Unboxing the new Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus [VIDEO]

The new Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus is in the house and we are so excited to dive into the box to give you all a much deeper hands-on, initial look at this incredible Chromebook. Our time in New York was quite limited with it, but now that we have a review unit around, you can bet I’ll be spending a ton of time working from it for the next few weeks.

And, as you all know, that all starts with an unboxing. Again, we saw this device at Google’s fall Chromebook Showcase, but those initial thoughts and feelings were completely surface level. We only had a handful of minutes to really use this Chromebook, so the unboxing is a time to test a few of those initial impressions a bit more.

The build quality is superb

As this was the main goal of the Galaxy Chromebook Plus, let me just reiterate how wonderful this Chromebook feels to hold, open, and handle. At a wafer-thin 11.8mm and weighing in at just 2.58 pounds, this 15.6-inch Chromebook feels anything but.

The Neptune Blue lid changes through all sorts of colors, looks amazing, and only complements the unreal thinness of this Chromebook. Cracking it open with a one-finger lift feels like it defies the laws of physics and just as I was in New York, I’m blown away by the build quality, thinness, lightness, and overall feel of the Galaxy Chromebook Plus.

The screen is better than I remember

Under that lid, you get a 15.6-inch 16:9 FHD AMOLED screen that looks as good as you’d expect it to. While not touch-enabled, this 400-nit panel is a real treat for the eyes and the 15.6-inch size means you have plenty of room to stretch out a bit. I’ve already found that watching content or just standard web browsing feels a bit better than normal with the AMOLED’s inky blacks and insane contrast ratios. The thin bezels help, too.

The keyboard and trackpad are fantastic

Under that dazzling screen is a fantastic, clicky, backlit keyboard that I expect will end up being fantastic to type on. The keys feel well-seated, the backlighting doesn’t bleed all over the place, and the sound/feel of the keys is great. I need more time to actually work on this keyboard, but it feels really good so far.

The layout will take some getting used to, though. I’ve talked about this already, but the Galaxy Chromebook Plus comes with some substantial changes to the standard Chromebook keyboard layout that I’m just not used to yet. The biggest change is with the Quick Insert key taking the place of the launcher key, and it’ll be a tough change. We’ll cover more of this in the full review.

The massive glass trackpad underneath that keyboard is awesome, delivering a satisfying click, an ultra-smooth surface, and no reason for complaints from me at first blush. It’s not a haptic trackpad, but keeping this device under $700 wasn’t easy, and as long as the trackpad feels this good, I don’t really care if it physically moves or not.

The speakers and camera are fine

Not everything is amazing, however, as both the speakers and webcam seem just average. The speakers have a nice tone to them, but they aren’t very loud. And the webcam is 1080p, but initial images and video don’t impress too much. Again, at $699, you simply can’t nail every part of the formula, and Samsung seemingly couldn’t find it in the budget to go all-out on the speakers and camera, here.

The internals are fast and the battery looks to be legit

Finally, a quick word on the internals. The 14th-gen Intel Core 3-100U processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage feel like they will be more than plenty for the average Chromebook user. I need to really work from this device for a bit to know, but my initial impressions as of the time of this unboxing tell me that most people won’t have any issues with this setup. Early setup processes and some quick maneuvers around the OS were swift and felt quite fast.

And as I was getting the video recorded, a few glances down at the battery routinely reported 12-13 hours left on a 95% charge. While that seems incredibly good, I’ll need to really be using the Galaxy Chromebook Plus a bit more to get truly accurate battery numbers. All told, however, it doesn’t seem that we’ll have the same issues Samsung did with the original Galaxy Chromebook back in 2020.

For now, that’s all I have to share. Our review is in the works, but we only got this device in-hand a few days ago. It’s one that is 100% worth the time and effort to really test things out. Primarily, I want to know that the battery holds up, that we don’t have a bunch of overheating, and that the experience using this new Samsung Chromebook is as good as the device looks. So far so good.