You won't be seeing Google's recently announced web-only Chromebook laptops until Samsung and Acer release versions this June. But lucky for us, we got to spend some time with an early model of Samsung's offering, the Series 5.
Frankly, we're stoked on this thing.
As soon as we got our hands on it, we immediately felt the quality of the device. With solid construction and a sturdy build, the Series 5 isn't janky like most netbooks in the $400 price range.
At 3.3 pounds, it's not terribly heavy — lighter than the MacBook Pro I'm currently using by more than a pound — and it seems like I wouldn't mind schlepping it around San Francisco during my workday. The Series 5 is also fairly thin when closed — 0.79 inches thin, to be exact. Obviously not MacBook Air-levels of thinness, but it also doesn't cost a grand.
The Series 5 comes in two color schemes: Titan Silver or Arctic White. The color was fine, nicely offset by the Chromebook's black innards and bottom.
Samsung claims an eight-second time to power on, for the main login screen to come up from the computer being completely powered off. When we tested this, it actually took only seven seconds to start up and be ready for use.
Another attractive feature — unlike other netbook models that skimp on space, the Series 5 has a full-sized keyboard. That means no cramped fingers over clustered sets of letters. Typing on the Chromebook was just like using my regular laptop keyboard. And the design nerd in me noticed that the letters on the keyboard are of a different font than I'm used to. Not saying that's positive or negative necessarily, but rather a flourish I noticed and liked.
The Series 5 eschews a multitude of buttons on top of the keyboard — no more F1 through F18 to deal with. Twelve buttons, but no Caps Lock key (you can map one to a set of keystrokes if you miss it enough).
The spyglass-imprinted Search key replaces Caps Lock, and opens up a new tab in your Chrome browser when you press it. Hit it again, and the tab disappears. Cool enough feature, though I'll admit I tried using Command+T to pull up a tab a few times before I started to get the hang of it.
A few other perks: The SD card reader accepts multiple types of cards, including HCSD. And there's a port which supports external monitor output, which is always nice.
As we only had a limited amount of time with the Series 5, we can't speak to its battery life. But Samsung and Google tell us that under real-world testing, you'll see an 8.5-hour charge.
There's also a Guest mode option, if you don't want to log in to your Gmail account. You'll be able to surf and do everything that you would on the Chromebook if you were logged in, but all the changes you make while using it (sites you've visited, etc.) will be wiped clean from the device. It's essentially using Chrome's Incognito mode to keep your browsing details private. Just think: If you let your buddy borrow your Chromebook for the weekend, you'll get it back without a browser cache full of porn sites.
Our casual browsing experience was zippy enough — pages were rendered super fast, and running YouTube videos went off without a hitch. Our own site loaded in less than six seconds.
Though we hit a few snags when we visited Tinkercad.com, a site that lets you do your own 3-D rendering using a CAD/CAM-like interface inside the browser. The site uses WebGL to accomplish this. But it didn't do so seamlessly — trying to drag and drop different plot points inside the Tinkercad interface was sluggish and stuttering, taking seconds for changes to show up at times.
Of course, Google and Samsung had to cut a few corners somewhere. Although its display qualities are quite nice, the screen isn't made with the tough Gorilla Glass that can withstand a beating. And the exterior of the Series 5 seems to be entirely plastic, which we weren't thrilled with. Yet even without any metal, the Series 5 felt sturdy enough in our hands.
Bottom line: We've seen and touched a lot of web-only notebooks in the $400- to $800-dollar range, and none have felt as promising as the Series 5 Chromebook. If the finished products are as half as nice as this one, we'll be excited to see them hit the shelves in June.
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