Samsung Chromebook Plus Convertible Touch Laptop (XE513C24-K01US)

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*Update March 17, 2017* Having used the Samsung Chromebook Plus every day since I got it, and mostly ignoring my MacBook Pro with 15" Retina Display, I believe that the Plus is the first real "iPad killer" Ive come across. By that I mean, it fulfills the promise to replace a laptop for almost all uses while addressing the shortcomings of tablets. The keyboard is built in, there is a track pad and touch screen with stylus, no separate case is required, and the rotating screen provides genuinely useful orientations. Its fast, battery life is good, charging is quick, the screen is fantastic, it can drive external displays, and its reasonably light. The Chrome browser is first rate, and it can run thousands of apps! Ive been using the Plus extensively at home and while traveling - for browsing, watching videos, taking handwritten notes (see update on LectureNotes below), email, photos, reading Kindle books, music, maps, games - you name it. The Plus and others like it are the portable do-it-all devices of the future. *Original Review and updates* Ive had a few days to play with the Chromebook Plus and so far I love it! Ive been looking to replace my Samsung Tab Pro 12.2" tablet (the Note Pro without a pen). The Chromebook Plus seemed perfect as it can be folded over to be a tablet, and can also be used like a regular laptop. Plus it runs Chrome and Android apps. Overall I really like it. Its size is just right, a bit heavier than the Tab / Note Pro and a bit squarer (see attached comparison pictures). The screen is really good and I only need to put it on 1/2 brightness. Its aspect ratio is 3:2 which is perfect for browsing and using as a tablet. The touchscreen works very well. I love that I dont need a special case to prop it up; the 360 degree hinge allows you to situate the screen at whatever angle you choose. Chrome runs very well. Its about twice as fast as the Tab / Note Pro tablet (see attached "Octane" benchmark image). Having windows is great and I have more than 20 tabs open in 4 windows with no issues. Windows are only available in laptop mode. In tablet mode it makes every app full screen. Im expecting tablet mode to get windows when the underlying Android subsystem gets updated from Marshmallow to Nougat. Android apps generally work really well. The Kindle app is great. Google photos, Google Inbox, NY Times, all work fine although often I find no need for an Android app if there is a Chrome web version of the app. Google Maps is much better on Chrome because it shows you the 3D satellite view. Google Inbox is faster on the app version though so I use that. Sonos does not work as of this writing, as it could not find my Sonos system. Ive opened a ticket with them. *Update May 25, 2017* Sonos works now. I loaded up the "Asphalt 8" road racing app and it was very responsive. I didnt see any stuttering as seen on some of the online reviews of the Chromebook Pro. Go figure! Battery life is good, Im getting between 7 and 9 hours. Apps that uses the CPU a lot can reduce that quickly. To see which tabs / apps are using the most CPU, you can bring up the task manager by pressing the "search" and "esc" keys. Ive found that tabs that arent visible dont use as much CPU. Amazon often uses a lot of CPU when its tab is visible, so I close it or switch to another tab when not using it. For some reason the Google Hangouts extension was eating a lot of CPU, so I disabled it. The keyboard works well, although it is somewhat mushy and the delete key is too small so I often press = by mistake. The touch pad works well for two finger scrolling and you can enable "tap and drag" in Accessibility settings. It has a slight rebound when two finger scrolling down a web page; when you lift your fingers the page scrolls goes back a tiny bit in the opposite direction that you were scrolling. I hope Google/Samsung can address this soon. *Update Feb 18, 2017* This was fixed by a recent update, there is no longer any "bounce back". The Samsung Chromebook Plus seems like a real keeper! Some here have suggested waiting for the Chromebook Pro, but Im not sure that makes sense as the Plus is here today, is fast and reliable, and is a joy to use! *Update Feb 18, 2017* I am having Bluetooth issues. Sometimes it cuts in and out while playing music on the Google Music web site. Or it will stop playing through the Bluetooth speaker and start playing through the built in speakers, even though the Bluetooth connection is still established. Hope this can be fixed soon! *Update Mar 4, 2017* This is supposed to be fixed soon in ChromeOS 57. *Update May 25, 2017* Bluetooth is working fine now. I found a very nice note taking app that responds to pressure from the stylus, called Squid. There is a toolkit add-on for $2.99 that gives more features like geometric shapes. *Update Feb 21, 2017* Im finding that I can have many Chrome windows and tabs open, many more than suggested in reviews. Right now for instance, I have 41 tabs in 13 windows open. *Update Feb 22, 2017* For those of you who like to keep lots of tabs and windows open (tab hoarding), I found this great Chrome extension called The Great Discarder. It automatically suspends idle tabs to reduce Chrome memory usage using Chromes native tab discarding. When you do visit a suspended tab it automatically reloads. With this extension you can have as many tabs open as you want! Get it at the Chrome web store. *Update Feb 28, 2017* I installed the Android version of Skype for Business to attend work meetings. I found that clicking web links to Skype meetings did not work. The link is opened in the Chromebooks Chrome browser, which doesnt know how to send it to Skype, since Chromebooks Chrome is not an Android app. I found a work-around, which is to install Chrome for Android. Now when I click on a Skype web link from an Android app, I can choose whether to open it in the Chromebooks Chrome or in Androids Chrome. Opening it in Androids Chrome, it then gets passed properly to the Skype Android app. *Update Mar 4, 2017* I looked at some of the note taking apps on the Play store, including Squid, INKredible, SketchBook, HandWrite Pro Note and Draw, and LectureNotes. LectureNotes isnt as flashy as some of the others, and the interface is not as pretty, but it is very comprehensive in how you set it up and use it. Pressure sensitive stylus, custom pencils and eraser, draw with stylus / erase with finger, basic geometric shapes, very good selection tools, layers... about the only thing it fell down on was it doesnt go full screen in the tablet portrait mode. LectureNotes was the only one that let me import a PDF and then select, copy, cut, and paste from the PDF itself as opposed to just drawing over it. To get PDF import functionality you have to download the developers PDFView app.

