Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus, now available at Best Buy with a $50 perk

This morning, Samsung made the Galaxy Chromebook Plus available on their site for what ended up being a surprisingly-fast delivery window. You can order your shiny, new Galaxy Chromebook Plus today and expect it early next week. At least for now, that is.

Hot on the heels of that release, Best Buy has jumped on board as well, and the listing for the Galaxy Chromebook Plus is now live over there as well. Since this is a single-spec release, it’s the exact same Chromebook you can get from Samsung, but you’d be buying it from Best Buy instead.

Pros and Cons of where you buy it

If you aren’t yet sold on the Galaxy Chromebook Plus, check out the video up there to learn a bit more about it. I’m guessing that if you are here, you’re already interested, though. However, you may be wondering why you’d buy this new device at one location over the other. There are some (likely short-term) pros and cons of buying from Best Buy versus Samsung, so let’s go over those.

On the Pro side of things, buying from Best Buy currently gets you a $50 gift card you can use for future purchases. So if you need a bag, a dock, a mouse, or something to go with your new Galaxy Chromebook Plus, getting it at Best Buy might make a lot of sense.

Second, I know a lot of you are simply more comfortable buying devices from a physical location that you can walk into if a problem with order fulfillment or returns arise. I don’t blame you; just know we likely won’t see this device in-store and on a table for at least another week or so. At this point, you are still ordering it sight-unseen regardless of who you buy it from.

On the cons side, you don’t get offered the 1st-party Samsung device protection if you order from Best Buy. You may not want drop/spill protection at all, so this might not be an issue for you. But if you do, Samsung offers two years of coverage for $99, and that’s only an option if you buy from them.

Second, Samsung’s return window is 30 days (15 days to initiate the return, then 15 days to ship it back) versus Best Buy’s more-standard 14 days. That’s not a huge deal, but it’s definitely something to keep in mind.

Finally, Samsung does offer trade-in values for all sorts of things and currently Best Buy does not; so if you have an old phone or tablet lying around, you could perhaps get the price down a bit if you order direct from Samsung. I don’t know many people trading their main phone for a Chromebook, but if you have an older device you don’t use, this could be a nice perk and reason to go get your Chromebook Plus via Samsung’s site.

Both places look to be getting units out to prospective buyers by October 8th-10th, so you won’t be too far ahead or behind by going with either. And honestly, the pros/cons aren’t that huge of a deal at the end of the day. I lean towards buying direct from a manufacturer when I can, but that’s just me. The good news is you now have some options, but we have no idea what inventory looks like or how fast they’ll go, so you might not want to mull on the decision too long.