Click to EnlargeWhere
last year's Samsung Chromebook had more rounded edges, the Series 5 550
is slightly more angular, and looks more like Samsung's other
notebooks. Both the lid and deck are made of a silvery gray plastic, not
unlike its Series 5 ultrabook. Overall, the aesthetic feels less
Google-y: To be sure, the colorful Google logo is still on the lid, but
it's smaller than Samsung's chrome logo.
It's not as svelte as an
Ultrabook, but it's close. Weighing 3.2 pounds and measuring 11.5 x 8.5 x
0.8 inches, the Series 5 550 fits just as comfortably into a messenger
bag as other ultraportables.
Heat
After streaming a Hulu
video at full screen for 15 minutes, the touchpad was a very cool 77
degrees Fahrenheit, the space between the G and H keys was 89, and the
middle of the underside was 90 degrees. All are well below what we
consider uncomfortable -- 95 degrees.
However, the area toward the
back underneath the system, near the vent, registered a highly
uncomfortable 122 degrees. For an OS supposedly this light, that's
disconcerting, to say the least. After an hour, even the upper right
section of the keyboard became noticeably warm, too.
Keyboard
Click to EnlargeThe
island-style keyboard on the Series 5 550 was plenty spacious, and the
keys offered plenty of travel, more so than the Series 9 ultrabook, in
fact. However, we found the keys slightly slippery, as our fingers would
slide off them a little too easily. Also, there's no backlighting, but
this is a sub-$500 system, so that's no great surprise.
As before,
the left Caps Lock button has been replaced with a Search button.
However, pressing it merely opens a new browser window. A neater trick
would be for it to search not only the Web, but local files as well, a
la Spotlight.
In lieu of function keys, the row above the keyboard
has Chrome-specific buttons, including back, forward, refresh and full
screen. Also here are buttons to control the brightness and volume
Touchpad
Click to EnlargeAt
4.1 x 2.5 inches, the chrome-lined clickpad on the Series 5 is plenty
spacious -- larger than the first edition -- especially for a 12-inch
system. While two-finger scrolling worked well, the pad lacks multitouch
gestures such as pinch-to-zoom. That's a pretty disappointing
ommission.
Display
The matte 12.1-inch display on the
Series 5 has a resolution of 1280 x 800, the same as the previous
version. With an average brightness of 314 lux, the Series 5 outshone
the ultraportable average (234 lux) as well as much more expensive
systems, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad X230 (240 lux).
The
1080p trailers for "Battleship" and "The Dark Knight Rises" were crisp,
with bright colors and few artifacts in darker scenes. Contrast wasn't
as high on notebooks with glossy displays, but it's pretty good for the
price.
Audio
Click to EnlargeThe
speakers on the bottom of the Chromebook Series 5 550 pumped out
remarkably loud and good sound -- so long as the notebook was on a hard
surface. While it was on our glass coffee table, streaming Bruce
Springsteen's "Badlands" over Pandora rang out, with a decent amount of
bass, and higher tones weren't distorted, even with the volume maxed
out.
As soon as we put the notebook in our lap, though, the song
sounded much more muted, with many of the higher notes hard to hear. The
same pattern continued when we listened to Eminem's "Love The Way You
Lie." There was just so much more definition when the laptop was on our
desk.
Ports
Click to EnlargeOn
the left side of the Chromebook Series 5 is an Ethernet port,
DisplayPort, USB, and a combo headphone/mic jack. On the right side is a
second Ethernet port, a 4-in-1 card slot and a Kensington lock slot.
The back side of our system also has a SIM card slot. The power jack is
also on the left side; we found that you really had to push the plug in
firmly, snapping it into place; otherwise, it would fall out easily.
Webcam
Over
W-Fi, a Google Hangout chat produced good images on this Chromebook.
While our colleague was slightly pixelated, colors were accurate, and
sound stayed in sync.
User Interface
Click to EnlargeThe
latest version of the Chrome OS (version 19) includes many welcome
improvements. The first thing that users will notice is a bona fide
desktop, and not just a browser window that fills the screen. This is
welcome news not just to us, but to anyone who's familiar with Windows
or Mac OS.
Along the left bottom are icons for the Chrome browser,
Gmail, Google, YouTube, Google Drive and Apps. The lower right shows
the time, the status of your Internet connection, battery level and a
little droid icon that, when clicked, lets you adjust settings and log
out or turn off the system. We like that you can pin additional apps to
the Launcher, but wish you could organize their arrangement.
Any
window that is opened in the main area of the desktop can be re-sized or
expanded to fill the screen. We wish there was a minimize function, but
it's sort of inconsequential, as everything occurs within the browser
window.
When you click on the little grid icon, it minimizes the
browser window, and brings up a desktop view of all your apps. It's
handy to see them all in one place, but there's no way to organize them,
such as rearranging their order, placing them in folders, or adding a
second page. If you keep adding apps, the icons just get smaller and
smaller.
Performance
Unlike the first Series 5 Chromebook,
which used a 1.66-GHz dual-core Intel Atom N570 CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 16GB
SSD hard drive and integrated graphics, the Series 5 550 has an Intel
Celeron 867 processor, 4GB of RAM and a 16GB SSD. These kinds of
components will more than suffice for browsing the Web, streaming videos
and writing documents.
