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Don't shoot – I'm un-ARM-ed! Samsung whips out Intel Chromebook 2

Celeron added to line-up .... but it's not the top of the line

Score another point for Chipzilla in its quest for relevance in the mobile market: Samsung has announced a new, low-cost Chromebook that's powered by an Intel processor.

Not that Intel-powered Chromebooks are anything new, really. The very first batch were all based on Atom chips, and in July, Acer even went as far as to release a model sporting a dual-core Core i3.

But lately, vendors such as HP and Samsung have strayed from the fold and shipped Chromebooks based on the ARM processor architecture. That has to be plenty worrying for Intel, especially considering Samsung manufactures its own ARM system-on-chips (SoCs), the Exynos line.

Now comes Samsung's latest entry in its Chromebook 2 range, and lo and behold, the Korean chaebol has switched back to Intel. Specifically, the Chromebook 2 model XE500C12-K01US runs on a dual-core Intel Celeron N2840 clocked at 2.16GHz, burstable up to 2.58GHz.

Without benchmarks on hand, it's hard to gauge how the new machine's real-world performance will stack up to Samsung's earlier Chromebook 2 models. Still, our hunch says Samsung is positioning the Intel version as a lower-end device.

Samsung Chromebook 2 with Intel processor

Samsung's Intel Chromebook can't match its Exynos models on performance, but it's got them beat on price

The powerhouse of the line is the Chromebook 2 XE503C32-K01US. It's based on the Samsung Exynos 5 Octa 5800, a 28-nanometer process SoC that combines a 2.0GHz quad-core Cortex A15 ARM CPU with a 1.3GHz quad-core Cortex A7, for a total of eight cores.

The Celeron N2840, by comparison, is a dual-core 22-nanometer CPU that doesn't do Hyper-Threading, meaning it's limited to two processing threads. The Exynos' integrated ARM Mali-T628 MP6 GPU should deliver better graphics performance than the Celeron's Intel HD graphics, too.

Another telling sign is that Samsung's new Intel Chromebook comes with 2GB of RAM, which is half the memory of either of the octa-core ARM-based models in Sammy's current line-up.

On the plus side, the Intel chip's 22-nanometer process seems to offer significantly better power performance than either of Samsung's ARM SoCs, delivering an hour longer battery life with the same-sized battery.

Samsung's Intel Chromebook is also cheap. While the high-end XE503C32-K01US retails for $400 and the less-lavish XE503C12-K02US goes for $320 (currently discounted to $300), Samsung started accepting preorders for the Intel-powered XE500C12-K01US on Friday for $250.

Note the "US" in all of those part numbers, though. There's no telling when or if these devices will make it to other markets, but we already know Europe will be left in the cold.

Also, we couldn't help but notice what's helping keep the prices of Samsung's new Chromebooks down. Unlike earlier iterations, the current models all ship with a "convenient software value pack" that includes trial subscriptions to AirDroid Premium, Wunderlist Pro, and Little Bridge. You've gotta hand it to Samsung for figuring out how to bundle bloatware with a browser-based laptop that you can't even install software on. ®

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