Samsung Chromebook Plus Convertible Touch Laptop (XE513C24-K01US)

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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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My background is 30+ years in the consumer electronics industry: I’ve owned numerous consumer electronics companies as well as a consultant for many leading consumer electronics corporations. I’m currently in Asia and I wanted a new laptop. Since I’m a die-hard fan of Chromebooks my choice was easy; the new Samsung Chromebook Plus for it’s size, weight, performance and battery life. I currently own 3 other Chromebooks and absolutely LOVE them all! I want to start off by saying how INCREDIBLY AMAZING Amazon is when it comes to customer service. When I ordered the laptop Amazon shipped it directly to me in Thailand. When it arrived, the Samsung Chromebook case was defective through no fault of Amazon. I called Amazon and asked what to do; an Amazon representative told me to ship it back to them and once they receive it they would send me out a brand new replacement unit and credit me back for the shipping BOTH ways! If anyone ever has ANY doubts about buying from any company other than Amazon in a feeble attempt to possibly save a couple dollars DO NOT DO IT! There is not a retailer on planet earth who backs up their products like anyone else...believe me, I get paid lots of money to work with some of the largest electronics corporations in the world to streamline their customer service and customer retention departments...Amazon is head and shoulders above them all! PROS: Size and weight...as I said, I travel a LOT and having a lightweight, thin laptop is imperative for me. This Chromebook weighs less than 2.5 lbs and easily slips into a backpack, brief case or carry-on bag with ease. Battery: As good as any I have tested and used; approximately 10 hours watching videos with the screen brightness at about 50%. I can watch numerous movies in High Def on overseas flights without worry of my battery dying. It charges in around 2 hours from a completely dead battery. Display: Wonderful, clean, crisp and easy on the eyes. This screen is equally impressive regardless of what I’m watching; a High-Def movie, a YouTube video or typing a report. Resolution is fantastic, colors are vibrant, accurate and true to life, tremendous detail, sharp blacks and white colors...typical Samsung high-end screen quality! There’s a reason Samsung will be supplying Apple its OLED screens for the new iPhone 8. Touch Screen: Once again, it’s typical Samsung ingenuity; precise and balanced. All gestures work perfectly and the screen is ultra responsive. Pen: I honestly did not care much about the pen when I bought it and assumed I would only use it once or twice a year at most. The pen has turned into quite a nice feature for me to capture parts of the screen image, for notes, drawing circles around certain parts of messages, web sites etc. I now am hooked on it and wonder just how I lived without it? Fit and Finish: Like all Samsung products, their design is in a word sexy...nice lines, curves and subtle details where needed, not overstated but more functional and aesthetically pleasing in IMO. The keyboard works perfectly fine for me...the keys feel solid and the trackpad is precise. I would have preferred a back-lit keypad but for the price and functionality I’m MORE than satisfied with this Chromebook. The only nit-picky thing I would like to have changed is the accessibility of the Micro-SD card slot. It’s somewhat under the side on the base and I personally find it not real user-friendly. Again, that’s just my personal preference...your milage may vary. Speed and Performance: This is as fast as any Chromebook I have never tested or used. I generally have 10-15 tabs open simultaneously and it never bogs down. Every computer in the world may experience a hiccup on occasion, even $2,000 ones but this has been rock solid, super smooth and I personally have not experienced one speed-bump while using it. I can’t honestly imagine why anyone would opt for the Pro version of this Chromebook??? CONS: Ports: The only reason I deducted one star is because of the USB-C ports. Sure I knew that before I bought it but having now lived with it for over a month I find the USB-C ports a big headache. In time I’m sure most of the big guys like Logitech etc. will come out with mice and keyboards with USB-C adaptors already part of their ecosystem but until they do I personally find it extremely frustrating having to use multiple adaptors to expand and personalize my Chromebook. I ended up buying several adaptors to set up my new Samsung Chromebook. I use an HDMI cable connected to a 24” flat screen monitor as well as a wireless mouse (USB adaptor) and wired USB keyboard. I find the adaptors bulky, cumbersome and quite frankly the HDMI just does not work efficiently. It casts the screen properly to my monitor but when I open up anything from the Google Play store the screen flickers horrifically and is rendered useless! I have tried multiple adaptors from various manufacturers and they all to the exact same thing. I can’t use any Play Store apps at all when the monitor is plugged in. I’m sure it’s a Google compatibility issue with the Play Store apps that I hope will eventually iron itself out over time. For now, until more accessory manufacturers start making USB-C accessories that I can plug directly into my USB-C port I find it a real nuisance to have expensive, unnattractive dongles hanging out of my gorgeous sleek laptop. Other than the port issue this Chromebook is an absolute MUST buy! It’s super fast, clean, sexy, lightweight, incredible battery life and the touchscreen is phenomenal! With the built in pen what’s not to love!

