The first Chromebook launch by Samsung was fairly successful and has reported pretty good popularity among casual and enterprise users as well. Many users did report that the Exynos chip Samsung included in the previous Chromebook didn’t perform too well, especially when it came to multi-tasking. Samsung has heard its users issues and complaints and has decided to launch an Intel variant of its Chromebook 2 for the cheap price of $250.
The new Chromebook 2 comes with the Intel Celeron N2840 CPU clocked at 2.58 GHz, backed by just 2 GB RAM. The Chromebook offers 16 GB internal storage as well as a new build, with more metal and leather included. Samsung has supposedly reinforced Chromebook screens, USB ports and corners with metal. The Chromebook 2 that Samsung launched in February 2014 came in two variants, an 11 inch and a 13 inch one, both sporting Chrome OS. The 13 inch model of the Chromebook 2 has a 1920*1080 resolution, 4 GB RAM, 16 GB internal storage and is powered by an octacore Exynos 5800 CPU clocked at 2.0 GHz. The Chromebook 2 has an USB 3.0 port, microSD card reader, HDMI out, full sized keyboard and trackpad, as well as stereo speakers, Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi.
The re-vamped Intel Chromebook 2 doesn’t bring any other improvements than the minor metal reinforcements added and the Intel Celeron chip taht should make the Chromebook 2 more powerful than the Exynos powered one. The sub-par performance of the Exynos Chromebook 2 should definitely be outdone by the Intel chipset, which should allow for faster scrolling, tab switching as well as interacting with web pages. Music streaming with Google Play Music or Pandora should also see some improvements, as well as Chromecasting. We wonder how the Intel chip will be affecting the battery life on the Chromebook 2, since the Exynos edition could muster up about 6 hours of mixed use. Even though Samsung advertised at least 8.5 hours of mixed use on the notebook, the 6 hour mark would usually be a long-shot with most users, according to reports.