Samsung Chromebook (Wi-Fi, 11.6-Inch) Reviews
I have purchased many, many, many things from Amazon however this is my first time I have placed a review.
I will make this short.
This machine is amazing for $249.
The keyboard is the best keyboard I have ever used.
The touchpad is awesome.
The speakers are loud. Not what an audiophile would appreciate however my 3 year old can hear his youtube stuff in a room with other noise.
I like to use multiple browser windows versus a single browser window with mutilple tabs. I have 10 windows open with each having maybe 2 to 4 related tabs and I have no slow down at all.
The quality is very good and solid.
The screen is plenty bright.
This thing is a crazy good deal.
Do you really need to spend $1,000 on a MacBook Air (and yes, I have one)? If you don't define yourself by a brand, then I think the answer is, maybe not.
The differences? While the Chromebook may be plastic vs aluminum, the keyboard is very similar. I'm not a display snob so I find the Chromebook's screen fine. To use an automotive analogy, the Chromebook screen is more Nissan than Mercedes in quality, but it is incredibly functional. We use computers for email, research, bill pay and homework. All of those tasks can be done on the Chromebook very easily. Each person can have their own cloud account and personalized the experience simply by logging in. Writing and data entry is quite easy with the great keyboard. You can't do that on a tablet unless you buy a separate keyboard. You may find installed programs that reside on your MacBook Air that haven't yet been replicated on the web, but there aren't many.
If you have tons of stuff on your hard drive, you'll have to train yourself that the hard-drive is now in the cloud. But heck, many of us have used Dropbox for years. I also have 4 back-up storage drives that I've used every time we moved stuff from one computer to the next. Now some of those are failing. The cloud solves storage more elegantly and effectively than an external hard drive.
For email, I recently redirected our custom family email domain to Google, and find the Gmail interface with our custom email address quite fantastic.
Another issue folks may face is music management. While Apple dominated that market for years, the cloud has changed the concept of music storage and play. Stream it on your phone or you computer from the cloud and get the music off your desktop. With Amazon Cloud Player and Google Play you can free yourself from the other expensive music options.
I'm not bashing Apple, and working at a online software company I used them as an example of great design. I've also owned 8 Apple computers over the past 10 years. Yet, with the Chromebook you get a get a great cloud experience and can save the $800-1000 dollars. That will be big market driver for a generation who find money somewhat tighter than in the past. It also seems like the perfect new category of computer for businesses that have employees doing sales, customer support, and order management.
I'm impressed. The Chromebook is light, more functional than a tablet, less expensive than a laptop and easy to use. It's a Cloud-Powered "Laplet" (Laptop / Tablet).
Although it took a little getting used to, I have quickly become attached to my Chromebook. I use my Mac for hours every day for work, and of course it is my favorite. My Chromebook however, has quickly become my "anything but design or coding" computer. I've had no issue with the lack of native apps or programs, as I can quickly pop open Chrome Remote Desktop and have my Mac in full screen.
The keyboard is fantastic, and feels very familiar to anyone using a modern Apple keyboard. It's very thin, fast, light, and sturdy. The screen is not the best, but it is certainly not bad either.
For the price, this will be one of your most redeeming impulse buys ever.
Just got my Chromebook this afternoon. I've fiddled with it nonstop for about 5 hours and have come away quite pleased. First let's describe what this is: a cheap laptop to browse the web and send a few emails while using a lightweight Linux based, Google developed OS - Chrome OS. Having said that, I sent some emails, I browsed the web non-stop, watched a 1080p video, configured a couple VPNs, connected to 5Ghz 802.11n and did a speed test on my home network, and listened to Pandora nonstop, all while having it unplugged (after a full charge of course) to see how the battery held up. Here's what happened.
Web Browsing - Great experience, web pages loaded fairly quickly and I was able to keep upwards of 7 tabs open in Chrome without many problems. I left Pandora running the entire time I was browsing. This would cause some weird issues where Pandora would stop playing, I would have to click on the Pandora tab and it would reload the whole tab, and then start playing again. I replicated this 3-4 times. I found that closing a couple tabs made Pandora behave a little better. Probably a symptom of having such a resource light laptop, but that's to be expected - especially at this price.
