The tiny Chromebooks do have a certain charm to them and entice a wide variety of users. Their tiny stature makes it much easier to pack it in your backpack. Today, we’ll check out Samsung XE500C13-K05US, a Chromebook from this electronics giant. Let’s start the review then.
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Specs:
CPU – Intel Celeron N3060 Dual-Core, 1.6 GHz
GPU – Intel HD Graphics 400
Memory – 2 GB DDR3
Screen – 11.6-inch HD (1,366 x 768)
Storage – 16 GB eMMC Flash
OS – Google Chrome OS
Benefits:
Performance- It comes equipped with a Celeron processor; just the like most of the other low or mid ranged netbooks. There are 2 gigs of RAM as well as 16 gigs of storage available for your everyday needs. While the performance wasn’t anything out of the world it certainly stays much above the average under regular load. And yes, you can have a slight bit of gaming in it which is evident from the much better graphical result than the rest.
Battery- The battery was able to keep it alive for nearly 9 and half hours under regular web surfing load and made sure that you never fall short of your Netflix time.
Display- It’s one of the key sectors where most of the other netbooks cut the corner from. But the 11.6-inch panel in Samsung Chromebook 3 was not relatively much brighter than the rest at 250 nits. The colours were pretty dark and accurate at the same time; such a rarity.
Build- And lastly, the build quality seems pretty good despite the all-plastic chassis. There were nearly next to none flex in the chassis and the keyboard area.
Downsides:
Storage- Now, the short storage is the story of every second Chromebooks out there. And it’s no different. The 16 gigs of storage (nearly 10 gigs in reality after installing the Chrome) would eventually start to feel cramped.
Cooling- It got considerably hot under slightly demanding tasks and the temperature rose up to almost 105°F(.40°C). So you better keep that in mind before putting it in the stress tests.
Chrome OS- Okay, the Chrome OS can be a bliss and curse at the same time. While it’s much lighter and easy to use than the rest it comes with a caveat. And the drawback is that most of the features are web-based i.e cloud-centric and hence would need internet connectivity even for doing the most trivial tasks.
Verdict:
After checking it out closely I would say that it’s quite a good netbook for the day-to-day users, if not great. Despite being a Chromebook it certainly packs some serious amount of punch and makes sure to get your daily net surfing and mail checking chores done pretty fluently. It can prove to be a great buy for the school users or the first time buyers.