Samsung Chromebook Series 5 XE500C21 reviews: 12.1" Laptop computer

Photo of Samsung Chromebook Series 5 XE500C21 Laptop

Samsung Chromebook Series 5 XE500C21 reviews: 12.1" Laptop computer reviews

+ This laptop scores very high on battery life. - It has no outstanding negative points.

£300 at 1 retailer out of 408 retailers checked

8.1 out of 10 based on 57 reviews.

Samsung Chromebook Series 5 XE500C21 with Intel Atom N570 1.66 GHz 2 Core Processor, 2GB of Memory and 16GB Storage on Chrome OS. 8.5 hours of battery See full product description

Battery life	8.5
Design	8.3
Size and weight	8.6
Performance	8.0
Value for money	7.6
Overall rating	8.1

Some customer reviews of Samsung Chromebook Series 5 XE500C21

Most helpful reviews

Jeffrey, swansea General home user

Score 8.0/10

Good points:: quick start up
Bad points:: Reviewer left no comment

Battery life	7.0
Design	8.0
Size and weight	10.0
Performance	9.0
Value for money	8.0
Overall rating	8.0

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Confirmed purchase: 31 Jan 2013

Samantha, Braunton General home user

Score 7.0/10

Good points:: Great if you just want to use the internet. Good battery life, and looks nice. Quick to get online.
Bad points:: You cannot download anything onto this computer, everything has to be done via google. You can do documents on there via google but you cannot download itunes onto it or any other programme. Suppose its great if you want a computer that will not get clogged up with stuff. We haven't managed to be able to put our photos on unless we go via a website. My daughter has struggled to get games on there she regularly plays. And the app store doesn't always lead you to right thing. Took a while to get used to but slowly getting there. I wish I has spent my £300.00 on a better laptop with all things we needed, I feel that it is not very good value for money, and think it is very similar to just having a tablet with limited abilities. I didn't realise it was only really use for online,No good if your daughter needs to download her homework! Don't buy if you have limited internet access otherwise your stuck! Ah well, we brought it but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Buy a proper laptop!

Battery life	10.0
Design	10.0
Size and weight	10.0
Performance	7.0
Value for money	6.0
Overall rating	7.0

Was this review helpful? 12 of 18 people found this review helpful

Confirmed purchase: 28 Aug 2012

Alan, aberdeen Music, gaming or video fan

Score 4.0/10

Good points:: design , size ,
Bad points:: a google chromebook that won,t support google earth i tunes and numerous other applications wish i had bought a windows based product!!!!!!!!!

Battery life	7.0
Design	10.0
Size and weight	10.0
Performance	3.0
Value for money	4.0
Overall rating	4.0

Was this review helpful? 0 of 1 people found this review helpful

Confirmed purchase: 25 Dec 2012

tracey, langar Business user

Score 5.0/10

Good points:: size and fast switch on
Bad points:: spreadsheets are awful cant use them they don't scroll properly they don't copy and paste easily we only use spreadsheets and the internet it is good for the internet tho.

Battery life	8.0
Design	10.0
Size and weight	10.0
Performance	1.0
Value for money	3.0
Overall rating	5.0

Was this review helpful? 3 of 7 people found this review helpful

Confirmed purchase: 23 Sep 2012

Howard, Stroud Business user

Score 8.0/10

Good points:: Size
Instant On
Chrome Operating System
Battery life
Bad points:: Reviewer left no comment

Battery life	8.0
Design	8.0
Size and weight	8.0
Performance	9.0
Value for money	6.0
Overall rating	8.0

Was this review helpful? 3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Confirmed purchase: 21 Sep 2012

Venky, Slough General home user

Score 4.0/10

Good points:: Long battery life
Keyboard (Compared to touch tablets, which are much better at browsing internet though)
Hardware is good, software completely lets it DOWN, even with the latest update in Nov 2012.
Bad points:: You cant use it for much, so you will have a lot of battery life to use it for!
Absolutely useless for anything other than web browsing, which is much better done on touch tablets that are quite cheap these days!
Software is absolutely appalling, its as though as bunch of idle unpaid programmers at Google might have built it and are now user testing on actual customers like me!
I know the concept & limitations of chromebooks! but believe me, its still a very raw product!