The Series 5 booted in a lightning-fast 12
seconds. That's half the time of most Ultrabooks, and even about five
seconds faster than the MacBook Air. Windows opened quickly, and we were able to stream 1080p videos without any issues.
Compared
to the original Chromebook, there's a clear boost in performance. On
the Peacekeeper benchmark, the Series 5 550 scored 1,830, where the
original notched just 473. The Series 5 550 took just 439.8 miliseconds
to complete the Sunspider test, nearly a third of the time of the original Chromebook (1136.4 ms).
Using
WebGL Aquarium, we averaged between 45 and 60 frames per second with 50
fish and all the effects turned on. That's light-years better than the
first Series 5 Chromebook, which could barely manage 4 fps with just one
fish, and no background or sunlight.
Offline Access and Cloud Storage
Connectivity
remains the Chrome OS's Achilles heel. Without it, the Series 5 550
becomes much less useful. There are about 150 apps, including Google
Mail, Docs, Google Play Books, the New York Times and "Angry Birds" that
will work without an Internet connection, but considering there are
tens of thousands of apps in the Chrome Web Store, it's clear that this
is an OS that's only fully functional with the Web.
Google Drive,
Picasa and Google Mail each give you 5GB of free cloud storage. Those
who need more space can choose from one of nine different plans, which
range from 25GB for $2.49 per month, to 16TB for $799 per month.
Google Drive
Chrome
OS now supports a much wider range of formats, including Office files,
PDF, ZIP and RAR. You can now view documents offline, though the process
is a bit cumbersome. Too bad you can't edit them, and then have the
changes sync automatically when Internet access is restored. However,
Google says offline editing is being rolled out.
File Manager
Click to EnlargeOne
of our chief complaints with the first Series 5 was that there was no
easy way to view the files on the notebook itself. Googleremedied that
somewhat with the File Manager, which lists all your downloaded files in
the browser, as well as any in an SD card or USB device. There's still
no way to view system files, such as drivers, though.
Photo Editing
The
built-in Photo Editor lets you make basic adjustments, such as crop,
brightness, and rotate, and lets you share them with Picasa, but it's
pretty anemic compared to Picasa or even Google+, both of which offer a
wealth of more options, both in terms of editing and sharing.
App Selection
It's
not as robust as Google Play, but the Chrome Web Store has tens of
thousands of apps, according to Google. Many popular apps can be found,
such as Picasa, Pandora, Netflix, "Angry Birds," NYTimes, and Tweetdeck.
Cloud Print
Click to EnlargeAs
with the previous Chromebooks, users can print remotely to cloud-ready
printers such as HP's ePrint line, or to older printers connected to a
computer running Google Chrome.
Remote Desktop
Currently, a
beta app in the Chrome Web Store, Remote Desktop lets you access a
computer remotely from your Chromebook. Both must be running the Remote
Desktop app in the Chrome Web browser, and both must be logged into your
Google account. After that, it's a fairly easy setup process that took
only a few minutes. Then, after setting up a PIN, which was used to
authenticate our connection, our desktop's screen showed up in the
Chrome 5's browser window.
Over the same network, there was very
little lag as we typed in a word processor, and opened and closed
windows and apps. However, you can view only one monitor of your remote
desktop at a time, and there's no way to zoom in, so text can appear
rather small.
Battery Life
The Series 5 is rated for six
hours of continuous use, and 6.5 days on standby. On the LAPTOP Battery
Test (web surfing via Wi-Fi with the screen at 40 percent brightness),
we were down to 44 percent of our battery after four hours and 17
minutes. If we extrapolate that, it comes out to about 7.6 hours of
endurance. That's very good battery life.
3G
Click to EnlargeOur
version of the Series 5 550 came with a 3G option through Verizon,
which comes with 100MB of free data per month. After that, the
connection simply cuts off, instead of charging overage fees. At the
very least, we wish it was 4G.
For those who crave
everywhere-connectivity, Verizon offers an unlimited day pass for $9.99,
and three monthly passes: 1GB for $20, 3GB for $35, and 5GB for $50.
Two-year contract plans include a 2GB/$30 per month, 5GB for $50 per month and 10GB for $80 per month.
Configurations
As
mentioned, Samsung offers two versions of the Series 5 550. Our model,
which has a 1.3-GHz Intel Celeron 867 processor, 4GB of RAM and a 16GB
SSD, as well as a 3G radio, costs $549. The non-3G version, which
otherwise has the same specs, costs $449.
Verdict
Click to EnlargeThere's
no doubt that the Chrome OS has improved by leaps and bounds. And
Samsung's Chromebook Series 5 550 is a pretty slick vehicle for the
platform, especially for those who have basic needs. The comfortable
keyboard and bright screen are as good as what you'll find on some
Ultrabooks, and this machine is certainly faster than its predecessor.
However, $449 is a lot to spend on a machine that has limited offline
capability.
While it's a different breed of laptop, it's hard to
justify spending this much dough on an ultraportable with a Celeron
processor and just 16GB of storage when you can get a Dell Inspiron 14z
with a second-gen Intel Core i3 processor and a 500GB hard drive for the
same price. If the price drops, the Chromebook Series 5 550 will be
worthy of stronger consideration, but right now we wouldn't choose this
clamshell over a traditional notebook or the iPad.
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