New Samsung Chromebook $249 — Rivals Tablet Prices

Samsung Chromebook: Turn it on, the Chrome browser opens, then you just use it, simple as that.  And, at an incredibly low cost of $249  – a price that rivals that of popular tablets such as Amazon’s Fire HD, Barnes & Noble’s Nook HD, and even Google’s Nexus 7.

Just a few days ago, on Thursday, October 18, Google unveiled the new Samsung Chromebook.  Google and Samsung co-developed the laptop.  Google provides the Chrome browser operating system. Samsung provides the power inside, an ARM-based processor known as the Samsung Exynos 5 Dual Processor. Samsung’s newly developed processor helped shave off around $200 from the price tag of the previous model, the Samsung Chromebook 550, which runs an Intel Core processor.

Anyone interested in a laptop or tablet should check out the new Samsung Chromebook before making a purchase decision (yah, it’s yet one more option to consider, but it’s worth the look).  The Chromebook is a full laptop, with an 11.6-inch, 1,366-by-768 display, Wi-Fi, and VGA camera.  It weighs in at 2.5 pounds and is 0.8 inches thin.  Google says you will get over 6.5 hours of battery life and 100GB of Google Drive cloud storage for two years.

The Samsung Chromebook specs say it boots in 10 seconds and loads web pages fast.  It comes with plenty of built-in apps, and has access to 1000’s more from the Chrome Web Store.  Updates to the system will happen automatically in the background, and security is built-in, so you don’t need to install anti-virus software.  And, you can save your files safely in the Google Drive cloud so you don’t need to worry about losing any documents or photos.

The Samsung Chromebook is now available for pre-order online from Amazon, Best Buy, Tiger Direct, New Egg, PC World, and other retailers. It will be in 500 Best Buy stores in the U.S., 30 PC World and Currys stores in the U.K., and on Google Play next week.