Chromebooks

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?

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiYND_zvIc0&w=670&h=400]

The entire hour-long presentation is now available on YouTube for your viewing pleasure.

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Chromebooks, the just announced notebooks optimized to run Chrome OS, will benefit from new features in Chrome OS. When Google introduced Chrome OS a year ago, many people wondered how useful the upcoming notebooks would be the software’s clunky handling of external storage, your documents and other items. Google has been perfecting Chrome OS with these specific concerns in mind and today they dispelled myths that Chromebooks won’t be a fit for the average Joe Schmuck.

First up, Chrome OS has built-in players for music and video that show your content in a panel form factor by default. You can, however, take your video to fullscreen with a simple click. Another sought-after feature is a file manager that pops up when you slide a USB thumb drive or other peripherals to a Chromebook. But what about photos?

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