Skip to main content

Google polishes Chrome OS for the holidays, Samsung and Acer drop Chromebook prices

Google polishes Chrome OS for the holidays, Samsung and Acer drop Chromebook prices

/

Samsung drops the price of its Series 5 Chromebook to $350 and adds a shiny black option.

Share this story

Samsung Series 5 Chromebook
Samsung Series 5 Chromebook

Let's be honest, you don't hear much about Chromebooks being on must-have holiday gift lists or, for that matter, much about them at all lately. However, in an attempt to make Chrome OS laptops more "giftable" this holiday season, Google's made some minor tweaks to the operating system, including a restyled login screen and Tab page (much like the new Chrome browser version). But that's not all: it's also slashing prices. Samsung's added a new "Piano Black" Series 5 Chromebook and dropped the price of that one to $350 (down from $430). Oddly, the silver and white versions are still $430 on Amazon, even though the Piano Black version has the same specs, including an Intel Atom dual-core N570 processor, 12.1-inch display, and 16GB of solid-state storage. Acer's also cut its similarly spec'd AC700 down to $300. It's some progress, but, frankly, those price drops still aren't really enough to push the Chromebooks ahead of the other $250 netbooks on the market, which are all capable of running a Chrome browser. But, hey, Google did put out a cute new video — check it out below.