Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Chromebook finally has an official release date. You’ll be able to buy it at Samsung and Best Buy next Monday, April 6th, starting at $999.
The device comes in Mercury Gray, or the bolder Fiesta Red that looks bright orange in some settings. It’s the first Chromebook to sport a 13.3-inch 4K OLED display. It also has a more powerful processor than most Chromebooks, an Intel 10th-generation chip. It includes 8GB of RAM (LPDDR3) and a 256GB SSD as well.
When we first saw the device back in January, Samsung indicated that there’d be additional configurations available, featuring up to 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD. The company seems to have killed those models, however; the base model is now the only variant available.
Samsung has made a few unique design choices: there’s a camera built into the keyboard deck to take photos when the device is in tablet mode, and there’s an included stylus that lives in a silo on the side.
There also aren’t many companies who have tried to sell Chromebooks at this price point. Only Google has attempted Chrome OS devices at the $999 mark, and both the 2017 Pixelbook and the 2018 Pixel Slate were seen as halo devices for Chrome OS. Neither product got a refresh at the same price; the Pixelbook Go, released last fall, starts at $649.
Samsung’s device will be a lot more expensive than excellent competitors like Asus’ $549 Chromebook Flip C434, not to mention a number of perfectly fine Windows ultrabooks. In the past, affordability has been one of the strongest arguments for buying a Chromebook. So while it’s certainly a picturesque device with high-end hardware inside, it’ll need to be an excellent machine to justify that price.