gander guofeng: Google 11.6-inch ARM-based Samsung Chromebook hands-on (update: video)

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Google 11.6-inch ARM-based Samsung Chromebook hands-on (update: video)

Google really impressed us in San Francisco here today with its 11.6-inch ARM-based Samsung Chromebook. The $249 laptop is 0.8-inches (20mm) thin and weight only 2.43 pounds (1.1kg). It features a 11.6-inch 1366 x 768-pixel matte display, a full-size keyboard and a button-less trackpad. Specs include a fanless dual-core A15-based Samsung Exynos 5 Dual (5250) SoC, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of built-in flash storage, WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth. There's a full-size SD card reader and power input on the left, plus a standard 3.5mm headphone jack (with mic support), HDMI output, USB 2.0 port, USB 3.0 connector and SIM slot (currently unused) in back.

First impressions? This is a solid machine -- build quality and materials are impressive for the price. It's also pleasantly thin and light, a boon for people who are used to carrying a laptop around. We're happy with the display which is bright and crisp. Viewing angles could use some improvement, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a better laptop screen at this price. The keyboard and trackpad feel great -- and we're coming from an 11-inch Core i7 MacBook Air. Performance is somewhere between the original Atom-based Chromebooks and the current Celeron-based Series-5 model.

Take a look at our gallery below and hit the break for our hands-on video.

Gallery: Google 11.6-inch ARM-based Samsung Chromebook hands-on