Samsung Series 5 Wi-Fi 12.1-Inch Chromebook (Black)
- 1.66 GHz Intel Atom dual-core N570 processor
- 16 GB solid-state drive (SSD)
- Wireless-N Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n)
- Two USB 2.0, 4-in-1 memory card reader (SD, SDHC, SDXC, MMC)
- 12.1-inch LED-backlit show; Built-in stereo speakers, combo headphone/microphone jack
The Samsung Series 5 XE500C21-A04US Wi-Fi Chromebook lets you stay in touch online with its high class 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless Networking and its Google Chrome OS. This remarkable Chromebook is powered by a quick Intel Atom N570 1.66GHz processor and 2GB of DDR3 memory. Savor every activity going on with its 12.1-inch show, and store extra vital files with its 16GB SSD. Go online and socialize with this incredible Wi-Fi Chromebook today. Innovatively designed to go as long as you can, the Sams
List Price: $ 349.99
Price: $ 349.99
Laptop Case Deals
Trendy Reversable Black & Red Neoprene Notebook Laptop
McKleinUSA RIVER WEST 15715 S Series Fly-Through Checkpoint-Friendly
McKleinUSA Bronzville 15485 S Series Leather Medium Laptop
Cosmos ® Black Neoprene/Cotton 15″ 15.6″ inch Laptop
McKleinUSA Gold Coast 43185 I Series 17-Inch Full
Cosmos ® Black Neoprene/Cotton 12.1″ 12″ inch Laptop
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Cosmos ® Black Neoprene/Cotton 17″ 17.3″ inch Laptop
7” EPC Netbook wifi Black
Acer AC700-1099 Chromebook (Wi-Fi)
Chromebooks Go Production,
I’ve been testing the prototype Cr-48 since February. I expected to just use the device for a few weeks and then go back to my desktop system. But instead I changed a few of my habits and stayed with it ever since. There is very small difference between the Cr-48 and the production Samsung. Size is about the same, keyboard nearly identical. Cr-48 was coated with a rubbery material that you either like or despise. Samsung is more traditional glossy plastic.
Both machines have very bright and crisp displays in a wide format. The screen itself is of the traditional non-glare type. I can’t imagine why anyone would want a screen with glare but I notice many new systems come that way. I guess if you work in a really dark room the glossy screens are fine. The second version of the Chromebook from Acer is said to have a glossy screen for anyone that wants that.
I’ll second what others said that this machine is not for everyone. If you a huge user of Apple products and pleased with their “roadmap” to the future, stay with them. If you need all the specialized software that only runs on Windows, then you’d better stay there too.
But… If you are tired of running virus scanners, clean-up utilities, disk defragmenters, firewalls, and tired of having to question a relative or neighbor to get your machine working again (or worse having to pay someone to do it) then cloud-based computing may be for you.
Chrome OS is a slimmed down (very) version of Linux that boots in 8 seconds and awakes from sleep nearly instantly. There is no desktop, so the graphical interface is the Chrome web browser which takes up the whole screen as soon as you log-on to the machine. There are some “hidden” aspects to this OS, but you can only get to them by flipping a special switch for those who like to experiment, and the machine keeps track of the fact that you have done this. Security experts know that no system is safe if you grant physical access to an attacker, but the Chrome notebook does everything it can to protect your locally stored information (even though there isn’t much of that). Each user must log into the machine and that causes his and only his files to become unencrypted for use. Signing off causes those files to be encrypted again. But very small data is stored on the machine anyway and the entire solid state “disk” is only 16 gig, so pack-rats need not apply. The thought is that you store all your documents in the cloud (you are not limited to using Google products to do this of course). While you *can* download files, typically you do so simply to turn around and upload them somewhere else. You can show photos and play MP3 and MP4 files locally but that is about it (for now anyway). In addition to the SSD space you can store local files on a USB stick or memory card (as used in cameras). Theoretically files you store on the SSD drive will get erased automatically after a while (like a month, though I haven’t seen this happen yet). So if you feel you just HAVE to have some files to carry around with you, a 16G USB stick is probably advisable.
If you want to let a friend use the machine, just sign off and they can use “Guest mode” and your stuff will be safe, no matter what they do. Also anything they do will get erased when they are done. If someone else will be using he machine regularly they can also sign in with a Google ID rather than using Guest mode and their files and yours will be kept isolated from one another.
I’m not sure what it is I like about this keyboard as it mostly resembles other “island keyboards” but I bang pretty hard on the keys and they usually register without too many mistakes. I don’t feel that I am in danger of breaking the thing as is the case with many new notebooks or keyboards. The mousepad as others have mentioned is HUGE. I am not a huge fan of mousepads so even with a notebooks I tend to carry a mouse with me. I recently went visiting needed to use the mousepad for a while though and found it acceptable. I’d say a cut below the Apple mouspads, but not by much. Remember that most of what you get from a mousepad is done in software, not hardware. When the Cr-48s came out there were lots of complaints about the mousepads being nearly unusable, but with each new release of the OS things got better and I’m sure that will continue.
With Chrome OS being a young product so far there is still room for improvement, but the improvements are coming honestly regularly and they are really non-disruptive, downloading in the background and automatically activating the next time you boot. Even that first boot after update doesn’t seem to take longer as with some OSs.
There are three “Channels” for updates: Stable, Beta, and Dev(eloper) depending on how risk averse you are. There is also a USB stick based recovery procedure should your machine get “hosed” which can…
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|Incredible product!,
I am very pleased with my Samsung Chromebook. I had been looking for a computer that was quick, simple to use and did not keep breaking down so when Google announced the Chromebook Pilot program I signed up and got the CR-48. I really liked my CR-48 and therefore bought the Samsung Chromebook with 3G at the Gilt flash sale. I’ve had it now for a few days and am very pleased with it.
