Samsung Chrome Series 5

We've played with the various betas. We've tested the prototype. Now the day has finally come -- we've got the final production version of the first of Google's Chrome OS laptops in our hands. It's the Samsung Chromebook Series 5.
Chrome OS has been built from the ground up to be simple. So simple, in fact, that it consists of a web browser window -- and nothing else. Okay, that's a tiny exaggeration. There's very basic file support, media playback, and all the drivers and user login bits that you need for hardware support and multiple people to use the same machine, but there's no "desktop" to minimise to like you'd find on a Windows or OS X machine -- just the browser.

On the one hand, that's going to freak some people out. It means you can only use web apps -- apps that exist on web pages, like Gmail and Google Docs. But in reality, we barely found that a problem at all. You can write, communicate, be entertained, and do almost everything that you can do on a regular notebook PC, with very few exceptions that we'll come onto shortly.
First, the device itself. Compared to the Cr-48 prototype, the Series 5 is in a league of its own in terms of design. The bulky frame, sharp corners and titchy trackpad have disappeared in favour of clean curved lines, considerably more oomph on the power front, and a significant size and weight reduction too, taking it down to 1.48kg and 29.5 x 21.8 x 2.0cm. Sure, it's not as svelte as a MacBook Air, but at nearly a third of the price, we can forgive that.
Opening it up, you'll see a specially-designed keyboard with the function keys and caps lock entirely removed in favour of specialist buttons to perform browser-specific tasks, like refresh, back, forward, new tab, and fullscreen mode. There are also brightness and volume buttons. Underneath, there's a gesture-supporting trackpad that is significantly improved over early versions we've seen. It functions as adequately as you'd need it to, with our only gripe being the lack of an option to turn it off. It's easy to brush it with a palm while you're typing and accidentally write a sentence in the wrong place.
The screen is bright and clear, and it has excellent visibility in sunlight thanks to Samsung's decision to make it matte. Matte screens are often dimmer and offer less contrast than their glossy brethren, but that wasn't a problem we suffered with the Chromebook at all.
Turning it on, you'll be impressed by boot times -- less than 10 seconds from cold to user login screen. Suspending it by closing the lid wakes it up even faster -- from opening it again to being exactly where you left off takes more like two seconds, at most. That's wonderful if you just want to quickly find an email or look at a map, but don't want the hassle of turning on a regular laptop.

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