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Purchased this in April. At first I was very happy with it, it seemed to be pretty good. Had features I liked and wanted. Then about a 4-5 weeks after buying, thats when it all went bad. PHANTOM TOUCHES!!! Youll be using it, and then all of a sudden the display starts to spaz out. Jumping around, phantom key presses. It will continue until you force power it off. Then when you restart it sometimes goes away for awhile. However, it comes back. This is not an isolated issue, its actually quite common among this Chromebook. Just Google "Chromebook plus phantom", and youll see tons of complaints and videos about it. Its a huge flaw, and Samsung isnt properly addressing the issue. All they do is tell you to send the notebook in to be repaired, which takes like 2-4 weeks. And they dont fix the issue, because it starts all over again. This product is garbage, and Samsung is washing their hands with the issue. Amazon should remove this product considering how widespread the issues are. DO NOT BUY, you have been warned. Pros: - Stylus - Bright, vivid display - Decent keyboard - Build quality Cons: - PHANTOM TOUCHES/KEYPRESSES - Poor connectivity, wifi doesnt always work, even when it shows youre connected - Samsungs lack of support - Not enough cpu/gpu power to drive the high resolution display. Often becomes sluggish or choppy - Wifi doesnt seem to work while bluetooth is enabled. So much for listening to Pandora. through BT speaker.

