Toshiba Chromebook 2 (CB30-B-104) review

Toshiba’s first Chromebook was one of last year’s best Google-powered laptops. It was a great-value device with a convenient 13.3in form factor, which gave more room to manoeuvre than an 11in laptop without the added bulk of a 15.6in model. We were happy to see Toshiba keep this formula for the Chromebook 2, but make several important improvements that make it even more desirable – albeit slightly more expensive.

By far the biggest change is the quality of the screen. The low-resolution 1,366×768 display found in almost every Chromebook is gone, replaced by a Full HD 1,920×1080 pixel panel. This makes a huge difference to your ability to multitask; having two windows side by side, one with a document and another with a spreadsheet or web page, is the sort of workflow booster that can’t be underestimated. At its current price, the Chromebook 2 is one of the cheapest laptops on the market with a Full HD screen.

Image quality is extremely impressive, with the panel able to display 87.5% of the sRGB colour gamut according to our colour calibrator. This is pretty astonishing for a mid-range laptop, let alone one on sale for under £300. Contrast is also high at 973:1, with reasonably low black levels of 0.39cd/m2. Aside from the £1000+ Chromebook Pixel, this is the best screen we’ve ever seen on a Chromebook. In real terms, the images served up by the Chromebook 2 are rich and detailed, with plenty of colour and smaller details visible in more subtly shaded images.

Keep in mind that a Full HD screen in such a small chassis results in smaller text that may require you to zoom in if your eyesight isn’t perfect. This may be an annoyance for some users, especially with the web-based applications such as Google Docs, which has fairly small buttons to begin with.

There’s plenty to like about the Chromebook 2 beyond the screen. For starters, Toshiba has cut the weight by 10% from 1.5kg to 1.35kg. It’s a small change but carrying it around in one hand is now much more comfortable. It’s also very slightly thinner, at 19.3mm thick compared to the original’s 20mm. Toshiba has in turn reduced the number of USB ports from three to two, with a USB3 connector on the right and a slower USB port on the left side. Also present is a full-size HDMI port for connecting to external monitors, and a single 3.5mm audio jack.

It’s not a beautiful device by any stretch, although the dotted texture on the lid does add a little design flair. Overall build quality feels good, with little flex when you push hard down on the touchpad. Keyboards are typically Toshiba’s weakness, with most laptops stuck with shallow and cramped keys. While the 13.3in form factor means there’s plenty of room to manoeuvre, the shallow range of motion from the keys remains a slight issue. We didn’t have any problems with missed keystrokes, but we would have liked just a little bit more movement from the keys. The top row of keys has no “F” commands, replaced instead by simple symbols used to control the Chrome OS operating system. Also missing is the Caps lock key, which has been replaced by a search button. Hitting the alt key in conjunction with this button will activate caps lock, though.

The Chromebook 2 is powered by an Intel Celeron N2840 paired with 4GB of RAM. It’s a dual core chip with a base clock speed of 2.16GHz, boosting to 2.58GHz when thermal conditions allow. Our standard benchmarks don’t work with Chromebooks, so we ran the SunSpider 1.0.2 Javascript test instead, where it achieved a result of 549.9ms compared to the 451.4ms of the old Chromebook. This is surprising given that the CPU clock speed is much higher than the 1.4GHz of the old Toshiba Chromebook, and while we have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the figure, the Chromebook 2 was much more sprightly when browsing image and advert-heavy websites.

Battery life is good, too, at 7h 20m – slightly longer than last year’s model. With screen brightness turned down you could feasibly use this laptop all day without the need for a wall socket, but you should carry the lightweight charger with you anyway if you can.

Chrome OS remains an interesting proposition, not least because manufacturers don’t have to pay to install it on their devices. It’s a lightweight operating system that mostly runs in the Chrome web browser, but you’re still able to carry out more basic tasks such as transferring photos from USB drives and SD cards. However, with only 16GB of SSD storage on board, you will need to embrace working in the Cloud. Thankfully, Google provides 100GB of Google Drive for two years with every Chromebook purchase to help get you started. You don’t need a constant internet connection to carry out basic work, either; Google Docs, Sheets and Slides are all usable offline as long as you install the free offline extension from the Chrome webstore. They’re all good applications with plenty of features, although not quite as fully fledged as Microsoft Office Online.

^ It has taken a little while to warm up, but for those who do all their computing through a browser, Chrome is a brilliant little operating system 

The Toshiba Chromebook 2 is the best Chromebook on sale in the UK at the time of writing, managing to squeeze a Full HD screen and great performance into a device costing £270. This is immensely impressive and means it retains its crown as our favourite mid-sized Chromebook.

Just be careful if you’re looking to buy one of these laptops. A quick web search for “Toshiba Chromebook 2” yields mixed results; online shops selling the original Toshiba Chromebooks are placed above stores selling the new version. Always check the specifications section of whichever shop you’re buying from to ensure you don’t buy the wrong product.

With the likes of Asus releasing super cheap laptops with Cloud storage included, Chromebooks have a challenge on their hands, and the higher price of this machine may also put customers off. We think that right now, it’s definitely worth the extra £50 for the Full HD screen. If you still think you really need something with Windows then check out our regularly-updated Best Laptops and buying guide.

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