Speakers - The speakers themselves are pretty bad. You can turn them all the way up and just not really think they are turned all the way up. They fire directly into your lap, so the sound is absorbed quite easily by pants or blanket material that is in the way. Having said that, they would be more than adequate to watch a movie in bed or listening to music as long as you aren't looking for a hi fidelity experience.
Battery life - I left it unplugged for about 2.5 hours, listened to music, watched about 5 minutes of a movie file, watched various YouTube clips, did some configurations of the OS itself, and did a couple speed tests, all while web browsing non-stop. Under this pretty intensive work load I was left with 64% battery life left. My calculations tell me this would give me a 6.5 hour battery life. That is exactly what Google and Samsung claim, and I can live with that. Very impressive, especially for being such a light and thin device.
Wifi Speed - I connected to my home 802.11n access point, using the 5Ghz radio, and was able to attain 30+ Mbps download and 20+ Mbps upload speeds using speedtest.net. Pretty great, I don't think the wifi speed will ever be a bottleneck for me.
VPN - I was able to configure multiple VPN connections after a few hiccups. I confirmed these connected were working by checking my IP address location using [...]. Configuration was relatively painless and Chrome OS seems to support OpenVPN, L2TP/IPSec + PSK, and L2TP/IPSec + User Certificate options.
User Accounts - The Chromebook supports multiple user accounts, which is cool. However there seems to be some usability issues. I signed in and set up the VPN connections, sync'd my Chrome extensions and messed around. Then I let my wife log in with her account and things got weird. It prompted something about using a different password for her than last time (this was her first time ever logging onto a Chrome OS device). Then I logged her out (it doesn't support account switching) and logged back in under my account, it gave me the same error about using a different password than last time I logged in (it was the same password I used the first time) and then I noticed my VPN connections were gone, and I opened Chrome to find it was syncing my extensions again like I had never done it before. However my background and user icons were what I had set them to earlier. Also, my wife and I both use two factor authentication (TFA) with our Google accounts. Logging in to the Chromebox will prompt you for a TFA code after entering your username and password, however there is no "trust this computer" option as there is with Windows machines and even certain Google applications within Android. This is a convenience vs. security issue, however it should be up to the user whether or not they trust the computer they are signing in to.
Keyboard and Trackpad - Both work just fine, the keyboard is a little small but it is very usable and the trackpad is great. You get used to two finger scrolling in a minute even dragging is easy to do.
Screen - The screen is small, and the resolution isn't great. The viewing angles are also not great. Definitely a big concession to the price.
Charger - The charger has an absurdly small connector. I have personally ruined two laptops because the power connector became loose when connecting. I will definitely have to be careful with this.
Overall I am very happy with my purchase. I know that Chrome OS is a work in progress and I look forward to seeing the improvements over time, just like Android, and Chrome, and all the other wonderful things that Google does. I hope Netflix support is added soon (they promise that it is) and that the large influx of Chrome OS users from this devices give Google reason to work even harder on fixing the bugs and adding features. If you know what you are buying, both in the software and hardware, and realize you are paying $250 for it, you will be pleased too.
P.S. I would pay another $50-$100 to add a back-lit keyboard and a better screen. Hopefully there will be some more tiers of Chromebooks coming out soon.
(since this Chromebook was sold out on Amazon, I bought it at my local Best Buy)
Here are my initial thoughts:
Starting it up was a breeze. The computer had to update the system, which only took a few minutes. I then signed in to my google account and I had all my emails, documents, and music waiting for me in the cloud. It is as simple as they advertise it to be.
THE HARDWARE:
First thing you notice: It is so light! Absolutely perfect for traveling. I was very impressed with how smoothly the laptop opened. It opens and closes very fluidly - a problem I've had with previous laptops. The keyboard is a dream to type on. It exactly mirrors that of a Mac keyboard - both in looks and in overall feel. I bought this laptop primarily for writing, so this was a huge deal for me. The trackpad is okay. Multi-touch works fine. The size of the trackpad is great. The problem: when you 'click' on the trackpad it makes an unusually loud noise. I've had to learn to tap-to-click just to avoid the noise.
