Fast, Small, And Complete? Samsung's $329 Chromebox

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[citation][nom]palladin9479[/nom]...If your talking video...[/citation]
As opposed to your non-talking video? I know there are silent movies, but silent video? If you're talking about video, there's almost always sound.
 
[citation][nom]boletus[/nom]How can this possibly compete with a $400 laptop.[/citation]
Quite Right ! I am so unimpressed. 😛
 
Why not buy a netbook for less than $300, with an attached screen, keyboard, and a battery to keep you entertained while unplugged?
 
Give me a real operating system and a real computer. Idont want to hear about all the extra functionality you can get by downloading additional apps.
 
The Chromebox is best understood as a computer for people who do not visit Tom's Hardware.

Clearly, the target audience is those who use a computer to exchange e-mails, browse to check the weather, shopping, and looking at photos on Facebook. Toss in maybe a Christmas letter to friends and family, and that's it.

For that sub-set of users, a computer that keeps itself up to date and backs up documents automatically is entirely satisfactory and a better fit than a more complex machine.
 
The bigger issue is Samsung's own lineup of smartphones. The Galaxy S2 and S3 smartphones with the HDMI adapter plugged into a large screen is like having a pseudo computer as well. I have the Galaxy S2 and I surf, watch videos, email, text, play 3D games, etc through my 50" 1080p display. To boot... it fits in my pocket, lasts 12-14 hrs a day, take 8 megapixel pictures, record 1080p videos, and wow I can make a phone call with it.

In the next 18-24 months netbooks, nettops, even laptops and tablets will be "novel" devices... smartphones with cradle/docks to work like computers will be the norm. Suddenly the Samsung Chromebox seems silly and expensive.
 
Chrome OS PCs feel very crippled to me. So I would want to pay less for them not the same as a full featured PC!

It bothers me a lot that one always needs the web (Yes offline apps are getting there) And that the Applications are not quite as powerful and full featured yet. And that google would have all my data forever.

If this had Ubuntu Linux on it, it would be really cool!

That being said it kinda looks like a mac mini but with Samsungs signature "Cheap Plastic". Interesting stuff wish it was $100-175 cheaper.
 
Good price if your running a small business and can't afford IT. Auto updates, no license fees, and central storage sound very appealing. If you look at that way, you get a lot for $350.

For individual home use, yeah, better alternatives out there at that price point. Would have to be in the low $200 price point to be worth it for home use. I'd really like it to run android apps as well.
 
[citation][nom]boletus[/nom]How can this possibly compete with a $400 laptop, which includes a screen, keyboard, at least a 320 GB hardrive, Windows, and sound? Yeah you have to get a word processor program etc, but there are free options for that. And you can use it on the bus, and hook up external displays, and read/burn DVD's,.... I've seen AMD A8 series laptops for $450, and they can even play real games. How is this worth its price? Am I missing something?[/citation]

Games aren't the intended use for this system. It's a nettop box that's meant to connect to HDTVs to give them internet capabilities. I like Google Chrome but I hate the idea of cloud storage - I'd rather have everything saved to an external HD.
 
Getting the chromebox or any computer with Chrome OS is like paying 500 bucks for a web browser, what's the point?! Why sacrifice functionality for a worthless gain in performance?
 
the cloud seems like nice way to milk money out of everyone and monopolize / blackmail users (you not part of the cloud, good bye; your app or whatever is not to clouds standards, good bye; you want piece of cake, good bye; you edited that document this long, here is the bill; you need to finish and submit that homework tonight, here is link to our credit department; you really want to talk to that person, how about doing that after watching 20min of commercials).
 
The article seems to imply this overpriced, underspecced piece of junk is a good deal? WHY? then to top it off you get privacy and security concerns, why would anyone purchase this when there are far better specced and featured devices for a similar price.
 
