Samsung’s Chromebook torn apart: A well-polished version of Cr-48

We got our review unit  yesterday, but today marks the release of Samsung’s first production Chromebook called the Samsung Series 5. The teardown experts over at iFixit have been quick to dismantle the computer and peek under its hood. Their teardown analysis paints the Series 5 machine as “a well-polished version of the rather imperfect Cr-48 prototype Chromebook”. This means that the Series 5 improves on the Cr-48’s clunky trackpad and mediocre battery life, iFixit explained.

The Series 5 fixes the major shortfalls of the Cr-48 and adds the polish necessary to strike lust into the heart of a broad consumer base: sleek looks, 8+ hours of battery life, and optimized performance.

They gave the notebook a decent 6 out of 10 Repairability Score. What about the innards?

The Series 5 packs in a dual-core 1.66GHz Atom N570 processor, an improvement over the Cr-48’s Atom N455, and Intel’s NM10 graphics chip. No cooling fans are used at the fan’s exhaust because the CPU and the GPU produce little heat. Samsung, of course, provided 2GB of RAM, while SanDisk supplied its SDSA4DH-0 16G solid-state drive. And the improved touchpad performance? Courtesy of a Synaptics T1320A Capacitive Touchpad controller.