Galaxy Chromebook 2 gets a release date and pricing as pre-orders open

One of Samsung's first orders of business in the new year was to announce the Galaxy Chromebook 2, and now it seems that the company is just about ready for launch. Samsung has opened up pre-orders for the Galaxy Chromebook 2, revealing pricing information and a release date to boot. If you're looking for a less expensive alternative to the original Galaxy Chromebook that still falls in the premium Chromebook category, this could indeed be it.

Samsung today opened up pre-orders for the Galaxy Chromebook with a price tag that starts at $549. That's enough to get you an Intel Celeron 5205U CPU, 64GB of eMMC storage, and 4GB of RAM. Prospective buyers also have the option of stepping up to a more powerful model that uses an Intel Core i3-10110U and has 8GB of RAM with 128GB of storage for $699.

That's a fairly big jump in pricing but that 10th-gen Core i3 will be a fair amount more capable than the Celeron processor, giving the more expensive model a potentially longer life. Regardless of the model you choose, you'll be able to get the Galaxy Chromebook 2 in either a Mercury Gray or Fiesta Red color, which are the same colors the original Galaxy Chromebook is available in.

You'll also get a 13.3-inch touch display that outputs at 1920 x 1280 resolution. Since this is a Chromebook, it won't surprise anyone to learn that it relies on Intel UHD integrated graphics instead of any kind of discrete graphics card, and Samsung has quoted max battery life at 13 hours. Obviously, battery life ultimately depends on what you're doing with the Chromebook and what its settings are, but it's worth noting that Samsung has given the same 13 hour battery life for both models.

The Galaxy Chromebook 2 is up for pre-order today from a number of different retailers including Best Buy and Samsung's own store, and it'll be launching on March 1st.