200 nit screen
VGA Webcam

CPU
Samsung Exynos 5 Dual
Weight
2.4 lbs / 1.10 kg

Size
289.6 x 208.5 x 16.8 - 17.5 mm
Memory
2 GB DDR3 RAM
16 GB Solid State Drive

Network
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n 2x2
Bluetooth 3.0
 
I feel like this device is basically a tablet with a keyboard and no touch screen.

Honestly it would probably depend on the needs of the kid at school, just because is he going to want to take notes on it, it would probably be easier in class to take notes with a full keyboard...

It seems like a good idea for google, i am concerned on the OS it is running, is it Android or is it Windows? Because i didn't see anything in the specs about it :confused:
 
Ordered mine last week through BB but it's backordered. :(
For me, I'm not really a computer techie, so virtually everything I do is on the web and coincidentally Chrome. I have a TF Prime which has comparable internals and a touch screen. For a tablet/screen that size, I just don't care for it to be touchscreen. I think it's much more suited for phones and 7" tablets.
Saying the price is almost too good to be true bares some truth. It's sold out nearly everywhere! Whether or not it's just in response to low production or actually high desirability is yet to be seen. Either way, I'll likely sell my Prime when I do get it. :)
 
Websites just say Google Chrome OS, what ever that means. [ID guess android 4.0 tweaked for a laptop, like how GB was done for tablets]


He just does online school stuff, study programs and junk, only in jr high. email, facbook.

games would be the big one, can you play most of the hot games on google play ok still with out the touch screen???

It has to support game pads and such.

Love to hear how it goes for you dreadnatty08
 
Yeah, that's one of the great things the new one has is BT support for mice or game pads. I'm not a gamer at all, so not a huge deal. Honestly, I don't know how the interplay between the Play Store and Chrome Store works. Given it is ARM based, it's possible to hack it and have it run Android, but I've no idea yet. BB said it won't ship for another couple weeks.
 
350X said:
Websites just say Google Chrome OS, what ever that means. [ID guess android 4.0 tweaked for a laptop, like how GB was done for tablets]


He just does online school stuff, study programs and junk, only in jr high. email, facbook.

games would be the big one, can you play most of the hot games on google play ok still with out the touch screen???

It has to support game pads and such.

Love to hear how it goes for you dreadnatty08
Click to expand...

If that is true it really excites me that Google is maybe experimenting with an OS for computers, i mean after all this crap with Microsoft Windows 8 i would love to try out a new OS. :)
 
dreadnatty08 said:
I don't know how the interplay between the Play Store and Chrome Store works. .
Click to expand...

Well they may have just lost the sale right there, how can any google device not get play store access?

quick look at the chrome store seals that deal, oh man is the selction of games lame. why would they have a different store?

so its like pre android like in a way, devlopers aren't jumping through the hoops yet to port apps over to yet another store/device.

Google makes another blunder, are they trying to give MS a leg up?
 
I wouldn't call it a blunder. When ChromeOS debuted, it really was about a target audience. Specifically, those who spend the majority of their PC time on the internet. Social media, email, YT, shopping etc. I'm really one of those people. Neither my job nor really any of my personal time requires hardware heavy devices or a strong app selection. I made that quite clear when I signed up to get a CR-48 (which I never did :().
But, I understand if that's really important for you, than it's a no go. I think the target here is for folks where that's all they do and they don't want to shell out for a Win machine.
The naysayers will say, but hey, you can get one for not much more if not the same. But, I've had an XP netbook with an Atom processor and it just got so painfully slow so quickly after use. This is purely anecdotal, but I'm looking forward to trying something new.
 
Chrome OS is still in the experimental stage. Think of it as Android 1.5. This is the 2nd refresh, and features are being added constantly. There is a huge push for cloud usage, and Google is trying to capitalize on it. With a $250 price point, who can argue that it's a poor investment for users?

As a consumer, it will do 90% of what I need. That other 10% is a deal breaker for me right now though. No disk drive and not compatible with Windows software hurts. Any business software won't work on here. No quickbooks and no ability to run my CPA study software makes this unusable.

I hope most users don't feel this way, and will make the jump so they continue to develop ChromeOS.
 
350X said:
Websites just say Google Chrome OS, what ever that means. [ID guess android 4.0 tweaked for a laptop, like how GB was done for tablets]
Click to expand...

It's not Android. it's basically just a browser, nothing else. If there's no internet, it's pretty much useless. There's no apps as such, apart from whatever add-ons you might use with the Chrome internet browser on other OSs.


350X said:
He just does online school stuff, study programs and junk, only in jr high. email, facbook.

games would be the big one, can you play most of the hot games on google play ok still with out the touch screen???

It has to support game pads and such.

Love to hear how it goes for you dreadnatty08
Click to expand...

If whatever you use is on the internet and is in the browser, e.g. Facebook, browser based games, e-mail, etc. yes it will work on Chrome OS. However if it's stuff that requires MS Windows, then no they won't work.
 
You should check out my post below about my experience so far with the Chromebox. The Chromebook is the same thing, just in a laptop instead of a desktop. It's basically a computer that's optimized to do one thing, and do it well, and do it cheap: run the Chrime browser. What sets the Chrome browser apart is the fact that there is a rapidly expanding selection of free web-based apps and extensions that do most of what people normally buy software for. So far, it's worked beautifully for me, giving me all of the functionality and performance of a machine that might cost much more, especially when you add in the cost of software. But if you know for sure that there's something you need that's not found in the Chrome Web Store, then it's not for you.
 
> If there's no internet, it's pretty much useless.

That is what I thought also, but it turns out to run several apps without being connected to the internet. Then as soon as you get an internet connection, it syncs.

Also, you can put a full version of Linux on it, and it runs very well. Sort of like a Linux netbook.

I would not be surprised if somebody gets Android running on this.

They are practically impossible to buy.
 
Running Linux, is a chrome book then worth it?

I'm pretty sure when I last went on the play store, they were showing a Acer C5 chrome book...?
 
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