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On the whole, the CB Plus is a good Chromebook. The keyboard is good (though not excellent--but keyboard feel is subjective), the screen is first-rate, and the touchpad is just fine (though not close to my gold standard in CB touchpads: the Dell 13"). However, potential buyers should note that the CB Plus (v. 59 stable channel) appears to have really hard time with less than optimal WiFi reception. If I move close the the AP, the speeds are as expected (50-60 Mbps). If I move into the next room, however, speeds drop to about 20 Mbps (still perfectly usable (signal strength is 44)). I get similar results on 5G and 2.4G (slightly better with 2.4G, probably owing to slightly better signal strength (mid 40s-50s on 2.4G, compared to about 40 on 5G)). When a Bluetooth mouse is connected to the CB Plus, WiFi DL speeds drop to about 10 Mbps. My Asus C302c (v. 60 beta channel), on the other hand, has no such problems: speeds at these two locations are consistent at 50-60 Mbps. Reported signal strengths are slightly higher on the C302c: 58 compared to 51 on 2.4G.

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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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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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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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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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2 Days In So far so good. Its so light. Bought this to study off Khan academy and watch you tube and netflix. Tend to meet up with people at Starbucks/libraries/cafes. I had the fear of potential theft of my windows laptop while out and about so this seemed like the best choice as a daily carry machine. Messed around with the display at Best Buy and really liked it. The other reviews cover the pros and cons. I just needed this for the basics. Just got it, and I hope it wont have any issues like Shift keys sticking or wifi issues (so far none). Stylus hasnt been used much, so far. Touchscreen mostly which eliminates the need for a mouse (at least for me). Update June 19.17 Watching Videos/Speakers The display was a major reason why I bought this machine (to watch anime/shows). If you turn the machine into a L shape, the speakers (which are at the bottom of the machine) are decent. Using the machine in an A shape (tent?) the speakers will muffle depending on the type of material you have the sound bouncing off. Like it will be muffled if its on the couch (fabric), therefore I bought a small wooden bamboo cutting board to place it on while I play my shows and that I can rotate as I wander around the room cleaning. Playing videos on high resolution did not work and took a long time to loading/buffering so I just lowered the quality. Stylus/Mouse/Trackpad I have been using the stylus more when in tent shape or tablet mode. I realized that I dont really need an external mouse since I have stylus on hand at all times. So, it might be a consideration if you are debating on buying a C to USB adaptor. The trackpad is responsive its just taking a bit of getting used to the little differences like using 2 fingers to right click. I am not sure if there are settings for all of the Chromebook specific differences--Im just using it as is. Battery Depends what you use it for. I think 2-3.5 hours was the most I used the machine to continuously watch videos/youtube. (the battery also had not gone below 40%, I just prefer to keep my electronics charged above 50%). While studying and just browsing websites usage was 4-6 hours (depends if you are the type of person to recharge a machine rather than use it to 5% battery remaining) Cons: looking online, there arent options for an alternative keyboard. I miss using swype, but using the touchscreen, keyboard, and voice search isnt a big issue, but might be for others.

