You can get the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook for half off right now

It’s been over three and a half years since the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook arrived at CES 2020. With its gorgeous, slim, eye-catching design, first-ever 4K OLED display (on a Chromebook), and fiery red paint job, it was hard not to be a bit head-over-heels when we first saw it in real life. However, the honeymoon phase was short-lived, and issues like a wildly-disappointing battery made it difficult to justify the Chromebook’s original $999 price tag.

Fast forward to today, however, and the story is quite a bit different. Right now, you can grab this still-amazing Chromebook for just $499; half off the original $999 MSRP. This massive price cut makes the Galaxy Chromebook a compelling option once again for a lot of potential buyers. I’d wager for all the Galaxy Chromebook gets right, you could overlook the battery issues for $499, but some of the latest changes to Chrome and ChromeOS may make that less of an issue, too.

ChromeOS Battery Saver

Soon, Chromebooks will have the ChromeOS Battery Saver feature. For now, you have the Chrome browser’s Energy Saver already available, and the ChromeOS Battery Saver option is right around the corner. In ChromeOS 116, you can flip the flag found here – chrome://flags/#cros-battery-saver – and manually turn it on when you want to enable it. When it officially arrives, it will hopefully happen automatically when you come off the charger.

While the Chrome Energy Saver limits background operations and unnecessary visuals, the ChromeOS Battery Saver will work at a deeper lever, throttling the CPU and extending your device’s overall battery life when unplugged. To clarify, once the ChromeOS Battery Saver option arrives, it will replace the Chrome-specific Energy Saver option and there will be only one you’ll need to turn on/off. Obviously, you’ll have the option to deactivate both of these features if you want, but they should help to really extend battery life on your device when away from a charger.

Worth the risk now

With the Galaxy Chromebook’s Auto Update Expiry (AUE) extending until June 2028, you have software updates for another five years at least. With Lacros clearly slated to be in place far before that time, there’s a good chance your Chrome browser (the main source of security issues on a Chromebook) will be able to take updates far past that original AUE timeframe. At $499, I think it is worth the risk to get one of the most iconic, beautiful, and well-made Chromebooks with these new battery saving options. How they’ll actually impact your longevity is still unknown (we’re working on some tests), but I think now is the time to consider the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook more so than ever before.