Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Review: Nicer, but also more problematic
The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook improves on the original by culling the unnecessary features and hardware, which makes the laptop make more sense as a Chromebook. Let’s find out the detail in Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Review with Lifetravell!
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Samsung Galaxy Chromebook design
The Galaxy Chromebook has a bold and beautiful design that makes for the perfect companion to its AMOLED display.
This is the thinnest Chromebook ever, at just 0.4 inches thick, but if the slim frame doesn’t catch your eye, the laptop’s Fiesta Red finish will. The metallic scarlet finish pops in a way I’ve never seen before on an aluminum device.
It’s a bold design that wouldn’t have worked if Samsung hadn’t spread the magnificent shade across the entire laptop — the touchpad, keyboard and even the hinges bleed the fiery hue. I’m also a fan of the laptop’s chrome edges, which are a nice contrast to the lovely ruby tone. Samsung also sells the Galaxy Chromebook in a Mercury Gray color variant, but trust us, you want the red.
The design isn’t just pretty, it’s also practical. On the deck is a fingerprint sensor where you’d normally find a power button (which is on the right side) adjacent to a world-facing camera. Samsung found a way to stash the included S Pen in a slot (or stylus garage) on the right edge.
Samsung Galaxy Chromebook review: Ports and S-Pen
Samsung split the Galaxy Chromebook’s dual USB-C ports (both can be used as a power input) on the left and right sides of the laptop. The headphone jack and volume switch are also on the left, while the Chromebook’s microSD slot and power button are on the right.
At first, you might not even realize what the small rectangular button on the right side of the Galaxy Chromebook is. But after you click down, and the rear of the S-Pen stylus pops out, you’ll probably smile at Samsung’s ingenuity.
Another small touch you might not notice? There’s a fingerprint reader for unlocking the Galaxy Chromebook in the top right corner of the keyboard.
Samsung Galaxy Chromebook keyboard and touchpad
The backlit keyboard on the Galaxy Chromebook reminds me of Apple’s near-extinct Butterfly keyboard. Stay with me here because the Galaxy Chromebook’s low-profile keys are what the Mac’s keys should have been, not what they turned out to be.
Yes, the keys are very shallow and they start to feel stiff during long typing sessions, but those are faults I could look past thanks to their clicky feedback and large size. Unlike the 13-inch MacBook Pro keyboard, I could feel the keys move up and down, and they didn’t fail to register.
I typed at 121 words per minute with a 95% accuracy rate on the 10FastFingers.com typing test, which is faster and just as precise as my typical 119-wpm average.
The 4.6 x 2.3-inch touchpad is smooth and responsive. The bright-red surface responded to my erratic swipes and I had no problems executing Chrome OS gestures, like three-finger swipes to switch Chrome tabs and two-finger swipes to scroll.
Performance
We were able to go hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 equipped with an Intel Core i3 processor, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Now, while we weren’t able to run robust benchmarks on it – such that benchmarks are even able to be run on a Chromebook – it was more than responsive enough to get the job done.
However, that’s not where Samsung is really claiming to have made huge improvements, anyway.
With the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2, Samsung is claiming up to 14 hours of battery life on a single charge, which is a huge improvement over the original laptop. According to our sister site LaptopMag, the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook only lasted 5 hours and 56 minutes.
If Samsung’s battery life claims are accurate – which remains to be seen – the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 will last nearly three times as long, which will see it up there with existing Chromebooks like the Google Pixelbook Go.
Samsung Galaxy Chromebook review: Audio and cameras
As the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook filled my living room with Run The Jewels’ “Ooh La La,” I admired how such a small notebook could deliver loud enough sound that I could hear it in adjacent rooms. While its sound stayed clear at maximum volume, I did notice that the bass was a bit slight, which continued as I pulled up Jay-Z’s “S. Carter” and Daft Punk’s “Instant Crush.”
The Galaxy Chromebook has two cameras, with its basic 1-megapixel webcam producing image quality that’s best described as functional. Your colleagues will be able to see you on Zoom calls, but photos I captured of myself looked blurry and lackluster.
A sharper 8-megapixel sensor is positioned in the top left corner of the keyboard deck. Designed for those who want to take photos with the 2-in-1 in tablet mode, this camera shot crisper photos than the webcam, but they were still not as good as the cameras in my iPhone 11 Pro Max, or even the last couple of iPhones. Plus, holding a 13-inch tablet as a camera felt very awkward.
