Stefan Mileschin

Decent hardware and built-in pen

Samsung has unveiled its new version of the Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 convertible with a hardware upgrade, and built-in pen, so it is quite a shame it runs on Chrome OS.

To be available at Best Buy as of June 24th, the Samsung Chromebook Plus (V2) packs some rather decent hardware, including a 12.2-inch LED 1920x1080 resolution touchscreen with 300 nits of brightness, Intel's 14nm 6W Kaby Lake dual-core Celeron 3965Y CPU running at 1.5GHz with integrated Intel HD Graphics 615 IGP and 2MB of L3 cache, 4GB of LPDDR3 RAM, and 32GB of eMMC internal storage. Bear in mind that the CPU lacks both Turbo Boost and Hyper-Threading technologies, so you are stuck at 1.5GHz and two threads.

Samsung also equipped the new Chromebook Plus with 1-megapixel front camera and 13-megapixel camera on the keyboard deck, which comes with auto-focus, stereo 2x1.5W speakers, 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, two USB Type-C and one USB 3.0 port, microSD card reader, and a pen, which offers both 4,096 levels of pressure and tilt recognition. Samsung claims a whole day battery life and it appears that it comes with a 39Whr battery.

In case you are wondering, the previous version came with the OP1 ARM hexa-core chip running at 2.0Ghz. The chip was built by Rockchip and optimized for the Chrome OS. The Chromebook Plus V1 also came with a 2400x1600 resolution 12.3-inch touchscreen.

In case you are wondering, the Samsung is quite a portable little 2-in-1, measuring at 11.34x8.19x0.63/0.70-inches (28.8x20.8x1.6-1.78cm) and weighing in at 2.93lbs (1.33kg). It comes in Stealth Silver color option and uses aluminum alloy, glass, and plastic.

“Today’s consumers want to be able to maximize their communication while also expressing their creativity wherever they are, and the new Samsung Chromebook Plus fulfills that need, “ said Alanna Cotton, Senior Vice President and General Manager at Samsung Electronics America. “For those who choose Chrome OS, we wanted to give them a lot of reasons to choose the new Samsung Chromebook Plus, as it is designed especially for people who never stop moving, to match their pace and magnify their creativity.”

As noted, the new Samsung Chromebook Plus (V2) will be available at Bestbuy.com as of June 24th with a price set at US $499.99, which is pretty much in line with the earlier version, although the V1 can now be found for as low as US $412.

https://fudzilla.com/news/mobile/465...mebook-plus-v2