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The kind of user I am: I live in the cloud, use almost all Google services, have been using a Chromebook Pixel as my primary work computer for about 3 years now. I have an Apple imac at home and a Windows laptop too, although I dont remember when last I turned on my windows laptop. Oh, and I know a thing or 2 about consumer electronics from a past job. For a user like me, this chromebook is *almost* perfect. If I could, I would give it 4.6 stars. Youll find from the other reviews the pros and cons described more comprehensively, Ill just focus on a few things: *** The cons I kind of disagree with *** - hardware "bugs" (e.g. speaker cracking, etc): I havent personally experienced any of them. I do have one (super minor) issue with the sealing of the bottom aluminum sheet, so I just ordered a replacement, but honestly, at this stage I think I would rate the HW as top notch (given the price point) - Software "bugs" (e.g. android apps not always working perfectly...): I did experience a number of them... but I do not see that as an issue for 3 reasons. (1) the availability of (almost all) the Android apps I care about on this makes it effectively a wonderful tablet+laptop replacement, so in the grand scheme of things... I can live with a few bugs here and there (2) I trust that these bugs will disappear over time and (3) I have not yet found any "critical" bug for my work (/play) flows - keyboard ergonomics: agree it takes a bit to get used to the layout. given that I do use a full keyboard in parallel (when sitting at my desk I switch to a desktop keyboard), I am still sometimes hitting the wrong key when wanting to press backspace. But again, i see this as a very minor issue. Overall, the keyboard ergonomics are top notch given the size - backlighting of keyboard (lacks it): I was bummed about that initially (I often work in the dark). In practice, this is NOT an issue I have: the keys are sufficiently reflective and the screen sufficiently bright (at the right angle) that I can type effortlessly in the dark. I am typing this review in pitch dark room with screen brightness at 3 and I can effortlessly read all of the keys *** my cons or why I would give it 4.6 and not 5 *** - the trackpad is good (should I say great) but not perfect. I am expecting a stellar trackpad. This is almost but not it. - the speakers are weak. works totally fine, but I want more - the screen bezels are too large: the display is AMAZING, now I want more of it in the same form factor. In particular, at the bottom of the screen, there is currently 1 inch of vertical space (the part where the Samsung logo sits) that screams for becoming part of the actual display *** my pros or why I give it such a high rating *** They got the basics right: battery life is stellar, screen is stellar, size/weight top notch, keyboard very comfortable, trackpad works really well, it is appropriately powered, the memory and storage are sufficient to just not have to think about it. It is truly a convertible that is replacing 2 devices (laptop & tablet) without making compromises I cant live without). I LOVE this. Their bells and whistles actually help! microsd port is great to have, and so is the stylus (I thought of it as gimmicky, but I actually use it almost every day) price point is really good for that kind of quality

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Purchased this Chromebook in mid-March 2017. Loved the quality of the screen. Keyboard not so great. In late-April 2017 the bottom of the screen developed a band of "static" (see the picture). I called Samsung and went through a number of troubleshooting exercises with them online (which included a complete "wipe" of the computer) and they determined it was a defective video card and said that I needed to send the computer in. It is not June 9 and I still havent not received my computer back. I have made multiple calls to Samsung and all I have found out is that it has was shipped to another service center since the original one wasnt equipped to deal with the problem and then shipped back to original one and still has not been fixed. They have not been able to give me an estimated time as to when the computer will be fixed and shipped back to me. What they have done is say they are transferring me to speak to a representative in their "Executive Resolution Department" followed by 30-40 minutes of hold music and then a hang up. This has happened three times. When I call back they tell me that a member of that department will call me at a specific day and time and then I get no call. Save yourself lots of frustration. Acer makes great Chromebooks. The R11 or R13 would do great in place of this one. The school I teach at has hundreds of Acer Chromebooks that are used 4-5 hours a day by not so careful high school students. They have held up incredibly over the past two years and the couple of times there were problems, Acer repaired the computer under warranty in a matter of days, not months. Samsung has worked very hard to lose me as a customer. I really wanted to give them a chance and I really hoped that they would have resolved this situation. I have suggested to them that they send me a different computer or refund my money since they havent been able to fix mine but they apparently do not care about customer relations.

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I got mine yesterday and this thing is great! The real test is when you are using Google Docs and Office 365 these are the most intensive apps for Chromebooks and this thing handles both extremely well! Ive triedmany android apps, multi windows, multiple apps and the SCP handles them like a champ! Also It has a very streamlined look and its super slim and light. One last thing; some people have been complaining that this chromebook does not have a backlit keyboard like another comparable chromebook and heres the deal: the screen brightness on the SCP is much brighter than others thus you can see the lettering on the keys in complete darkness so its not needed. Other chromebooks on the market do not have comparable brightness to the SCP so they have/should incorporate backlit keyboards. Again kudos to Samsung for making another great product! I definitely would not pay $549 for the pro; I believe this is all the power you need in a Cromebook for what they do right now. Update: 2/22/2017: Since launch this has been my usage: office 365 a photo editing app, outlook mail app and chrome remote desktop for work along with 12 open tabs daily and the SCP is handling all that extremely well!

