Why You Can Trust CNET Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 360 a Low-Cost 2-in-1 Chromebook for Students
Starting at $430, the Chromebook 2 360 looks like an update to one of Samsung's best Chromebooks.
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Samsung announced the US availability of the Galaxy Chromebook 2 360 on Friday. First announced at the end of March in the UK, the two-in-one is a successor of sorts to one of the company's best Chromebooks, the Chromebook Plus V2 (it's actually still available, despite being released in 2018).
The Galaxy Chromebook 2 360 was designed with students in mind, Samsung said in its announcement. The two-in-one starts at $430, or £419 in the UK. (Pricing for Australia wasn't announced, but the UK price converts to AU$740.) The Chromebook features a 12.4-inch, 2,560x1,600-pixel, LED touchscreen with a brightness of 350 nits. Its 16:10 aspect ratio gives you more vertical room to work compared with the 16:9 11.6-inch Chromebooks typically used in schools. A 720p webcam is built in above the display as well.
Inside is a lower-end Intel Celeron N4500 processor and configurations will have 4GB of LPDDR4x and either 64GB or 128GB of eMMC memory for storage. Two USB-C ports and a USB 3.2 Type-A port, a combo 3.5mm headphone jack, a microSD card slot and Wi-Fi 6 round out the package.
The Galaxy Chromebook 2 360 is decidedly a step down from last year's Galaxy Chromebook 2, which is also a two-in-one. Nonetheless, it should be a good fit for classwork, especially with its taller display. While Chromebook sales were strong during the height of the pandemic, sales slowed in the first quarter of 2022. The Galaxy Chromebook 2 360's lower price and student-friendly design might help it stand out with back-to-school shoppers.