Reviewed — Samsung Chromebook Plus

The light weight lap

top replacement you need to own

I have been using the Samsung Chromebook Plus exclusively now for a few months to really get to grips with it as it is different to a Windows based laptop and some things which I will go into take a little bit of getting used to.

Firstly let me just say that it has completely replaced the need for me to carry around a Windows Laptop. If you had a fear previously that Chromebooks needed internet all the time then fear not as that need is now gone. You can happily work away without any internet and when it does eventually connect up things will sync to the cloud. The great thing is though that it has 32GB of onboard storage so you can have thousands of files locally with out having to worry, or you can also augment this with a micoSD card.

Design wise the Chromebook Plus is so versatile and clever with the screen able to flip right around which is perfect for watching movies or playing games. I especially like the way Samsung added two USB-C ports, one on each side, you might not think this important but when power supply is on the opposite side to you port in a coffee shop for example, it matters. On the right hand side there is the volume, power, USB-C and the S-Pen and on the left the USB-C, a 3.5mm headphone jack and the microSD port.

The screen is a beautiful 12.3" QHD with 3:2 aspect ratio which really lets you see more on screen at once. Brightness is excellent especially outdoors with 400 nit brightness and a PPI of 234.

The keyboard I will admit took the longest for me to get used to, it can at times feel a little cramped especially true if working with it on your lap. However working on it on a table the keyboard operates much like any laptop keyboard, just don’t forget some keys don’t exist on Chromebooks such as the ‘delete’ key or ‘home’ or ‘end’, you will quickly adjust.

For those who want to get a little bit more productivity done, there is also an S-Pen included which will let you snap screenshots, annotation and otherwise take notes. I find it useful for when I need to take certain parts of a screen capture, saves the need to then further process in Paint for example. So while the S-Pen is not powered in this case like on a Galaxy Note 8 for example it is still going to prove useful for those that need one.

The Samsung Chromebook Plus is Google certified which mean Android apps and the Google Play store work out of the box and for the most part at least with the games and apps I use they work perfectly. Games like Motor Sport Manager and Football management games are very good examples as they really do lend well to the larger screen.

Finally to sum up my experience of the Chromebook Plus, pretty flawless it must be said. And yes there is a more powerful version available, the Chromebook Pro, there really is no need to shell out the extra 200 bucks for it. The Plus has plenty of power to keep things running smoothly.