Samsung is primed for the biggest comeback in Chromebook history next week

You read that right folks! We’re just a week away from the next Chromebook showcase, and we have high confidence based on all the things we’ve found surrounding ‘Xol’ – lovingly referred to by us as the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus – that we’ll see this new, high-end Chromebook model at the event.

We’ve rehashed it in so many posts, but I’ll briefly run down the gist of ‘Xol’ for you before diving in to the main portion of this post. We’re expecting a 15-16-inch Chromebook with a dedicated Assistant key, dictation key, numeric keypad, OLED screen, and what we truly hope is top-notch Samsung build quality. It is a clamshell device, so for those hoping for a successor to the Galaxy Chromebook or Galaxy Chromebook 2, you may have to wait on that.

Instead, ‘Xol’ will likely compete more directly with the Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE as a large, clamshell device that means business. With an 8GB and 16GB of RAM model confirmed alongside either the Core 5 120U or Core 3 100U processor from Intel, both of these configurations should be very, very fast and paired up with a larger OLED screen (hopefully with 120Hz refresh rates – fingers crossed, there), I’m getting pretty excited for what this Chromebook may turn out to be.

A significant return to form

I’ve already written a bit about my excitement for this Chromebook, however, so that’s not what we’re here to talk about. Instead, I wanted to shine a light on the path Samsung has cut in the Chromebook space and point out the fact that this Chromebook announcement is poised to be one of the biggest comeback stories in the ChromeOS space since the beginning.

We can trace Samsung’s participation in the Chromebook game all the way back to the beginning. There was the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook that was nicer than the few other options available in the first couple years of ChromeOS’ existence, but it was really the Series 3 that started the real Samsung Chromebook story.

That device was flimsy, but unique-looking. Putting hands on one today is nearly laughable and it almost feels like a toy – but it was wildly-affordable and the first Chromebook that had commercials and was widely available for normal consumers to buy. Oh, and it was was my first Chromebook, too.

A couple years later, after the release of the weird Samsung Chromebook 2 with an NVIDIA Tegra chip inside (swing and a miss, there), Samsung made a big splash at CES 2017 with the Chromebook Plus and Chromebook Pro. It was early days for us here at Chrome Unboxed, and those Chromebooks define a lot of our early content and some of my earliest memories of going to a tech trade show.

While far from perfect, the Samsung Chromebook Plus and Pro did things for the Chromebook ecosystem that are still felt today. They were the first to include pens in the chassis and the first to arrive on the scene with 3:2 QHD screens that were vibrant, colorful and bright. They were also crazy-thin and looked really nice on a desk or folded up into tablet mode.

Sure, there were performance issues with the Rockchip SoC in the Plus model and the Skylake 6th-gen Intel processor in the Pro, but these two Chromebooks really did stand out as unique, thoughtful, and modern laptops in a space that was still largely populated with Chromebooks that looked like Windows laptop afterthoughts.

The Galaxy Chromebook era

Then came CES 2020 and the introduction of the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook. Seeing it in person was one of those moments I’ll never forget and feeling the jubilation of having a Chromebook with Samsung’s coveted Galaxy branding was simply palpable. That device was the talk of the show that year, and for good reason.

The Galaxy Chromebook was/is gorgeous. Thin. Red. Unique. With it’s ridiculous 4K OLED screen, screaming red color, insane thinness, beautiful build, included pen, top-notch internals, convertible form factor, and general badass looks, the Galaxy Chromebook was an absolute moment in the Chromebook story. It was quite literally jaw-dropping.

But it was also expensive. At $999, it was one of those devices that most people would never consider buying – especially in 2020. Even as the pandemic raged later in the year, the focus was on affordable Chromebooks that people could get fast, cheap, and use to help deal with learning from home in the middle of one of the craziest times we’ll all never forget.

And in the middle of all of that, overheating and battery issues continued to plague Samsung’s beautiful machine, and the Galaxy Chromebook never quite got the chance to truly live up to its potential. And that energy was carried on to the Galaxy Chromebook 2 that wasn’t a sequel in any real way, dumbed down the whole experience, but most importantly, got the price tag down.

A downward spiral

And that was the beginning of the continuing downward move for Samsung Chromebooks. I wasn’t really sold on the Galaxy Chromebook 2, but the releases after it were super-strange. There was the Galaxy Chromebook Go that was bigger and heavier than the Galaxy Chromebook 2, but built from cheap parts and with a super-sluggish processor.

And that was followed by the Galaxy Chromebook 2 360, a device that makes no sense in any way, shape or form. Again, it was built to be cheap and its name infers a convertible Chromebook – which the Galaxy Chromebook 2 already was. We had all of these devices in the office at one time or another, and I can tell you without doubt they are some of the least considered, poorest performing Chromebooks Samsung has ever made. It really did feel like they were just prepping to exit the space entirely.

A chance at redemption

And that brings us to today, one week before we expect to see the new Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus at Google’s event (I’m going to be super-sad if that doesn’t end up being the name). With what Samsung has done in the Chromebook arena since 2020, it would be fair to expect very little.

But with what we know of ‘Xol’ up to this point, I feel like they are ready to take another swing at making a stellar Chromebook again. If we take all the fun stuff we know we’ll see and add in a dash of what Samsung’s been up to in the Windows laptop space over the past few years, I think we can draw a line to what we can expect in the new Galaxy Chromebook Plus next week.

And if we’re correct, this could be the biggest comeback in Chromebook history. We’ve seriously never seen a manufacturer go from such high levels of innovation and creativity to such a low spot of cost-cutting and poor design. We all know Samsung is more than capable of building insanely-great hardware; now its time to see if they’ll use that know-how to make a fantastic Chromebook once again.

If they do, it’ll be quite the reversal. I honestly can’t imagine a company like Acer going from devices like the Spin 714 or 516 GE to only making sub-par, entry-level Chromebooks and nothing else. Can you? But that is precisely what Samsung has done in their Chromebook lineup since 2020, and this new device could chart a whole new course for this division moving forward.

‘Xol’ doesn’t have to be the best Chromebook ever made for us to witness this, either. It simply needs to be good. While we know a lot about it already, there’s no way for me to guarantee its quality at this point. But I have a good feeling on this one, and I really do think we’ll walk away from next week’s event very impressed by what Samsung shows up with. And I know I won’t be the only one glad to have Samsung legitimately back in the Chromebook game again.