Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Chromebook finally has an official release date. You can buy it from Samsung and Best Buy starting Monday, April 6, starting at $ 999.
The device comes in Mercury Gray, or the cheeky Fiesta Red that looks bright orange in some settings. It is the first Chromebook with a 13.3-inch 4K OLED screen. It also has a more powerful processor than most Chromebooks, an Intel 10th generation chip. It also includes 8 GB of RAM (LPDDR3) and a 256 GB SSD.
When we first saw the device in January, Samsung indicated that additional configurations would be available, with up to 16 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD. However, the company appears to have killed those models; the base model is now the only variant available.
Verge Executive Editor Dieter Bohn was impressed with the build quality and hardware of the Chromebook in our first look, calling it “one of the most beautiful pieces of laptop hardware I’ve touched in a very long time.” Samsung has made a few unique design choices: there’s a camera built into the keyboard deck to take photos when the device is in tablet mode, and there’s an included stylus that lives in a side silo.
Also, not many companies have attempted to sell Chromebooks at this price. Only Google has tried Chrome OS devices for $ 999, and both the Pixelbook 2017 and Pixel Slate 2018 have been seen as halo devices for Chrome OS. Neither product was renewed for the same price; the Pixelbook Go, released last fall, starts at $ 649.
Samsung’s device will be a lot more expensive than excellent competitors like $ 549’s Asus’ Chromebook Flip C434, not to mention some fine Windows ultrabooks. In the past, affordability was one of the strongest arguments for buying a Chromebook. So while it’s certainly a picturesque device with quality hardware in it, it has to be an excellent machine to justify that price.