As another reviewer pointed out: there is 'give' on the edge of the palm-rest. If pressure is applied to the area right of the trackpad a slight clicking noise occurs. It is not a major problem, but it does show a minor flaw in the build quality.
The speakers on this device are rather poor. The bass sounds muffled and the higher-pitched audio sounds tinny. Part of the reason they sound like this is because the speakers are located on the bottom of the device...however, they sound poor mostly because they are cheap speakers. Thankfully, the Chromebook comes with a headphone jack.
The screen is nothing incredible, but for the price, it works perfectly. Hi-Def youtube videos look very Hi-Def. Pictures look vibrant. The matte display makes it easy to work in high light. It's definitely not retina-display quality, but again, for the price it's quite good. The webcam is awful. It lags, the picture quality is terrible. To me, the webcam itself seems unnecessary. The 6.5 hours of battery life is relatively correct. I wish that the battery lasted longer, yet, as with most of my complaints, given the price it is completely understandable. The computer barely gets warm. I've had laptops get so hot that they melt the plastic and yes, I had to put the computer ON ICE! The Chromebook has no moving parts, thus no fan, thus it stays very cool and quiet.
THE 'SOFTWARE':
Being my first Chromebook I was wary of an OS that was primarily based around the web. But thus far, I've found that it's nothing too different from a regular computer, just that your hard-drive is in the cloud. The 'Cloud' does concern me, however. There are privacy issues and security concerns that linger in the back of my mind. I'm hopeful that Google will continue to follow its 'Don't Be Evil' slogan AND that they make sure the cloud stays secure.
And to the people saying that you can't do anything offline with this Chromebook: there are 16gb of space on this computer solely for offline activity. You can take movies, photos, documents, music on the go and play/edit them without needing a web connection. There are a slew of offline programs in the ChromeStore.
The interface is exactly what I have been looking for in a computer for years: a smooth, uncluttered, and simple UI that looks nice. I hate files on the desktop and a menu-bar on the top or bottom of the screen. ChromeOS is elegantly simple and allows you the ability to keep everything perfectly organized and clean.
There is a drawback to the simplicity: google's offline music app is TOO simple. I would love a designated program that is devoted to organizing my media files located on the 16gb hard-drive. I hope this feature is included in future updates.
*If anyone from Google reads this: There is no way to get rid of the 'For quick access, place your bookmarks here...' box on the 'new tabs' page. I don't use bookmarks, and I find the box to completely interfere with the simple look of the interface. Please find a way for us to remove this bar*
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Overall, for the price, this is an incredible computer. The hardware is far more than what you'd expect for $250. The keyboard is wonderful, the trackpad and screen are nice. The OS is simple yet powerful. This computer is not meant to be a replacement for a tablet or a primary computer. This is a computer for people who want a simple OS, a physical keyboard, all at a nice price. It is perfect for web browsing, emailing, and writing documents. It suits my needs perfectly. If Google/Samsung continue to make top-quality products like this I will surely stay a loyal customer to them.
5/5
UPDATE (11/13/12):
I've noticed, in the last few days, a lag in the speed of the chromebook. When I first got this chromebook the internet was lightning fast - now, even after I shut it down and restart it, it is very slow. I was hoping this was just a problem with my internet, but the internet is still lightning fast on my imac. Also, it is starting to get slow when I open documents.
The battery life is very consistent, 6-6 1/2 hours of time is enough for two or three days of casual web browsing and writing.
I LOVE the cloud: I'm still grateful that I can open a doc in the chromebook, and see that very same document on my iphone and/or imac in seconds. I'm still bummed that the onboard music 'app' is so bare-bones. It's irritating when you're away from your internet and you have to rely on the 'folders' app for music organization. I watched an Mpeg-4 movie (located on an SD card): Every 4 seconds the video seemed to speed up and then slow back down to normal speed. It's a very odd glitch that I hope was remote to just that one file (though when played on my imac it did not have this problem).
I'm keeping my review at 5 stars because this is still one very powerful computer for the price. It's simple to use, fun to have around when watching television, great to travel with.
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