Acer may have introduced Australia’s first Chromebook last week, but it won’t be the only company to do so, with the second Chrome OS laptop coming from Samsung this week.
Weighing 1.1 kilograms and sitting under 2cm thin, the aptly named Samsung Chromebook (model number XE303C12) is the company’s first computer to feature Google’s browser-based Chrome OS in Australia, and brings with it some interesting specs that could grab the attention of customers after a netbook-style machine with the slickness of an Ultrabook.
Like the Acer Chromebook, this model features an 11.6 inch HD screen running 1366×768, 2GB RAM, WiFi, and HDMI.
But Samsung is opting for the faster solid-state storage instead of a hard drive, with 16GB inside running with Samsung’s own Exynos dual-core processor clocked at 1.7GHz, the same chip used in Google’s Samsung-built Nexus 10 tablet.
One USB 3.0 port is also included in this machine, as well as one USB 2.0 port, headphone and microphone combo ports, SD card slot, and a web cam to use on Google Hangouts.
Google Chromebook laptops are a little different from your regular Windows and Mac machines, running an operating system that is based on a browser.
Rather than run your regular apps, this will run apps found for Google’s Chrome browser, and any work you do on these will be synchronised with the Google server whenever you’re online next, allowing you to look at it with any computer with a copy of Google Chrome logged into an account.
Samsung’s version of the Chromebook is available now in JB HiFi and Harvey Norman stores for a recommended retail price of $349.