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I absolutely love this product, and would easily give it 5 stars for what it is. It does everything it is supposed to do while being very lightweight, versatile, and looking sleek. You need to understand what it is though. A chromebook is not a computer. It can run all google applications and a large portion of the googleplay store. It is more than perfect for me as a student, but it is not for you if you are looking for an art tablet or a gaming tablet. For the price, it is rather steep, but I feel that it is justified with this build quality. The battery life is not as advertised however, as it lasts anywhere from 2-6 hours depending on what you are doing. Playing games drains it very fast, while browsing the web lets it run all day basically. Overall, I am very satisfied with my purchase, and if you have the money and it meets your needs, I recommend it to you as well. 8/2/17 EDIT: I AM HAVING HUGE ISSUES WITH THIS THING. First off, before I explain, I treat my electronics, this included, with as much care as possible (I worked my ass off for the money!), and as such, this has never been dropped, hit, or damaged in any way whatsoever. It has always been handled carefully and is in perfect condition, so these are all software issues. The touchscreen is buggy. Very buggy. Usually a few hours a day (in a full day of use) the screen freaks out. It acts as though it is being randomly touched in random places sporadically and it is entirely unusable when it is like this. Restarting it solves the issue for a few minutes only. Its impossible to get through a movie as it randomly pauses it and unpauses it- and a movie is long enough that the issue WILL occur sometime during it. The Bluetooth struggles big time. It is very easy to "connect" to a speaker or headset. You put the item in pairing mode, and click on it on this laptop. In a moment, it says "connected." But it isnt. It isnt connected at all. With any and all bluetooth devices (Ive tested 6-7) it takes anywhere from 2-20 (yes, twenty) minutes to get it to work. The only effective way of doing this to unpair it in the settings, and set it up as a new device. This takes an annoying amount of time. Oh hey, my screen just started glitching again. I guess that means I should hurry this up. After checking online, these issues seem to be somewhat common, and yet Samsung customer support is useless telling me to reset the device even though I specifically made it clear that that didnt work the first 3 times. So its not just me. Also, it doesnt have a caps button. Only a search button in its place that opens up google search. Stupid feature. It can be remapped in the settings. Taking off 3 stars for all of these new issues. I would give it 0 if I didnt love it so much when functioning. However rare that is.

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Chromebooks have always been a strange beast. Positioned as a budget pc and specialized for people who solely use the internet for most things. The attractive price and portability have been tempting for students, (should I mention budget again?). The problem was the pretty terrible selection of apps in the chrome store, low amounts of ram and generally anemic performance. Generally Ive been the type of person to buy full powered 17" gaming laptops (for their performance and ability to reasonably have two documents up at once) and avoid tiny screens and simplified products (i.e chromebooks and smaller laptops). I say this typing on a 14" Asus laptop that is no way comparable to anything worthy of the word gaming. So intro out of the way heres my situation and hopefully this gives some insight. I am very familiar with Samsungs Note line of products. I have a Note 3, Note 4 and Note 10.1 (2014 edition). I DAILY use the stylus function on the 10.1 for school. I hate paper, and cant keep it organized either. So that Note 10.1" was my everything for about two full semesters, even with its weird 16:9 display not matching the format for a standard 8.5X11" piece of paper. Lately its been performing strangely, is well outdated (thanks samsung) and unless youre familiar with modifying the OS, its pretty much time to move along. (constant crashing during class causing loss of notes and corruption of others is completely unacceptable). So I started looking for alternatives, The TAB A with S-Pen or Tab S2 are pretty insanely priced, though those OLED displays are face meltingly beautiful. So what were my options? Buy the 12.1 2014 edition? Thats not gonna help. Luckily this was a brand new option that was available. Being skeptical, a 15 day return policy from a certain Blue Box retailer with its notable lack of creepy smiley face logos everywhere and no mart in its name made it easy enough to take it for a test drive. Okay, cut the crap right? Got it. This Laptop/2in1/chromebook whatever you want to call it is very impressive, as long as you understand the limitations. The display is beautiful with its high resolution display, near infinite viewing angles, excellent colors and VERY punchy brightness thats great for outdoors. I regularly find myself staying at 50% brightness for comfortable indoor use in bright areas, or lower at night. Battery life is incredible. for something so small with a bright screen, the battery life easily lasts all day, writing notes, browsing the internet etc. Games and video do put the hurt on it though. Construction: Fantastic, no real noticable flex, screen with my palm on it on tablet mode offers little if any noticable flex. Its REALLY thin, and light. and from a distance looks like a product from a certian cultish fruit themed computer company, except I didnt have to sell my internal organs to afford something with annoyingly crippled hardware. Its sports two USB Type C ports, a headphone jack (so unbrave of them to include this right?) and a microsd card slot for more storage. It runs on USB Type C! I thought it was strange at first since I hate having to carry another adapter to connect/charge devices (friggen dongles man). But its not so bad since if youre in a stretch, you can use a powerbank or even your phone charger if your batteries low and you need life support. IT will barely keep it alive, but thats better than it being dead. This is very welcome during long study sessions before calculus tests at your local 24h diner. Now usability wise? This is chrome OS, so were screwed right? Not really, googles been working on giving you access to the android store, which is what sold me on this device really. You go from terrible apps, to the play stores excellent selection, that most apps work on. My note taking app of choice is Inkredible, which is available on Android or iOS and LEAUGES better than SNote or anything ive seen from the iOS store. Plus the Dev is a pretty cool person and helped me upgrade from regular to pro when pro was released, (i bought every feature for the regular app and well exceeded the price for pro which had almost the same features). This combined with the S-pen is pen, makes this a killer note taking device since it gets palm rejection from the app, and the excellent wacom backed writing supplied by the pen, IT works with any Note 3/4 compatible stylus which is pretty awesome. Android apps work almost flawlessly, some strange hiccups are present, since the store is still in beta, but games work mostly well, my Inkredible works great and often most of the google android based apps work better than anything chrome can supply. The strangest thing is that Android is run in a sandboxed evironment. What does this mean? Well Chrome OS is designed to be very secure, which is great for the less savvy users, but this locked down environment doesnt play well with androids setup, so Google has Android "fenced in" in its own little world, where it cant affect/harm the main pc. It gives access to features it needs in a "grapevine" sort of fashion. This means that there are certain strange things that happen, Your android apps cannot see the full storage option on your device, only the downloads folder. Printing in android apps does not work well with network shared printers, wifi printers maybe but I dont have one so I cant test that. This makes transferring files strange, but doable. Grab a file manager, use the google file manager to download your game saves/documents/data files from your favorite apps, dump em in the downloads folder via the chrome files app, then use an android file manager to move them around as needed or transplant them into the file folder present in the root of your android install. Games can get a little laggy as this processor isnt the greatest, but most run just fine. My biggest complaint is there does seem to be a little bit of an afterimage or ghosting present on the display for faster moving games, but who cares for this price. Well in any case, I think Ive said enough, Its not perfect, but its damn near close. Im a month in, and I have no regerets, especially since I got one from the amazon warehouse in virtually new condition for well under the full asking price due to the recent crazy sales. It also helps that google gives you a $20 credit for the play store. Have fun and try it out, you may just find it replaces your light computing and tablet needs.

