Google Chromebook: Will the New Cheap Laptop Score an Upper Hand over Microsoft and Apple Upcoming Releases?

The Third Generation Google Chromebook – Highlighted Features

The search engine giant is in the news since Thursday, as it has sent invites for a special Android event on October 29, where it is expected to launch the Nexus 4 smartphone, 32GB Nexus tablet and Android 4.2 OS.

The concept of Chromebook was brought in by Google in May 2011, when the first devices went for sale in June 2011, manufactured by Acer and Samsung, announced at the Google I/O conference in May 2011. Reportedly, the models are yet to penetrate deep into the computing market. Hence, in an endeavor to make them reach more consumers, Google has priced this new Chromebook offering at $249 (approx. Rs 13,500), which is a significant drop from that of the Wi-Fi model costing $449. The Series 3 Chromebook was introduced at a San Francisco event on October 18.

Sundar Pichai, senior vice president for Chrome & Apps at Google, has posted a blog post stating, "In order to have one, two or more computers around the house, they need to be easy to use and much more affordable. So together with Samsung, we designed a new laptop—the new Samsung Chromebook for $249—the computer for everyone.”

He added that “High-resolution videos (in 1080p) are beautiful to watch and when using the touchpad, you'll notice smooth scrolling due to a hardware-accelerated user interface."

Coming to the specs of the new Chromebook, weighing around 1kg, it has a 11.6 inch display with 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, 2GB RAM, 16GB SSD storage, Samsung Exynos 5250 processor and a battery life of 6.5 hours. Also, the notebook comes with 100GB Google Drive cloud storage free for two years.

Further, Chromebook packs a VGA camera, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, HDMI port and connectivity features including Bluetooth 3.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n.

Also, according to Google, the device will have several preloaded apps including Search, Gmail, Hangouts, YouTube and more.

The new Samsung Chromebook is now available for pre-order via Amazon, Best Buy and other retailers along with Google Play Store in US for $249.