NewsUpcomingReviewsUnboxingTips & TricksAppsChromebooksChromecastGoogle AssistantAbout

Chrome Unboxed - The Latest Chrome OS News

A Space for All Things Chrome

‘Kevin’ Is The Samsung Chromebook Pro: Up For Pre-Order: UPDATED

By 51 Comments

by Robby Payne
Filed under:

pdp_feature_06_1280You read that right! The long talked-about Chromebook, known only as ‘Kevin’ up to this point, has broken through. Available for pre-order right now from Adorama and outfitted with a beautiful landing page that shows it off, the Samsung Chromebook Pro (remember that little survey?) looks to be all we’ve come to expect up to this point and more.




So, let us discuss how we got here. Last night, I received an email from a reader who, while looking through B&H’s Chromebook selection, came across a listing for the Samsung Chromebook Pro. He was quick enough to snag the model number (513C24I) and part number (XE513C24-K01US). Shortly after, the listing disappeared.

The reader then searched for the model and found a listing on allthingsmine.com, a site that is a social hub for sharing your stuff and your thoughts about all of it. That listing wasn’t really enough for us to make a story on, though.

The specs clearly line up with ‘Kevin’, but as this is user-submitted, we just couldn’t make the firm case.

I then reached out to a friend who keeps up with Chromebook news and let him know what we’d come across. It was then that he answered me with a link to Adorama selling what looks to be the same device. It is actually up for pre-order right now. You can check that out here.




Here’s Where It Gets Good

Shortly after, my contact sent me this link, showing off a beautiful landing page dedicated to the Samsung Chromebook Pro. (the site has been taken down for the time being. We’ll leave the link here.)

And it is beautiful. Simply beautiful. We’ve included a ton of the pics from the site in a gallery below.

According to the Adorama listing, the device will sell for $499, a price that seems very compelling for a device packing this much awesome. If you need a reminder of everything The Chromebook Pro will offer, read all this.

If the removed B&H listing is to be believed, the availability date is October 24th. Since that listing has been pulled, we have a hard time believing that date until we see something a bit more firm.

Either way, enjoy! For those of you who have been hunting the Samsung Chromebook Pro along with us, it’s been a fun ride. For those of you just discovering ‘Kevin’, this looks to be one of the best Chromebooks coming this fall.

We can’t wait!

Image Credit: Samsung

←  Older Comments
 →
  • Charlotte Cross

    Why did it have to be Samsung. Will keep this at arms length until performance / explosions and bloat are troubleshot. The real.selling point is the 3:2 screen. ASUS and friends need to wake up and stop doing 16:10 screens on flip devices. I would already be sold on the R11 is the screen ratio was proper for tablet.

    • Jez

      Waiting for reviews is always a good plan, but I don’t think you should be worried about them exploding!

    • I’ve got a Samsung book 9 (windows) and its amazing. Their notebooks are nothing like their phones. Their phone UI’s are indeed full of bloat and ugly skin UI. I look forward to this machine and will hold off buying one until it’s released. If I had to buy today it would be the Dell 13. But this machine may be the new champ. I like that it has touch and can be flipped like a yoga. I think with the unification of Android this is the smart way to go and should be future proofed for many years. The problem is with Android unification we will see a flood of new chromebooks coming out. This segment is about to really get very popular imo.

  • Joe Ellett

    I’m a bit confused. The SCP is supposed to have a Rockchip RK3399 SoC. The latest specs I’ve found on the RK3399 show max resolution of 1080 x 1920 video decoding and encoding but it is also listed with “Dual VOP: 4096×2160 AFBC and 2560×1600.

    Since the SCP has a display resolution greater than 2K (2400×1600), that pushes it into the “Dual VOP territory, but what exactly is Dual VOP and how does it work?

    Also of note, the RK3288 used in the Flip is 32-bit dual channel but the RK3399 is true 64-bit. With 4GB of memory on board that should mean the SCP gets the 64-bit version of Chrome OS. (For a Chrome OS device to get the 64-bit version it has to have both a 64-bit processor AND a minimum of 4GB memory.)

    Reference: http://www.rock-chips.com/a/cn/product/RK33xilie/2016/0419/759.html

  • This looks so amazing.
    Could they make a $699 version with 256GB, 16GB RAM ($599 for 126GB and 8GB RAM), full sized SD card slot (not MicroSD), backlit keyboard, matte (not glossy) with built-in 4G LTE sim card slot and A-GPS or GPS (as people here seem to be asking for).
    This time, I hope Samsung goes all in for marketing of this worldwide, not just focused in the USA, doing big promotion of it in Europe too. This seems to be the way for Samsung to seriously get back in the Laptop game. This Chromebook seems to have the potential to outsell Macbooks and high-end Windows10 convertibles also.
    Samsung and other brands should also hopefully aim at lower spec $299 versions (maybe even $199) of these RK3399 Chromebooks without wacom stylus, with a cheaper lower resolution non-touch matte display. Thin and light is great if they can keep 10+ hours battery life, keyboards and mousepads have to be of highest usability (good thing Google has strong demands on those).

    • I think chromebooks will start to see models with higher specs as the platform gets more popular. Like you, I’m waiting for more advanced models. However, some models like the Dell 13 which is a very well built device can be have it’s SSD upgraded to higher storage capacities by the user. So if you can’t wait, its not that hard to run a chrome book with a larger SSD.

      • Selden Deemer

        Local storage can be supplemented with a SDHC/Micro-SDHC card, whose contents are *not* encrypted, unlike everything in Downloads.

        Personally, I would go for a Chromebook with 8/32 over 4/64.

  • Ryan

    Dose that pen look like the s pen from the note 7. I think its a last second idea after the note 7 issue and they needed to do something with the s pen’s.

    • Robby Payne

      While it is a similar pen (possibly the same), Samsung has been testing it for months with this device: as our summer articles about ‘Kevin’ show. The choice to use this hardware is not a reaction to the Note 7 mess, but I’m sure it is a welcome way to offload at least a portion of their Note 7 S-Pen stock.

  • Jez

    I do like the look of this product. I was interested in buying a new tablet to replace an aging Nexus 7. I hadn’t really considered a Chromebook before but I this is a smart looking device with (hopefully) enough power to give a good performance. I haven’t had a Sammy since my netbook so will be watching this closely.

  • Nice specs sheet , but am just curious , what is the performance like? Can it still handle today’s task?

  • It is not a pro. The images are of a plus.

  • I have seen the plus. it is silver.i have seen the pro it is black

    • Gabriel Brangers

      Yes, we have reviewed them both. When the original images were leaked the silver one was listed as the Pro. Also, the original review units of the Pro were silver which can be seen in our review videos.

←  Older Comments
 →