Samsung Chromebook: The Cloud Centric Laptop

Manufactured by Samsung, the Google ChromeBook is a new cloud centric laptop which is based on the concept of storing everything online. This computer is powered by a new operating system developed by Google, known as the Chrome OS. The laptop uses web applications like gMail and Google Drive instead of relying on software installed locally.

The aim of this operating system is to focus is on cloud computing and keep everything online, the new version of the OS also allows a number of tasks to be performed offline if required. The price has been kept low; at under $300 and Google believes the price point is just right to attract customers.

So let us go through attributes of this Samsung ChromeBook to know if it would be worth purchasing one.

Why Samsung Chromebook?

This is the first question we will look at and the features that answer this question are its sleek look and light-weight design. The laptop is about 0.8 thick and weighs in only 2.5 lb, making it practical to carry along wherever you go. The elegant look is enhanced by the silver colored design and sports a display of 11.6 inches with resolution of 1366 X 768.

The ChromeBook is easy on eyes due to its matte finish and works pretty well for everyday activities like browsing the web or checking mails. Other standard uses include video chatting capabilities, with the help of the built-in microphone and the webcam.

Regarding the available interface ports and storage capacity, here are the specs:

1. Headphone jack

2. SD card slot

3. USB 2.0 & 3.0 slots

4. HDMI port

5. Wi-Fi and SIM card slot

6. SSD storage of 16GB

7. Google drive 100GB cloud storage for 2 yrs.

What about usability?

The ChromeBook scores well on the usability front also, with the keyboard requiring special mention due to its extra features. It has a chiclet style layout, with well spaced keys which have been customized to cater to the web based environment the OS has. The keyboard includes keys for back & forward operations on a browser and for web page refresh. The Caps Lock has been replaced by search key with list of applications which are present for use and the key can be remapped to its normal use if required.

Apart from the keyboard, the trackpad also ranks well on usability front. First of all it is very responsive and functions are smooth. You can use many two finger as well as one finger gestures to perform different operations ranging from swap actions to scrolling.

Does it perform well?

The Google Chrome performance is above par, even though it has only 2GB of RAM, and the ARM processor takes up considerable load with slowing down. The system boots within ten seconds and in another five seconds you’ll be online, right after entering your Google account details. The battery life is quite good at more than 6 hours, and given the nature of its OS you can simply forget about software conflicts or virus threats.

A Final Note

Overall we can say the Samsung ChromeBook is the ideal choice for users on a budget, provided a) they are online most of the time and b) don’t mind storing most of their data in the cloud using the syncing system provided by Google.

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