Battery life	7.0
Design	7.0
Size and weight	6.0
Performance	2.0
Value for money	2.0
Overall rating	4.0

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Confirmed purchase: 19 Oct 2012

Anthony, Guildford General home user

Score 10.0/10

Good points:: Well all points are good! I have used my Toshiba Satellite PRO pretty much solely online so getting rid of Windows, Mcafee and all the interminable updates and essential weekly checks on security and defragging - as well as the 15 minutes average logon time is just heaven. I can see no drawbacks, The Scratchpad provides the basic word processing i need. It is even good compared to the new Series 3. All ARM chips do is eliminate the fan - which is very quiet on the Series 5 and the small heat output allows it to be used as a proper laptop. Why doesn't everyone have one - I'll be out buying Samsung and Google shares straight away.
Bad points:: None I can find - the worst things were the professional reviews I read before purchase. They were absolute rubbish - this machine is the future!

Battery life	10.0
Design	10.0
Size and weight	10.0
Performance	10.0
Value for money	10.0
Overall rating	10.0

Was this review helpful? 5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Confirmed purchase: 18 Oct 2012

Read all 57 customer reviews

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Product Features

Screen size (Inches)	12.1
Screen size is measured diagonally from corner to corner.
Operating system	Chrome OS
Software on which the device runs
RAM (Gigabytes)	2

Number of cores	2
Computer processors are made up of 1 or more cores. Having multiple cores allows the computer to run two or more processes at once, improving multi-tasking and speeding things up.
Hard disk capacity (Gigabytes)	16
Hard Disk capacity is measured in GBs which stands for Gigabytes. A gigabyte is 1000 MB or megabytes. The more GB you have the more info like photos and music you can store.
Screen Resolution (pixels)	1280 x 720 (WXGA)
The number of pixels the screen has. The more you have, the more detail the screen can display, given a high quality source. A breakdown of resolutions can be found on Wikipedia here
Processor brand	Intel
There are 2 main manufacturers of computer processors. They are Intel and AMD.
Processor series	Atom
This is the processor model range. Different types of processor have different types of functionality. For example Centrino processors are specifically designed to increase battery life in laptops.
Processor number	N570
This is the specific processor number in the processor range.
Processor speed (Gigahertz)	1.66
The processor is the driving force of your personal computer. The higher the number in Gigahertz or Ghz the faster your computer will run. Don’t forget that other factors such as the number of cores will have an effect on speed.
Number of USB ports	2

Connections	Wireless

Battery life (Hours)	8.5
Battery life is important if you travel a lot. Long train journeys can be a pain if you don’t get more than 3 hours of life out of your laptop. It’s worth remembering that a lot of trains offer power sockets now so don’t be put off by a low battery life unless your lifestyle demands ultra portability.
Weight (kg)	1.5

Graphics card brand	Intel
Graphics cards in desktop computers and graphics chips in laptops are manufactured by 3 main companies: Intel, ATI and nVidia. If you want to play modern games aim for an ATI or nVidia card or chip. Intel cards and chips work perfectly for general laptop use, video playback and older computer games.
Graphics card model number	NM10
This is the range and model number of the graphics card or chip in your desktop or laptop computer.
Type of hard drive	Flash Hard Drive

Chipset brand	Intel
Chipset series	HM65
Remote control	No
Aspect ratio	16:10
Depth in cm	21.67

Release date	2012-06-12
The date the product was originally made available for purchase.

Also known as: Samsung Chromebook XE500C21

Laptop Buyers Guide

Manufacturer's Description

Experience Google Chrome on a machine built for the internet. Surf the web, create documents, and stream music and video – everything – with the Series 5.