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I had an iPad for a number of years and it was getting on in age and a big sluggish. I had a few dollars laying around and decided I was tired of its computing power (or lack of) and determined it was time to invest in something new. Of course by default, I started investigating new iPads. Brainwashed! It dawned on me that perhaps I needed to look into some alternate makes/models. I should add that I use my iPad the way that most people do I presume: watching YouTube, looking things up in Googles search engine and occasionally using Googles cloud based suite of apps (Docs, Sheets and Slides). I do also have a fairly powerful laptop that I sometimes travel with if I know I will need to write up report for work of decent heft, or if I will be gone long enough that I dont feel like answering all my emails on my phone and typing with my thumbs. I have thought about getting a detachable keyboard for the iPad in the past but decided it was kind of crazy to add a peripheral to a tablet, which was as large as the device itself. So I started looking into other devices and I came over to Chromebooks. Well lets fast forward because you all know what I ended up buying. I can say now after taking this on many trips, using it in airports, hotels and even on planes, that I absolutely love it. I laugh at the criticisms that people are giving this hardware here in other reviews, as they obviously should have bought something totally different. You dont buy a Ford Taurus and then complain that it doesnt go 120mph or ask questions like does it come with a spoler?. The Taurus does not come with a spoiler, but it will get you to work everyday and then some, and you can put 200,000 miles on it. See where I am going with this? First of all, there should be almost no reason to ever install any apps on this thing. I dont play games on my phone or on my old iPad so I dont care about that. Even YouTube, the app offers nothing over the regular website in Chrome. I have installed nothing. The Google suite of Office products previously mentioned also work totally fine running from the cloud. Why do you need hard drive space on this device? Use Google Drive. I have put it in convertible mode (flipped backwards like a tent) and sat in Starbucks for hours watching YouTube. I can type probably 90% of my normal ~70wpm on this tiny keyboard. I can write extensive well written emails and work on reports, spreadsheets, presentations, etc... with this awesome device. I must admit it is a little odd using it as a tablet, perhaps because it is so large (this seemed awesome on paper before I got it), and feeling the keyboard underneath seems wrong. But I think these things are in my head. You dont need RAM, or hard drive space, or USB ports, or a DVD drive. If you need those things, it is easy enough to get a decent laptop for the same price as this. What this offers that a laptop does not is extemely small footprint, low weight, great form factor, and something that is built to interface flawlessly with Googles cloud products. I am a dyed in the wool Google user so this was a perfect fit for me. If you reject their products I suppose you could use Office 365 products fairly well as those also operate in the cloud. This thing boots up in about 3 seconds. I already use Chrome on my phone, home desktop and work desktop. So this all makes sense for me. Maybe it doesnt for you. And it certainly doesnt if you want to do video editing or some other high powered stuff, this is a netbook essentially and you dont drive a Ford Taurus if you want to pretend you are in The Fast and The Furious. I am 100% happy with this and I have taken it everywhere with me. Did I mention the battery life is insane? Well it is. I cant say enough about this and I cant believe I lived with an iPad for so many years. I would never ever turn back. That is nothing against Apple, I love my iPhone. Anyway, this is a great device and I suggest you pull the trigger.

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Samsung Chromebook Plus Review The Galaxy Tab S2 was a decent tablet, but it felt like a downgrade from the Galaxy Tab Pro due to its lower resolution and harder to access components. It basically felt like a fatter, slightly worse version of the same tablet. After being disappointed by a little more of the same happening with the Galaxy Tab S3 coming out and hearing that Chromebooks will now incorporate Android app compatibility, I decided to take a chance and get a Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus. After using the Chromebook Plus for a fairly decent amount of time, I find it difficult to determine why anyone would want to get a Galaxy Tab S3 compared to this. This does everything that the Galaxy Tab S3 does and more, but also better. This has a better I/O dual USB Type C as opposed to 1, plus more versatile in how you use it due to it being a full-fledged computer. Both come with a stylus built in with palm rejection which is nice, and both have very high resolution displays (although the chromebook has a slightly higher resolution, this is not that much of an issue for me as both tablets can churn out 1440p video). The chromebook has a keyboard built in where you don’t get that with the Galaxy Tab S3. One of the key benefits of Chromebooks compared to tablets is their full compatibility with Chrome as a browser. This is important because everything you can do on your computer with Google Chrome on a standard PC you can do on a Chromebook, where with the Galaxy Tab S3 you are stuck down with a watered down mobile version. This means that you can add extensions, use Adobe Flash without doing weird things to your Android Tablet, dual boot Linux, and more. Both can run Android apps well, although you may need to do more tinkering with the chromebook if you want to download apps outside the Play Store compared to a standard tablet. Once you do that though, you can also dual boot to things like Linux or even Windows if you so choose where the Galaxy Tab S3 is stuck with Android under most circumstances. Overall, there is really no reason to get a Galaxy Tab S3 when you could get the Chromebook Plus. It’s cheaper, about as portable, and it is way more versatile than the Galaxy Tab S3. The only thing that the Galaxy Tab S3 that the Chromebook Plus does not have is the rear camera, so if you think the convenience of an average tablet camera is worth sacrificing the crapton of versatility and the cost savings of this laptop, you could go with the S3. However, for most tablet users the Chromebook Plus is a better, more cost-effective device overall.

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