Samsung Friday started sales of its first netbook with Chrome OS from Google. There are a 3g version and a model with only wi-fi. KPN delivers pre-paid cards and a special 3g subscription with the Chromebooks.
Google and Samsung introduced the Chromebooks mid-may and last Wednesday was the European launch. Friday starts the sale of the netbooks with the stripped down operating system from Google.
The first Chromebook that will be available, the Samsung XE500C21, which in a 3g and a wifi version is released. The netbook possesses a Intel Atom N570-dual-core, 2GB of ddr3 memory and a flashdisk 16GB. The 12″screen has a resolution of 1280×800 pixels, and in addition to vga and an sd card reader, two usb 2.0 ports present. The 3g version 449 euros in costs, and the wi-fi-only-version for 399 euros in the shelves. Laptopshop.nl delivers the models as the first, but it appears that after a pre-sale period, the wi-fi version only on 1 July, while the 3g version only on 8 July.
KPN delivers to the 3g-version of a KPN Mobiel Internet Prepaid sim card with free 1GB data a month is useful. Then, users need to upgrade, which they 10 euros for 62.5 MB or € 20 for 125MB pay. He who is not with prepaid want to pay a subscription for mobile internet shut down. This can also be at other providers than KPN.
The Chromebooks have a lot of their small thickness, the Samsung 2cm, long battery life and short start-up time. The OS of Google controls all work through the browser smoothly, with the advantage that the documents and such are stored online and are less likely to be lost.
Tweakers.net tested the Chromebook of Samsung’s mid-may and came to the conclusion that the netbooks a luxury browsing experience, but that only a limited group of users, the radical step to browser-only use without any problems. Also, Google is still the work necessary to carry out what offline apps.