Samsung, Lenovo and Asus have all announced new Chromebooks for this year with neat features like inbuilt styluses, detachable keyboards and 360-degree hinges.
Samsung’s Galaxy Chromebook offers the built-in stylus, perhaps thanks to Samsung’s experience with its Note phones. This Chromebook is the thinnest one ever, and features a 4K screen that adjusts its brightness and colour temperature based on your surroundings. The Galaxy Chromebook is also a bit more powerful than your typical Chromebook, with Intel 10th gen processor options and up to 16GB of memory inside. It comes in a polished grey colour or vivid red, and will launch in the States by the end of March, starting at US$999.99.
Lenovo’s Chromebook for this year is the IdeaPad Duet. It has a more tablet-like form factor with a detachable keyboard and a 10.1-inch display with a kickstand on the back. Aiming more for affordability, the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet has a 1080p display, up to 4GB of RAM and a Mediatek mobile processor. There’s also support for an optional stylus. The IdeaPad Duet Chromebook will be available from May and starts at US$279.
Asus’ 2020 Chromebook offering is the Chromebook Flip C436, which has the 360-degree hinge. This will be the one to look at if you work with graphics, as the 14-inch touchscreen has 100% sRGB colour gamut coverage and USI stylus support. The Flip C346 will be available with Intel 10th gen processors, 8GB or 16GB of RAM, and a reported battery life of 12 hours. Pricing is yet to be confirmed, but it will be available for purchase in early March.
Local pricing and availability on all three Chromebooks is yet to be confirmed.
If I was after a Chromebook, I know what I’d be looking at seriously, the Samsung. Convertibles, like the Asus, used as a tablet, sounds a great idea, in theory. In practice, that idea stinks. Lesson I learned the hard way. No-one makes a keyboard shield for any convertible, so you can use them in tablet mode, without pressing the keyboard keys, or the track pad. The Lenovo, too small a screen and keyboard. Owning a 10.1in netbook since early 2012, I know how cramped a keyboard fitting that case width is. I would not want to deal with that… Read more »