Google today announced a new Chromebook from Samsung with refreshed specs and a $249 price point, pitching the computer as an additional laptop for people who do their primary computing on a Windows or Mac computer. Think of it as a computer for your kitchen counter. The new device is the first Chromebook to use an ARM chip rather than an Intel one, which may well prove to be a better fit for what has historically been a niche device.
Google’s Chromebook has its fans, and it has seen adoption in school settings, but it hasn't achieved any sort of mass success. But Google has steadily improved both the software and hardware, earlier this year introducing the Aura interface that made viewing multiple windows at the same time possible. A few months later, the company announced software tweaks to the OS and the Chromebox, a desktop running Chrome OS. This time, though, it hopes to move away from the school-and-business market to users who want a simple extension of their home network.
The Samsung-made device is designed to be cheaper, faster, and easier to use than other comparable laptops. The company says the laptop will be much more widely available in brick and mortar stores starting next week (and you’ll start seeing jazzy new commercials from its new ad campaign tonight). The new laptop—which SVP of Chrome and Apps Sundar Pichai says will be simply called “the new Samsung Chromebook”—will be available in the US and UK only.
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via Ars Technica http://arstechnica.com
