I noted earlier this week that pre-orders of the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 have begun. If you want the top-end model, it will cost you $699. For the same $699 you can actually get the original Samsung Galaxy Chromebook with 4K OLED display and better internals.
There are two key points to note here.
First, the 2021 version (aka: Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2) is likely to have one key benefit over its predecessor: Longer battery life.
Everything else is either the same or a downgrade. I’m not suggesting it’s a bad device. Heck, I haven’t even used it yet as I’m waiting on a review unit. I’m simply pointing out there only one expected benefit from choosing this year’s model and it seems a little overpriced compared to other Chromebooks in its class.
The second is that you’re not going to get any type of extension on Chrome OS updates if you choose the newer Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 over the original.
They both use 10th-generation Intel chips. Since Google starts the automatic software update expiration (AUE) clock when a Chromebooks with a new chipset is launched, both Chromebooks have the same AUE date of Jun 2028.
Aside from the meager battery life of the Galaxy Chromebook, everything else is better about it. And with the current discount at Best Buy, it’s the same price as the new model.
You get the 4K OLED display instead of a 1080p QLED panel. A stylus is included as is a fingerprint reader. The convertible is thinner and runs on a Core i5 instead of a Core i3. Both models have 8 GB of memory but the 2020 model has double the internal storage with 256 GB of capacity. And that storage is the faster NVMe type, not eMMC.
All that’s to say if you were considering the new $699 configuration of the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2, you may want to reconsider.
If it were me, I’d be looking at how often I’ll be using the device away from an outlet. Since I work from home, I could deal with the 5 or so hours of run-time on the original model. My stance would change, of course, if I wasn’t home all the time.
You may want to look at the same aspect in your own personal case to decide between the two.
6 Comments
There are some really solid reasons why Samsung had no choice but to abandon the original design. And battery life wasn’t at the top of the list. Good concept. Inexcusable implementation.
$700 bucks?!! C’mon, Kevin. Now we’re up in the Win 10 laptop range with i5’s-i7’s, 12 GB, and 512 Storage. Pllluuusssssssss, the Win 10 prints effortlessly. No way is a Chromebook worth that kind of dinero. I bought my first Chromebook in 2012, been toting them around ever since but the huge price hikes and hit or miss printing brought me back to Win 10 and the new Edge browser. See ‘ya later Chromebooks.
The comment regarding hit or miss printing tells me you haven’t used a Chromebook in the lasst year or so. Or your printers are quite old. I have 2 recent printers, and both my Chromebooks are more reliable to print from than my Windows desktop. That wasn’t the case in 2019 or earlier.
Printing has been an absolute breeze on my Canon printer, wirelessly, with my Pixelbook, Pixelbook Go, Samsung Galaxy Chromebook and Acer 713.
I saw the galaxy chromebook in BB and was not impressed with its OLED display. It had a reddish hue with almost no calibration options. Perhaps not all OLEDs are the same.
I’m not sure if I’ll describe the technology correctly. But old printers required printer-specific drivers to be installed on the PC. All recent printers now come with their driver software/firmware installed at the printer, which is as it should be. The PC (or Chromebook) no longer needs to “support” the printer. It just needs to send output and option instructions as requested by the printer. Printing from a Chromebook is therefore not significantly different from printing from Win10, etc. As someone else suggested, it must be that you are using very old printers or a Chromebook that stopped receiving updates quite a long time ago.