Samsung Chromebook (Wi-Fi, 11.6-Inch) Reviews
I already have a notebook that is 2 years old and after using my tablets the notebook seems like it weighs a ton. I love that I can slip a tablet in my purse when I travel but sometimes I need more than a tablet. The Chromebook is perfect for me! It is lightweight and the keyboard is just as good as the one on my notebook and I think the touch pad is better. I did have to increase the font a little for my aging eyes but that was simple to do. I have been using Chrome browser since it first came out so this was simple for me. I've been very happy with this purchase but I am a fan of Google products, also have a Nexus 7 tablet so I might be prejudiced. If you just want a little more than a tablet and still want to take it along with you, give this a look. Read the tech reviews. This is the model you want, not the lower priced model from a different manufacturer or the higher priced one from the same manufacturer.
It took a while but I was fortunate that someone returned one of these to Amazon and I was able to pick it up for less than the advertised retail cost. I have been sitting in front of computers for near on four decades now. Spent plenty of time using Windows machines at work and even had some early windows 'ultraportables' such as the Sharp Muramasa. For home use, I went with AAPL at the launch of OSX more than a decade ago and have a house full of those machines, both desktop and laptop. This Chromebook just amazes me with that history.
This thing is
1. amazingly affordable. 2. amazingly light 3. amazingly energy efficient 4. amazingly high performing. What you need to understand about this machine is that performance is fully a function of your internet connection speed. Below 10Mb/s it gets a little laggy. With a wifi signal above 10Mb/S it works like a champ. My other laptop is a 15" MPB with a processor rated at about double the speed of this machine and more RAM but can you tell a difference at internet speeds above 10Mb/s? No. Would I rather take this machine with me when traveling and have full access to every web site that I normally access via laptops and desktops in my home? Yes absolutely. Should you get one of these? Yes. Sure, if you spend a significant amount of time on the machine you now have using some local software program, this is not the machine for you. If you, on the other hand spend the majority of your time in a web browser. You want one of these. Just don't be an a$$ and pay more than what GOOG or AMZN is selling them for new from some scalper. Get one when you can get one for 250 or less.
Okay, so let me start by saying that I own this Chromebook now and also a very powerful Windows gaming laptop.
That said, the Chromebook is my favorite of the two. This Chromebook is fantastic in every way, shape and form. The only thing that I have not been able to do with it is log in to an enterprise Microsoft Sharepoint server, but that is not a huge deal to me. I have been able to do almost anything else I would ever want to do with it. I use it every night to use Google Video Chat with my girlfriend, and the only issues I see with that are typically when the internet is slow. Nothing client-based.
Logmein and Chrome Remote Desktop make for fantastic remote desktop solutions, and both work very well on the Chromebook. That is great for me because a 17.6" gaming laptop is heavy to carry around, so if I must use Windows then I can always remote in to it from anywhere. It also helps to know that (finally) Logmein is working on an extension for Google Chrome, in case that is an important service for you.
I have not had any issues with pages loading on the Chromebook. They all seem to work as they are supposed to. Even though it runs on a mobile processor, I do not notice any lag or anything like that even with 1080p video playback. Boot time is consistently under 10 seconds and time to resume from sleep is virtually instantaneous.
If you are an avid user of Google services, then the Chromebook will work great for you. I use Google Drive quite frequently and the free 100gb comes in handy for me. It is great to use Google Docs when I am on the run because I can resume my work anywhere from any computer. The only issue I have with that is when typing its equivalent of a Word Document, you cannot merge cells in a table. Oh well.
Battery life is great too, with an average of 6 hours on general web browsing, 4.5 for video chat.
If there is anything you need to do on a Windows computer, more than likely there is a free web-based solution. For that matter, I even found a web-based alternative to Photoshop!
Unlike many operating systems, updates are not something you have to think about anymore. They handle themselves, and all you have to do is restart your Chromebook occasionally (which when updating still takes under a minute).
Overall I have to say, this is probably one of the best computers to be invented. Ever.
I recently ordered a Samsung Chromebook from Amazon and so far I love it! It does not carry our well-known popular apps like Skype or iTunes, but the speed of the start up and all the features for work and school are handy and wonderful! Sometimes a little frustrating but works very well for students that are evolving into more 'technologized'homeowork.
I'm a heavy laptop user and software developer. I can easily get to ssh using 'CTL-ALT-T, ssh user@hostname'. There is also a secure shell app in the webstore. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on this ARM based device at the moment (relies no native code) but forums show that it should soon.
* great keyboard
* great battery life
* plays HD youtube
* offline Kindle makes it good for reading books (presumably Google Play books too)
* great for google docs
* hangouts and phone calls from within gmail work great
* netflix coming soon
Buy Now
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