WOW, it looks exactly like the Mac Mini. I am sure if you look hard enough, you can still see the Apple logo underneath the new paint job.This is pathetic and shameless copying. I cannot wait until Apple wins big, and Samsung finally has to come up with its own ideas again, so we can get revolutionary devices like the F700, LOL!
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Yea, thats a terrific business model - purchase a fleet of Mac Mini's at ~$700/each and then resell them at half the price! Brilliant! Why didn't anyone think of doing that sooner? And by 'come up with its own ideas,' do you mean that Apple actually invented the rectangle with rounded corners? Or better yet, are you implying that Apple DID NOT steal the idea for the Mouse and GUI OS from PARC/Xerox? Or that Apple invented the actual shape that the Mac Mini embodies (which has changed over the years, btw)? Apple are the most shameless idea thieves in the history of business and have shown their true colors as greedy and petulant, whiny cry babies. And lets not forget that at least 25% of your little iphone is made from Samsung technology. So get off your high horse and read the facts, fanboy.
 
We are really approaching a point where there is so much overlap in box design/capabilities that it becomes a matter of "style" to pick which box you want to put where. I would love to see Tom's do a review where the different form factors of computers were applied to specific purposes, illustrating how one form factor contrasts with another for a specific use. For example, what do you use a netbook for that is better suited to it than a tablet or a nettop? After all, the use of a computer should be functional. As one client told me many years ago, "Visicalc on my Apple II does everything I need to do. Why should I switch to Lotus on a PC? (When he retired a few years later he was still using Visicalc on an Apple II.)

The platform, the electronics and the operating system, should be designed to do something specific. With the PC we have the most amazing adjustable monkey wrench one can think of. We can do lots of things from writing a note to non-linear video editing, but it isn't tailored to either. What is the chromebox tailored to do best and when do I choose a chromebook over a netbook? I love the concept of Asus' Padfone, but why put brains in the tablet portion at all? Why not a phone with a dumb tablet that only has ports, storage and battery? When we get to our desk we insert into its dock and it becomes our desktop PC. With i7s in ultrabooks, it's just a matter of months until that kind of power is in a phone.

I know that in any review it's important to find the little irritations, but mentioning the lack of USB 3.0 on this seems just a matter of form. What are you going to do with a Celeron that could take advantage of that kind of bandwidth?
 
Why the hell don't they use AMD's fusion APU's.... the integrated graphics in the celeron are known for crap colour reproduction!
 
I'm glad I came back to read this. I needed a good laugh. Quote "I take offense at this. "Cloud" storage of data is by definition less secure then local storage." First of all, you have to choose to be offended by anything or anyone. Next, if you thing your data is safer on your hard drive than in the cloud, tell me what kind of encryption your are running and where you received your training in making your home network inviolable. How many proxies are you bouncing through? It does not matter which browser you use, all of your browsing history is in the cloud. You see, that's where it comes from to land on your PC. If they couldn't put things on your PC, your screen would be blank, your browsing history would be empty and you would never have to clean out your cookies. On the other hand, breaking into your Google Drive is a lot easier on your PC than it is in the cloud. Those people actually have training on providing security. Then they have all kinds of liability if they leak your info.

It works like this. You type something. Press "send" and it goes down a wire (almost always in the clear unless you see the "s" at the end of the http). Anyone sharing that wire or fiber can see it. It gets to your ISP and they send it off to the web site you addressed IN THE CLEAR. ANYBODY CAN READ IT. The ISP can keep a copy of what you sent, the web site is certainly going to have a copy and everybody on the way back will have a copy. Then everything you see on your screen and a lot of stuff you don't see will be on your hard drive. It will stay there until you do something to make it go away.

The nice thing about a nettop box is that it doesn't expose everything on your network directly to the internet. Unless your router lets it into your box, it won't go there, it will go to the nettop. Just ask all the people that sent emails they shouldn't have and deleted them from their hard drive how secure it was. Do you have any idea how many copies of everything you send are out there?
 
Personally I settle to cheap second hand Core Duo/2 era laptops that in the end barely even cost me $100 total after parts/upgrades. Bought a Toshiba portege m400 for only $25 then threw in a $9 charger and pulled the battery from my m200 but wasn't long before I had win 7 running. Had to throw in a salvaged hard drive and upgraded the cpu on the side. Now would a crappy and underwhelming "Chrome book" give the same value at retail prices, anyone with at least three working brain cells would say no even with the cloud. A cheap core 2 era machine outperforms a amd c and e series apu anyway.
 
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