Most people are ditching they’re laptops to get Netbooks, the reason for it you may ask, they just want to search the web, they don’t want to pay or deal with all the software that comes with a laptop. Well Samsung has made a Netbook just for you. The Samsung Chrome Series 5 gets you to the web in just seconds.
Display
The Samsung Chrome Series 5 weighing in at 3.3 pounds I was surprised by how easily I could grip the Chromebook in one hand. It also has very slick and sexy look to it, the hood is all white with the Google Chrome logo on the right upper hand corner, and the bottom is all black. The keyboard is nice and roomy, the track pad has a nice smooth feel to it, now with this track pad it doesn’t have a right click or left click, you can click anywhere on the track pad.
Setup
As soon as you open up the lid it turns on, it will ask you for your Google email, set up the WiFi connection and in less than a minute you are on the web.
Hardware
The 12.1-inch, LCD has a beautiful bright screen, It’s powered by an Intel Atom N570 dual-core CPU running at 1.66Ghz, has 2GBs of RAM, and a 16GB solid state drive (SSD). For graphics, it uses an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150.
On the left side of the Netbook you will find the headset mic jack, with a USB 2.0 port and a proprietary port for a VGA dongle hidden behind a plastic door. On the right side you will find the second USB port and a SIM card slot hide behind plastic door. In the front you’ll find a card reader that can handle SD, SDHC, SDXC, or MMC cards. It also has a 1-megapixel Webcam for video chat.
The battery on the Chromebook is amazing, I left it on for about 6 1/2 hours with 5 tabs up and running and I still had 40% of battery life left, with it being on for so long the bottom of the Chromebook was cooler than my laptop would be if I left it on that long.
There is no doubt about it that this Chromebook is fast, anyone who knows me knows I have multiple tabs running at once all the time. I would switch from tab to tab loading new sites and within seconds the page would pop up, no loading, and no waiting just straight to the page…Impressive.
Software
With the Chromebook you will not get Microsoft Word, this is a web based Netbook, you get Google services like Gmail, Google Docs and Picasa for all your photos, but you must have a Google account or you will not be able to use the chromebook . Now if you are looking for video chat, Chrome doesn’t support Skype, you will be able to use Google Talk and oovoo, you can find this applications in the Chrome Web Store.
Chrome Web Store has a good amount of apps, whether you’re looking for E-Books apps such as, Google books or Kindle could reader just to name a few, looking for something to keep you entertained you can choose from Netflix, to games like Grilled Pork chops (which was my favorite) you can even make your own beats and share them with friends with the Beatlab app.
Would I be able to replace my laptop with the Chromebook for work purpose? Not at all, but if all you want to do is search the web, then yes the Chromebook is just for you. Retail price goes for $430 on the WiFi chromebook, and $499 for the 3G version.