$250 Samsung Chromebook 2 has Intel CPU, fanless design, aluminum reinforcement

From PC World: Chromebooks aren’t crummy anymore. Samsung’s new Chromebook 2, announced Friday, joins a growing cadre of Chromebooks that aspire to more than being cheap. They have powerful CPUs, interesting features, and in the Samsung Chromebook 2’s case, an extra-sturdy chassis so it won’t get beaten up on the playground.

Nearly 1.4 million Samsung Chromebooks are deployed in U.S. schools, but these devices were designed for casual users, not rambunctious children. Samsung product manager David Ng admitted his company “needed to make the device more durable” for the education market. Aluminum reinforces the display panel, the corners of the chassis, and other vulnerable points. “Just try flexing the LED panel,” Ng dared me. I did: It’s quite stiff, though the thick bezel is ugly. Nevertheless, this level of build quality should help the device’s retail reputation as well.

Then there’s the CPU: ARM processors were typical for earlier generations of Chromebooks, and Samsung retains its ARM-based Chromebook 2 models. This upgraded Chromebook 2 sports the Celeron N2840 from Intel’s Bay Trail M family of CPUs, which balances performance with energy efficiency. The new Toshiba Chromebooks announced at IFA 2014 also use Celeron CPUs, while the Acer Chromebook 13 sports the intriguing Nvidia Tegra K1 chip. We’re gathering new benchmarks to test these machines and will let you know soon how they compare.

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