The $ 249 Samsung Chromebook that’s been around since October 2012 is due for a refresh, and it looks as if it will come in the form of two new Chromebooks. OMG Chrome noticed that B&H Photo started taking pre-orders for the new devices this past weekend. They’re $ 299 and $ 399, depending on the model.
There’s little information to go on, but it appears that the $ 299 version will replace the current $ 249 model. The product listing mentions Exynos, which is the name for Samsung’s own ARM-based processor. Samsung uses an Exynos in its current Chromebook and the HP Chromebook 11 uses the same chip, which generally powers smartphones and a few Samsung tablets. The listing says “4-16 GB,” which I take to mean 4 GB of memory and 16 GB of internal storage. The former would be a nice boost over the more common 2 GB memory configuration found on many of today’s Chromebooks.
The second model doesn’t mention Exynos at all; I’d interpret that to mean it will use a Haswell-based Intel chip, just like the latest batch of Chromebooks. Again, the listing says 4 GB, which is likely the amount of memory. With that configuration, the device should perform admirably — likely twice as fast as the cheaper model. B&H’s website says this will be a 13.3-inch Chromebook, so it would likely compete with and compare best to Toshiba’s Chromebook, which is also a 13-inch device.
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