Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Go
A well-built laptop that delivers a decent spec for the price – except for the dimly lit screen
“Samsung has made great choices in most areas, but there’s no excuse for such a poor panel even at this price”
SCORE
PRICE £291 (£349 inc VAT) from samsung.com/uk
When Samsung announced announce the Chromebook Go, th the image that sprang to mind mi was of an ultraportable machine with w built-in mobile broadband and epic ep battery life. It turns out my imagination was racing away from me, with this first iteration of the Go delivering a far more modest package.
The mobile broadband component of my dream machine was justified, but that hardly deserves membership of the Sherlock Holmes society: all Samsung laptops with the “Go” moniker include 4G. The nano SIM slot is tucked into the right of the chassis, next to a USB-C U and a USB-A port, with a microSD card slot, 3.5mm jack and second USB-C port on the other side.
You can use either USB-C port for charging, and I was pleased to see a compact 45W travel adapter in the box. This weighs only 177 177g so won’t burden you on your travels. And on most occasions, you won’t need it: the Go lasted for 8hrs 42mins in our videorundown test, and I would be surprised if anyone pushed it hard enough during a working day to exhaust the 42Wh battery.
Still, it would have been nice to have the reassurance of double-digit hours, and with a relatively wide chassis it’s not obvious why Samsung couldn’t have squeezed in a bigger battery. I hoped to remove the bottom of the chassis to see if there was a physical limitation, but this is a no-go area: Samsung-authorised repairers only. It could be that screws are hidden under the four rubber feet that stop the Go from sliding around, but they proved resistant to my probes and the user manual offers no clues. Compensation comes in the slim, 1.4kg chassis, which has all the hallmarks h ll ks of a premium design n at first glance.
The silver exterior even ven provides a convincing onvincing impersonation of metal up close; with a sturdy finish, the only giveaway is its lack of coolness to the he touch. I like the strong rong contrast with the all-black interior too, while hile a discreet Chrome logo on the lid only adds to its minimalist charms. charms
Sadly, one thing that makes the machine’s m limited budget searingly obvious o is the screen. This dull 14in panel p with its low-rent 1,366 x 768 resolution re cut off any chance of this laptop la receiving a PC Pro Recommended R award, and I only y hope the th next iteration of the Chromebook Go G ups the quality y and the resolution. This T isn’t me being fussy: when using Google G g Docs the text is visibly y fuzzy. y It’s It like going back in time to passive matrix m displays.
Our technical tests bore out these su subjective j impressions. For a start, its b brightness peaks at a lowly 234cd/m 2 but it’s the 315:1 contrast rast ratio that truly disappoints. It doesn’t help that this panel only y covers s 52% of the sRGB gamut, while colour accuracy is dreadful, with an average rage Delta E of 5.04 and a worst result lt (for blues) of 16.67. Drab, subdued and lifeless are all adjectives that spring ing to mind.
Just to hammer things gs home, a lack of touch support means many of the Android apps available le via Google
Play y are fiddly y to use.
The choice of screen en is a real shame, because all the he other compromises Samsung msung has made in the name of cost are sensible. nsible. The keyboard yboard is a good example xample of this. The keys don’t feel l luxurious, but they’re quiet and well laid out; Samsung even goes to o the bother of providing space around nd the cursor keys. Likewise, the touchpad ouchpad is more Lidl than Harrod’s, but it’s a generous size and perfectly responsive.
I have no complaints about the Celeron N4500 processor, either: its dual cores are more than capable of handling Chrome OS’s demands. You’ll never get the sense of nippiness offered by the Asus opposite, but the Chromebook Go is a workhorse, not a stallion.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that Samsung again skimps on the camera, including a 720p webcam that interprets colours in the loosest possible fashion. It adds plenty of sharpening and compression, too, giving my glasses an almost cartoonish property. At least the microphone captures voices clearly, and the speakers – while hardly hi-fi quality – are surprisingly good for the price.
It short, the Chromebook Go feels like a missed opportunity. Samsung has made great choices in most areas, but there’s no excuse for such a poor panel even at this price. You can buy the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet ( see issue 321, p86) for around £300 and the far more premium Asus Chromebook C423 ( see issue 321, p90) for £400. The Chromebook Go holds the advantage of integrated 4G over both of those, but that’s a sacrifice I’d be more than willing to make. 2-core 1.1GHz (2.8GHz burst) Intel Celeron N4500 processor 4GB LPDDR4x RAM Intel UHD graphics 14in 60Hz IPS non-touch panel, 1,366 x 768 resolution 64GB eMMC storage 720p webcam Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.1 4G modem 2 x USB-C 3.1 USB-A 3.1 microSD card slot 3.5mm jack 42Wh battery Chrome OS 327 x 226 x 15.9mm (WDH) 1.4kg 1yr limited warranty