At $400, Samsung's new high-end Chromebook 2 costs more than most laptops running the super-lightweight Chrome OS. But you'll get quite a bit for that money.
The bang for the buck starts with a 13.3-inch 1080p display. Thirteen inches is a great size -- not too big or heavy, but not too small to type or watch a movie on. While the 13-inch Toshiba Chromebook and 14-inch HP Chromebook 14 are both cheaper, neither offer the 1920 x 1080 resolution of this new Samsung model.
The 13-inch "premium Chromebook" has a 16GB flash drive and is powered by a 2.1GHz, eight-core Exynos 5 Octa CPU.1 The machine comes loaded with 4GB DDR3L low-voltage RAM. According to Samsung, the processor squeezes as much battery life as possible out of the Chromebook 2 by using two low-voltage cores for general futzing around on the Web, and higher-voltage cores for processor-intensive tasks and full-HD movies. Still, it's rated at a maximum of 8.5 hours per charge of its battery -- not bad, but short of the 10-plus hours you’ll see on many less specced out Chromebooks.
The slate-gray laptop weighs a tad over three pounds, and the edges have the same faux leather stitching and feel as recent Samsung devices like the Galaxy Tab Pro and Galaxy Note 3. Samsung seams to be on a pleather kick these days. If you can get past that, it looks pretty slick and elegant, with a slightly concave-key chiclet keyboard. It's sort of like the old plastic Macbook/Blackbooks, but with a matte finish on the keys.
Input-wise, you get a full HDMI port, two USB ports (one 3.0 and one 2.0), a MicroSD card reader, and a 3.5mm headphone port. There's a 720p-capable Webcam above the display, and Samsung says this is the first Chromebook out there that's certified for Google Hangouts chats. Samsung is also touting greater cross-platform options with these new Chromebooks via a "Software Value Pack" that includes the AirDroid device-management Web app.2
The 13-inch Chromebook 2 is slated for release in April, and its specs certainly seem to add up to a capable (if somewhat pricey) new Chromebook. Its combination of screen resolution, weight, size, and price could make the laptop a solid choice for students on a budget or anyone who does a lot of work in Google Docs. There's also an 11-inch version of the Chromebook 2 coming out in April, but its screen resolution and other specs represent a step down from this bigger-screened model.
1 This story was updated to include the Chromebook 2's storage capacity.
2 An earlier version of this story incorrectly described AirDroid.
