The Toshiba Chromebook 13 brings the Chromebook experience to a larger 13.3-inch screen with a Haswell processor and 9-hours of battery life at a $279 price.
This is not the first Chromebook on the market, but this is the first with a 13.3-inch screen and it looks and feels like a more expensive notebook. Chromebooks are still catching on, and this device will help lead the way as an affordable and capable computer that is widely available.
Shoppers will find a slim silver body that weighs in at 3.3 pounds, which isn’t as light as a MacBook Air, but is still respectable for this price. The notebook includes a 13.3-inch display with a 1366 x 768 resolution which is par for the course for sub-$500 notebooks.
While users do not gain access to Windows apps, the Chromebook ships with the ChromeOS which is regularly improving and offers access to a growing number of apps and services which meet the needs of students and home users.
Toshiba includes a front facing webcam for Google Hangouts and users have access to the Chrome optimized keyboard as well as a large touchpad.
The Toshiba Chromebook measures 0.8-inch thick with a textured finish that looks like a modern notebook. Users will carry a notebook with a Haswell Intel Celeron processor, 2GB RAM and a 16GB SSD. A 16GB SSD is small, but users also get 100GB of Google Drive storage which can store photos, videos and documents.
For ports and connectivity the Toshiba Chromebook 13 includes a HDMI port, two-USB 3.0 ports security lock and memory card reader as well as Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi.
The Toshiba Chromebook 13 release date is set for February 26 in the U.S. with availability at major retailers and from Toshiba.