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I recently purchased the Chromebook Plus and Chromebook Pro. I initially thought I would like the Pro better because it is faster. However, if you use the Stylus much - such as in Squid you will find that the PLUS has noticeably less lag than the Pro. Apparently there is some optimizations that Google has done with the OP1 and Pixel that allow what is called Instant Ink. So if you want instant ink stylus response the Plus is better than the Pro. I have also noticed the Pro seems to run hotter and have a noticeably shorter battery life. I will be sending back my Chromebook Pro and keeping the Chromebook Plus. To me the Plus is fast enough, has better battery life, runs cooler and if you take notes in Squid it is noticeably more responsive.

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I bought this for my husband. It worked great and he loved it, until about three weeks later, when it started registering all these phantom touches to the screen that he never made. He looked it up online and it seems to be a common problem with the hardware. There doesnt seem to be any way to solve it except to return it to Samsung. Unfortunately it is too late to return it to Amazon, so we will have to deal with Samsung.

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My main reasons for needing a Chromebook or other tablet like device: 1) Easily checking and working on google files from home when I am not working in the office 2) Watching movies and tv at home or traveling For both of these items, its a 5 start device. I downgraded one star for 1) Some of the buggy issues with apps and software that I assume will work themselves out over time - for instance, if our wifi drops (which it occasionally does) instead of the Chromebook reconnecting, I have to restart it in order to find the signal again. 2) The speakers dont get very loud. When Im watching something in the kitchen while doing dishes or cooking I have to use headphone to hear over my kitchen racket. I used to have a Nexus tablet and loved it, but I needed a device that was easier to email from, thats why we settled on a Chromebook. I like that the Plus was convertible, so I can use it like a tablet when not working. I have no qualms as other have had with the touch pad or tracking, but my use is literally email and entertainment. The keyboard does take some getting used to, but for the occasions I work from home or send a personal email, I have no major complaints. For my needs I probably could have gone with a cheaper device, but Im hoping the Plus will last a long time and its added features were a bonus to me.

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