Review: Samsung Chromebook Pro

during the last couple of years, Chromebooks have quietly infiltrated the pc market. Google’s reasonably priced “only a browser” devices are the very best-selling computers in faculties, and they’re percolating round boardrooms and cubicles. remaining fall, extra folks sold Chromebooks than Macs—and that’s now not going to change again anytime quickly. Now Google’s out to persuade you, regular human, individual of sound thoughts and affordable price range, that you should buy a Chromebook.

the patron Chromebook onslaught starts with Samsung’s Chromebook Plus and pro, which might be on paper the most neatly-rounded Chrome OS devices ever. The Plus starts at $ 450 and is available subsequent week, and the pro might be $ 550 when it ships in March. both match proper into the traditional-individual computer finances. They do all of the Chrome OS issues, have great and flippy touchscreens, and even enhance pen enter. And best of all, they run all the millions of apps in Google’s Play store. They’re section smartphone, part pill, section laptop, combined in a way that appears like the computer of the long run.

I’ve been the use of the professional for the ultimate couple of weeks. Like I stated, it sounds great… on paper. in reality, this brilliantly polymorphic pc still feels extra like a science test.

the great kind of cheap

It shouldn’t be that onerous to make a excellent computer. most of the people want the same things: A relatively light and thin body, horny sufficient you don’t thoughts being viewed with it in public. well-spaced, clicky keyboard, and spacious, smooth trackpad. excessive-res reveal, and enough power and battery to get you through even an additional-long day at work. lovely easy, right?

in line with your reasonable $ 500 easiest buy special, that is very hard. The Chromebook professional proves it’s at the least conceivable. At about a half-inch thick and a couple of.38 pounds, it’s smaller than nearly each computer not named MacBook. It doesn’t ooze classification and wealth each time you open the lid, however the magnesium alloy physique (mine’s silver, however yours will likely be black) as a minimum received’t look misplaced in economic system comfort. much more so when you peel off the unsightly power megastar sticker. The rounded edges and exposed hinge give it a decidedly utilitarian seem—you’re now not keeping a future Smithsonian exhibit in your arms, you’re protecting a laptop. And that’s just high quality.

The 12.three-inch, 2400×1600 display is excellent, and works neatly as a touchscreen too. but it surely truly shines when you pop the tiny stylus out of the body of the Chromebook professional. The stylus fits the one in Samsung’s Galaxy be aware telephones, and works just as well: that you may draw, doodle, take notes, the entire nine. Google’s keep be aware-taking app supports the pen as an input tool, and works fabulously. trust me: there’s nothing quite so futuristic as signing a contract proper to your laptop screen.

the whole kit runs on Intel’s Core M3 processor and four gigs of RAM. (The Chromebook Plus, which comes out next week and costs $ 450, runs on a decrease-powered OP1 chip.) It has 32 gigs of interior storage, plus a microSD slot for adding more. None of these specs in reality topic, as a result of power’s now not a topic right here and seldom ever is one on Chromebooks as a complete. The Chrome browser is so steady on these machines that it will probably deal with more tabs and apps than my MacBook professional. not to mention, I get upwards of ten hours on the battery sooner than i’ve to charge it. I used it basically non-stop all through an hour-long train experience and 6 hours of flights, and nonetheless had a number of battery left to watch the great situation prior to mattress.

while you open the pro’s lid, you’ll discover it by no means truly stops opening. that you may flip the screen a full 360 levels, turning your laptop into a tablet. a clumsy tablet, because the keyboard’s sitting right there on the back underneath your fingers, however a tablet on the other hand. It additionally sits sturdily like a teepee or like a digital image body, keyboard-down, both of which I used quite a bit—I once in a while watch Netflix whereas I cook dinner, and it’s good being able to cover the keyboard and trackpad from splattering olive oil.

The draw back of the 360-level screen is that so as to accommodate all of the ways that you would be able to hang it, Samsung needed to make some bizarre layout selections. the power button’s on the appropriate aspect, for instance, the place I guarantee you’ll hit it unintentionally at the least as soon as a day. The headphone jack’s in the correct situation in laptopping (left aspect, at the rear) and for this reason bizarrely put for each other mode.

those are all essential compromises for this manner factor. I adore it, so I’ll take the compromises. I simplest have two genuine hardware issues: the audio system are awful, and the keyboard isn’t backlit. Which is just stupid. however even with these concerns, you won’t in finding better pc hardware for this worth. It’s skinny, it’s fast enough, it’s long-lasting, it looks like a computer made this decade. For $ 550, that’s a minor miracle.

Samsung

harder Than It appears to be like

The hardware works, however the Chromebook pro’s instrument doesn’t. Google says the whole lot will likely be high-quality earlier than the software formally launches in April, and that i have no purpose to believe that’s no longer real. however from what I’ve seen up to now, this hyper-versatile device trails manner at the back of the hardware. clearly combining Android and Chrome OS wasn’t as easy because it sounds. Some apps don’t acknowledge the keyboard and trackpad; others seem unable to handle a touchscreen. Some apps steadfastly refuse to connect to the web. Most crash repeatedly, once they even open in any respect. video games past Solitaire-stage complexity won’t run in any respect, not even on this more highly effective version. 3 times to this point, the Chromebook pro has crashed so spectacularly that I obtained a dozen error messages and the whole machine shut down. the whole point of a Chromebook is that things like that never happen.

evidently combining Android and Chrome OS wasn’t as easy as it sounds.

Then there are the bugs. Oh, the bugs! like the one the place you flip the display over to place the pro in tent mode, and your entire browser tabs disappear for no motive. Or how while you’re in tablet mode and check out to position it to sleep, you simply can’t. My favourite is the one where you open an app, and it simply sits there flickering on the screen, eternally trapped closing and opening. again, Google seems well conscious of those problems, and most appear to be fixable bugs. I’ll revisit this overview closer to the launch, and i am hoping the story gets better.

right now, if i use a Chromebook pro like other Chromebooks—tabs not apps, and laptop not tablet—it works nice. It’s a gentle, thin, lengthy-lasting, somewhat dear Chromebook. That’s only a so much smaller vision than what this thing might be. It should let me play Netflix on one aspect and preserve my dinner recipe up on the other. It should let me take a look at Instagram and Snapchat right subsequent to my work electronic mail. I should be playing candy Crush and Asphalt eight while I’m pretending to work. as an alternative it’s still just a web browser.

That’s frustrating, because the Chromebook professional used to be purported to be the form-shifting way forward for computing, Google’s solution to the whole lot from the iPad pro to the surface Studio. It was purported to be the primary Chromebook that made no compromises, that used to be both secure and robust, fast and feature-wealthy. Android apps and Chrome OS have been a healthy made in heaven, a super method for smartphone homeowners to get into the computer world. The hardware’s there: Samsung proved you can make the correct of pc at a ravishing worth, and i am hoping each other computer manufacturer is taking notes. but on the tool side, it’s obviously unfinished.

luckily, you get to attend and spot if Google fixes the pro’s many issues. I’ll be again right here to can help you know the way that goes. but for presently, comprehend this: the dream of the simply-proper Chromebook is alive within this desktop, but it surely’s still just out of reach.

go back to high. Skip To: start of Article.

WIRED