The Samsung Chromebook is very light weight and portable; and I like its clean looks and solid end. The keyboard is incredible and the trackpad is HUGE. It also feels a lot quicker than the CR-48. The software on the CR-48 kept improving and getting better in the 6 months I had it and it feels like its gotten even better on the Samsung Series 5. There’s now a file manager and a media player and it is super simple to upload photos to Picasa. And ofcourse it has Chrome which is quick.
The setup was ridiculously simple. As soon as I logged in all my apps, bookmarks and settings came in and it felt like I was back on my ancient computer. In all I reckon I went from closed box to fully ready in a couple of minutes. This was truly incredible. All the other benefits of the CR-48: the quick boot, quick resume and built in 3G are all there in this Chromebook.
I would recommend a Chromebook to anyone; but when people question me if this is right for them this is what I say: it’s fantastic if you primarily use a laptop/ notebook for your personal stuff which, at least for me, is nearly all web-based – gmail, facebook, amazon, youtube, google docs. For ‘work’ I use design software (Adobe CS5, Autocad, etc) that needs serious processing power and a large screen; and thus I use a high-end laptop, but that means it’s heavy and cumbersome. The Chromebook is my personal computer and it works perfectly for that purpose – we leave it lying around the house and pick it up whenever we need to do something that is not work related. It also helps that its battery life is phenomenal. When my parents (NOT tech-savvy) were over they also used the CR-48 a lot and it worked fantastic for them. I plot to get a new Chromebook for them too. So if you want a notebook for personal use that works quick, is reliable and inexpensive, get this one.
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|Samsung Chromebook: First Impressions,
**UPDATE**
I’ve removed a star from the previous 5 stars because I had to recently send my Chromebook back to Samsung when the battery quit working. It absolutely refused to take a charge. I suspect the battery is not the problem, but either a software or hardware glitch is responsible, and the Chromebook forum’s recommended action to remove the battery can’t work as this battery is embedded in this model.
I hope this isn’t symptomatic of a poor design standard from Samsung. I used to really like Samsung, but I’ve been having more and more problems with their products as of late. My father’s three year ancient $3K+ 54-inch plasma screen went out and we finished up replacing it with a new Sharp LCD– which cost much less than fixing the Samsung. Let’s hope Samsung gets their product quality back up to where it once was.
FWIW, I still very much delight in using it and believe the concept to be brilliant!
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Recently, I bought this Samsung Series 5 Arctic White 3G Model Chromebook. For those of you who don’t know, Chromebook is a notebook computer which runs Google’s Chrome OS and is for the most part just a Chrome browser in a notebook. I know, it sounds rather simple and not very exciting. But, knowing how much I depend on Google for business and after doing a bit of research, I became interested enough in it to buy one and try it out. Here’s what I now reckon of it after using it for three days.
Early impressions are extremely positive. It has many of the features I really like of the iPad while also retaining much of the functionality I like in netbooks. I should mention, I run a virtual company and we pretty much run on Google Apps, including accessing email in Gmail, making and editing documentation in Google Docs, and with most spreadsheet work done using Google Spreadsheet. We aso like Google Presentations as a collaborative tool for making slide presentations. We use many online tools, including Basecamp, Freshbooks, Quicken Online, Dropbox, FogBugz among others. So, it’s honest to say, we do a whole lot of computing already ‘in the cloud.’
The implementation of the Chrome browser is fantastic. It looks and behaves exactly the same on Windows and MacOS, which was a bit of a surprise to me seeing how it’s based on a Linux kernel. When I first logged in, the Chrome browser already had all my bookmarks and personal preferences setup as I had on my other Chrome installs (PC and Mac), which was a nice surprise. In fact, install should have been a snap, but a forced ChromeOS update hung a couple times, forcing me to hard restart, but it finally hooked up. I’m not sure, it may be an issue with my bandwidth, ISP, or even the Google Chrome update servers seeing I got mine as quick as possible, along with, I’m sure, MANY MANY others.
The Samsung Chromebook is a bit larger than netbook computers, but smaller than most notebooks. The keyboard is simple to use. It’s honestly light for a notebook but still weighs twice the iPad2. The Chromebook show is much higher resolution at 1280 x 800 vs the iPad’s 1024 x 768 and the Chromebook has a whopping 2GB of memory versus the iPad2′s wimpy 512MB (iPad 1 is only 256MB). Both iPad and Chromebook use solid state drives, with the iPad having three configurations to choose from: 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. This Chromebook only has 16GB, but does have an SSD slot along with a couple of USB ports where you can add more memory. Because the Chromebook focusses on connecting to the Internet and storage in the cloud, I don’t see lack of local storage as a significant detractor.
Chromebooks can be bought from $349 to $499 (this one), the topend being a bit more expensive than one might expect. I reckon this price may come down as more of them are sold, still they are quite competitive when priced against current tablet models including iPad.
The Positives
Extremely long battery life. No kidding. Reportedly it can run continuously for 8 hours. I’ve not had to recharge any more than once per day– just like my cell phone and iPad. I also have Sony Vaio and MacBook Air laptops, and neither get even close to iPad or Chromebook in battery life.
Instant on. And instant connection to wireless. My Chromebook takes 8 seconds to boot– from a cold start. Closing the lid puts it to sleep and it resumes from sleep instantaneously, much like my AirBook. But unlike my AirBook and more like the iPad, the wireless connection seems to be instantly connected. I’ve set mine to force a password login from sleep mode, something I would encourage anyone to do who owns a Chromebook or iPad.
3G so I can connect anywhere. Combined with extreme battery life, this is one of the most valuable features of this particular model. Furthermore, Verizon gives away free 100MB of transfer per month for the first two…
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