Samsung invades Surface territory with Chromebook
These machines can work with the Google Play Store — opening access to millions of Android apps Google is citing nine hours of battery life for the Pro model. The built-in stereo speakers are ho-hum.
The blurry line NEW YORK between Android and Chromebooks is about to get blurrier.
Exhibit A arrives with the Samsung Chromebook Pro that I’ve been checking out for a couple of weeks. Google calls this upcoming $549 convertible laptop/tablet, and a sibling model, the $440 Chromebook Plus, the first Chromebooks to be “designed for Android apps.”
Google worked closely with Samsung on the machines, which were initially showcased during last month’s CES trade show.
These Samsung models come with an embedded pen that you can use, among other purposes, to write or draw directly on the screen, a first for the Chromebook ecosystem.
Through “optical character recognition” technology or OCR, your handwritten text becomes searchable, at least if your jottings are reasonably legible.
The biggest thing: The machines are integrated with the Google Play Store, which opens up Chromebooks to millions of Android apps.
Indeed, Google has announced that the Play Store is coming to all 2017 Chromebooks, and it has been made available on models that have already been released, notably the Asus Chromebook Flip, Acer Chromebook R11 and Google’s own Chromebook Pixel dating back to 2015.
The addition of Android is another way Google is trying to broaden the appeal of Chromebooks. The machines are popular in education and have made some inroads in business. Google cites an IDC report from last year showing that the Chromebooks overtook Macs as the second most popular PC operating system behind Windows.
These cloud-based computers are kept secure through regular software updates from Google.
In the past, Chromebooks have been severely hamstrung when you lack Internet connectivity. But there’s now a lot more you can do when you’re offline, whether watching movies, playing games or getting some work done. Android only adds to the offline opportunities.
What’s more, as a hybrid machine, Samsung and Google are invading territory occupied by Microsoft’s Surface machines, among other computers.
Unfortunately, my experience on the Samsung Chromebook Pro was far from smooth — at least for now. Sometimes the computer froze. Apps were occasionally fickle.
With that observation, some key caveats: My test Samsung Pro is a pre-production unit running beta Chrome OS software.
The Google Play Store on the Chromebook is still in beta too, a designation that is not expected to be lifted until the Chromebook Pro becomes available in late April. The less-expensive Plus model went on sale Sunday, so keep your expectations in check on the Play Store experience.
Curiously enough, the aluminum Pro I was issued is silvercolored even though the Pros that go on sale will be black; the Plus models on the other hand are silver.
The chief difference between the Plus and the Pro machines, other than price and color, is that the former is outfitted with an ARM mobile processor typically found in tablets and phones, while the Pro works off a laptopclass chipset from Intel.
Otherwise they’re pretty much the same: 12.3-inch Quad HD touch displays, 4 gigabytes of memory and 32GB of internal storage, microSD slot, two USB-C type ports, a 720p HD camera and a 360-degree hinge that lets you transform these 2.38 pound machines from laptop to tablet or back, or prop it up like a tent if say you’re watching a movie.
There’s a USB-C charger, and Google is citing nine hours of battery life for the Pro model.
The stylus reminds you of the S Pen on Samsung ’s ill-fated Galaxy Note 7 and is tucked away until you need it. The moment you pull it out of its slot, a menu appears on the screen with the various options for using the pen. You can use it as a laser pointer, for example, or in a mode that lets you magnify the screen. You can use it to take a picture of the screen or a portion of the screen.
I suspect most of you, though, will use it to draw, write or take notes. I’m no artist but did my best van Gogh impression inside the ArtCanvas app I fetched from the Play Store. My handwritten notes were stored inside the cloud-based Google Keep app, and yes, I had modest success searching for those notes after the fact. Given my lousy penmanship, that was quite an accomplishment.
Through the Play Store, I also had a go at apps ranging from games such as Gameloft’s Asphalt 8 Airborne and Deep Silver’s Sa
cred Legends to You Tube Kids, Duolingo and Evernote.