Samsung Chromebox Series 3 Mini PC could use a diet (video hands on)

The Chromebox Series 3 Mini Pc is basically a nettop running on Chrome OS and we caught it at of Samsung’s booths at CES just a short time ago. Nettops are usually entertainment mini computers, the size of a book, which can be mounted on TVs and can work with HD video, streaming content, light browsing and similar types of tasks.

So what can a nettop with Chrome OS do, considering that this operating system is more appropriate (at least on paper) for laptops, being hailed (on and off) by people that are passionate about open source culture and computer technology?

Well, apparently Samsung found an angle to make this concept turn tricks at the corner shop and my guess it works better as an office computer. The Chromebox is quite big, and if normal nettops are the size of a novel, the Chromebox is the size of the little table you hold it on. It’s pretty challenging to operate with one hand, to be honest, and by the looks of it, you could easily fit in it a huge and rather cheap HDD.

Instead, the Chromebox comes with SSD storage, as you don’t quite need the extra storage, because most of your data can be stored online, using Google’s cloud service. The device will be powered by a Celeron dual core processor, and for now we don’t know if it’s going to be more like an Atom chip or will have something of the bells and whistles of Cedar Trail.

The bulky Chromebox should be a good solution for cloud based tasks, even at the office

Also, you’ll have 2 GB of RAM, so the browser looking OS should run just fine. Unlike nettops, the Chromebox might be a good productivity tool, especially if you work with data that has to be moved around a network. Using Chrome’s cloud services, you could simplify the work of your colleagues by accessing and organizing it via Chrome OS, especially considering that Google claims that the security of the OS is quite solid.

In terms of ports, the Chromebox comes with a couple of USB ports (they might 2.0 or 3.0, as the color differentiator was ignored, considering this is a reference model) and 3 HDMI ports, something quite odd, but which could be quite useful, if you have a multi display setup at work or at home and want to separate tasks (browser tabs) on each one.

Well, that was kind of it for now; hopefully Samsung will properly launch the product and will show us just what this chubby piece of technology can actually do. Stay tuned.

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Tags: Chrome OS, nettop, Samsung

Last updated: January 13, 2012 | Published: January 13th, 2012 | Add the first comment!