Gadgetory

hey everyone and welcome to another review by Jim's review room as the year 2013 has gone its way we're starting to receive interesting data indicating on what consumers are really buying now as some of you may know Windows and Apple laptops for 2013 saw a decrease in sales and it's confirmed by reputable market research company NPD Group but one of the products that grew over 4,000 percent when comparing 2012 to 2013 and basically accounted for 21% of laptops sold in the latter year is the Chromebook by Google so what is the allure of these Chromebooks that basically sold almost nothing in 2012 - the fastest growing laptop product by the end of 2013 so without further ado we'll get started the product under review is a Samsung Chromebook 11 inch model priced at only 249 dollars at the time of this review now with Chromebooks they're known not only for their low budget price point but also for their very slim and simple profile now this unit here the measurements are on your screen but they also take note into how thin this unit actually is and also the weight coming in at only 2.4 pounds making this able to be put it into your bag conveniently and when holding on to it does feel very light in your palms now the entire body is made of plastic with minor amounts of flex unfortunately now although flexing the unit still feels durable though when handling and when opening and closing the lid note once the screen is open though the base of the notebook is very thin on the front and right sided laptop doesn't have any inputs while the left side yields a three-and-a-half millimeter microphone and headset combination port and also a card reader as well but the rear houses most of the connections with two USB inputs with one being the latest USB 3.0 which is a plus now finishing up the rear is a full size HDMI connection to connect to your TV or monitor and then there's a tiny hole here to connect to the supplied wall charger and lastly is a built-in VJ webcam and despite a workable webcam VGA is actually a very old technology and as you can see on your screen even with a perfect internet connection the video quality is on low in here again the screen comes in at eleven point six inches and has a resolution of 1366 by 768 now the resolution is actually on par with other low to mid grade laptops with the same resolution now only when you start to hit the price point of about 700 to 800 dollars is when you do start seeing the higher resolution being offered now before talking about the internals and its performance one of the biggest benefits to having a Chromebook is everything is synced and to your Google account and I'm sure most of you who already have an Android phone or tablet or folks just using Gmail you can use that existing account actually now by having Chromebook of your favorites and or bookmarks to your Google Calendar to your Google Chrome's history and multiple devices are all viewable across any Google operating software now think of Google as being the holistic approach to both your online and offline content and I'll get more into that a little bit later once we start talking about apps now one mentioning that is genuinely unique but also may hinder Google is the fact that you don't install any programs you can't download programs for news and to this Chromebook however Chromebook focuses more on apps then apps are only available through the Google store now moving on internally Chromebooks in general uses low power consumption processors in this case Samsung uses as an existing proprietary chip the Exynos 5 which is a 1.7 gigahertz dual-core processor that's the same processor that powered Google's tablet the Nexus 10 the Samsung has two gigs of RAM on board and a 16 gigabyte SSD hard drive and other notable features are wireless internet connections for a B G and n networks with Bluetooth connectivity to connect all your Bluetooth enabled devices and the battery also claims up to 6.5 hours of use however during my test of making up documents playing on YouTube and watching Netflix and with some of the occasional gaming as well the actual battery life I obtained was a little over five and a half hours straight from a full battery charge and it's not too long considering this system is so light on tasks and programs though now with all that being said for the tech guys out there the numbers are not astounding at all however Chromebooks are aimed for the casual and user the interface like the physical layout itself is a very simple and is laced with nothing but Google Apps and use now the far bottom left lays your app button to access all your downloaded applications Google Chrome in Gmail is to follow while the next three are identical to Microsoft Word Excel and an even power point called Docs sheets and slides respectively and although for casual users these three productivity apps are very well equipped and can possibly do everything that Microsoft can while altogether being free now Google tax for example besides the ability of typing your paper or even something more involved such as a newsletter or so they have the ability to save it as a Word document though so Microsoft can open it or you can save it as a PDF file and email your work to readers abroad that's a very small illustration though of a Google based application any document you create you can seemingly work with non Google and non Chromebook users as well now besides the aforementioned apps that are pre-installed the Google store is available at your fingertips with Chromebook almost exclusively having Google based apps there are some limitations though when you go into the Google store apps like Skype are not available again that's just one small example now Google's defense was suggesting using the app Google Hangouts which is already pre-installed in substitution for the missing Skype application basically Google's really drawing you into and using their Google products there's nothing wrong with hangouts I actually personally use it but Skype appears to be the major service used around the world currently some games like Need for Speed world although available in the store doesn't work on Chromebooks because Chrome but runs neither on Windows or Android now lastly regarding Samsung's performance my test yielded perfectly fine for everyday casual use though now pulling up email going into Facebook browsing photos went without a hitch watching youtube videos in high definition wasn't a problem as well and also Netflix ran smooth now as for gaming I don't recommend the Chromebook at all though although some games can be found in the Google store some are just not compatible with Chromebook if there was a game that was playable friendless would occasionally drop and again impact your ingenuity like Chromebook in my opinion is clearly not for gaming so to wrap things up the Samsung Chromebooks price alone is a huge selling point at only $250 and its limits and for profile I would say next if you already have a Google account whether you have it for an android-powered device or we have something as simple as Gmail you'll notice the integration with Chromebook will be a smooth transition the productivity suite is very robust and has unique features that are quite extensive when compared to Microsoft's product line another huge benefit are the documents you produce you can save them in performance where you can easily access them on other non Google based devices and computers now some issues that may hinder your considered purchase are limited availability of apps and games games that aren't playable the frame rates do try pretty bad to the point where it might not even be as enjoyable as you think at least video playback and popular sites like YouTube and Netflix works without any issues though the fact that you can't download any programs to install and use does limit what's on the market but if all the affirmation offerings are all that you'll use again email Facebook web chatting video watching document producing this is a good fit actually a college student typing up papers or business professionals Justin using it for very simple tasks so at $250 it's not a bad choice at all though so hopefully with 2014 here we'll have some new models with the more updated processors built in to fix some of the issues that are currently plaguing the Samsung and hope with this review it helped in some way and if you have not please take your time to LIKE and subscribe to this video for future alerts to new products again this is Jimmy from Jim's review room take everyone