Samsung Series 5 550 Chromebook review

The latest Samsung Chrome OS laptop, the Series 5 500, seriously ups its game when it comes to the hardware specification, with the Atom processor of its predecessor replaced by a dual core 1.3GHz Celeron 867 and its 2GB of memory upgraded to 4GB. The hard disk is still a 16GB SSD, which means that the laptop boots almost instantly. The extra processor power means that apps reported as running slowly on previous Chromebooks, such as Angry Birds, run smoothly.

Samsung’s previous Chromebooks were criticised for being underpowered and overly restrictive. A key issue was the inability to work on documents without access to Google’s cloud. The newly released Chrome OS 20 and Google Drive let you work on your documents offline. They appear in the Google Drive tab of Chrome’s file manager and work wherever you are. You can even play media and view images offline, too. Once you get back online, your docs are synced. You’ll need a Google account to use a Chromebook, but all your settings and Chrome browser apps are imported when you log in if you already have an account. If not, creating an account is simple, fast and free.

The new Chromebook looks stunning and has excellent build quality and a slim, silver body that reminds us of Apple’s smaller portables. The cut-down keyboard has flat and widely spaced Chiclet-style keys, and it’s remarkably accurate and comfortable to use. There’s no numeric keypad or other additional keys on the right-hand side of the keyboard, but we’re happy to do without most of these, although we missed the Page Up and Page Down buttons. Fortunately, you can access those functions by holding Alt and pressing the up and down arrow keys.

Its large touchpad is located dead centre on the wrist rest, which means you don’t hit it by accident when you’re typing. Plus, the touchpad’s size makes it easy to control your pointer accurately and use mouse gestures. The entire pad is a button, and you can press it anywhere, using one finger to left-click and two fingers to access right-click menus and options. Other gestures include the ability to scroll by placing two fingers anywhere on the touchpad and moving them. Because everything runs in the Chrome OS browser, it’s worth noting that clicking a link opens it in a new tab, although you can open new browser windows too.

The Chromebook has two USB ports, an SD card reader and a single 3.5mm combined microphone and headphone port. You can use normal headphones in this, but if you want to connect a headset, you’ll have to use one with a three-ring connector rather than two 3.5mm ones. The integrated speakers aren’t very loud, but their audio quality is better than most netbooks’, producing a decent mid-range and less tinniness on high frequencies than we expected. The laptop has a dual-band Wi-Fi adaptor that can connect to either 2.4GHz or 5GHz wireless networks, a Gigabit Ethernet port and a slot at the rear to take a mobile SIM.

The laptop has a DisplayPort output, which means you can connect it to an external monitor. Currently, you can only mirror the display, which is handy for presentations or viewing media on a large screen, but it means that dual-display setups aren’t an option. The 12.1in integrated screen is fantastic. It has a resolution of 1,280×800 and a non-reflective finish that lets work in bright light. It also renders skin tones and bright colours in a remarkably accurate and natural way.

We can’t run our usual benchmarks within Chrome OS, but we ran the JavaScript-based SunSpider online benchmark, which completed in 770.6ms. By way of comparison, our 3.1GHz Phenom II X2 550 finished in 297ms and a 3GHz Core i3-540 did the job in 228ms. For a battery test, we ran a loop of MP3 audio files, which kept going for over nine hours – a performance that’s in keeping with its predecessor.

The latest Chromebook is extremely well made, and Chrome OS 20 fixes many of the greatest problems that users had with earlier versions’ cloud-only ethos. It’s still a cloud-computing client, but it no longer turns into a paperweight as soon as you go offline. It’s also much faster and more responsive than your average netbook. Unfortunately, its £361 price means it’s also more expensive than most netbooks, but is a bit cheaper than an entry-level iPad. However, its speed and simplicity are major points in its favour. There’s very little you can do to break, slow down or otherwise affect the Chromebook, which makes it a great buy if you live and work online.