Pictures of the new Samsung Chromebook 2 series leaked all over the internet yesterday. This new Chromebook range does offer quite distinctive looks, based on the 'leather stitching' style finish introduced with the Galaxy Note 3, so I'm sure some of those pictorials were pretty popular. However, today Samsung has officially released details of its 11.6- and 13.3-inch Chromebook 2 Series, including full specifications.
"Since we introduced our first Chromebook in 2011, Samsung has been committed to continually developing our designs and features to meet our users' ever-changing needs, while staying true to the core Chromebook attributes of simplicity, speed and security," said Mike Abary, senior vice president of consumer IT product marketing at Samsung Electronics America. "Samsung has been the top selling consumer Chromebook brand for the past three years and we'll continue to grow our leadership position in this space with the launch of the Chromebook 2 Series."
Samsung says its new Chromebooks offer "faster performance, longer battery life and a slim, light build enhanced by a durable textured lid and elegant stitched design". The faster performance is thanks to the new Exynos 5 Octa processors equipped; running at 1.9GHz in the 11.6-incher and 2.1GHz in the 13.3-inch model. Also thanks to energy efficiencies the battery life is now over 8 hours, enough for most people's working day. Samsung also points to the start-up and wake times for its new Chromebooks saying that they can cold boot in less than 10 seconds and wake from sleep in less than one second. Both new Chromebooks use a 16GB e.MMC iNAND Embedded Flash Drive and are equipped with 4GB of DDR3L system memory at 1600MHz.
There are a number of differences in the 11.6 and 13.3-inch models (check through the table below) but the most obvious is in the screen size and resolution. The 13.3-inch Chromebook 2 features a Full HD (1920×1080) display with 250nit brightness. The 11.6-inch version employs an HD LED Display (1366 x 768).
Key Specifications
|
Category |
Details |
11.6-inch Samsung Chromebook 2 |
13.3-inch Samsung Chromebook 2 |
|
Display |
Size |
11.6” |
13.3” |
|
Resolution |
HD LED Display (1366 x 768) |
Full HD LED Display (1920 x 1080) |
|
|
Performance |
OS |
Google Chrome |
Google Chrome |
|
Processor |
Samsung Exynos 5 Octa (1.9GHz, 2MB L2 Cache) |
Samsung Exynos 5 Octa (2.1GHz, 2MB L2 Cache |
|
|
Memory2 |
4GB DDR3L System Memory at 1600MHz (onboard) |
4GB DDR3L System Memory at 1600MHz (onboard) |
|
|
Storage3 |
16GB e.MMC iNAND™ Embedded Flash Drive |
16GB e.MMC iNAND™ Embedded Flash Drive |
|
|
Camera |
720p HD Web Camera |
720p HD Web Camera |
|
|
Battery Life |
Battery Life4 |
Up to 8 hours |
Up to 8.5 hours |
|
Dimensions |
Dimensions |
11.40" x 8.06" x 0.66" (1.68cm thick) |
12.72" x 8.80" x 0.65" (1.65cm thick) |
|
Weight |
2.43 pounds (1.1Kg) |
3.09 pounds (1.4Kg) |
|
|
Color |
Jet Black, Classic White |
Luminous Titan Gray |
|
|
Ports |
Ports |
1 HDMI, 1 USB3.0, 1 USB2.0, MicroSD Multi-media Card Reader, Headphone out/Mic-in Combo, DC-in |
1 HDMI, 1 USB3.0, 1 USB2.0, MicroSD Multi-media Card Reader, Headphone out/Mic-in Combo, DC-in |
|
Availability |
MSRP |
$319.99 |
$399.99 |
|
Availability Date |
April 2014 |
April 2014 |
Software, said to be valued at over $100, is bundled with these Chromebooks including; Air Droid Premium, task management and collaboration app Wunderlist Pro, and LittleBridge.com, an English learning app. Interestingly Samsung spends a lot of its press release pitching these devices at educators and schools – working this niche must be effective for Google's ChromeOS. If you are interested in purchasing, Samsung says that the new Chromebook 2 range will be available from April priced at $319.99 and $399.99 for the 11.6 and 13.3-inch versions respectively.
