Samsung Chromebook Plus vs. Pro: The differences, and which should you buy?

Samsung’s 2017 Chromebook lineup offers something for everyone with two equally great models.

Samsung introduced a pair of great Chromebooks with the unveiling of the Pro and the Plus. In addition of the Chrome OS features we’ve been using like built-in security and the best web browsing experience you can get anywhere, Samsung and Google have introduced pressure sensitive drawing using a familiar Samsung Pen. And everything is wrapped up in an awesome package no matter which model you choose.

Most of us won’t be buying both models, so the natural questions are what’s the difference between them and which one should I buy? We’re going to have a look and help you get the right answers.

Chromebook Plus at Amazon

Beautiful and light

That’s going to be your first thought no matter which model you are looking at. Both models are built the same using identical parts — on the outside.

The screen is the best we’ve seen on a Chromebook.

Checking in at just 0.5 inches thick and 2.38 pounds, these 12.3-inch laptops use the same Samsung design language as their high-end Windows counterparts. Built with a brushed magnesium-alloy body paired with a 2400 x 1600 LED display, both models are not only good looking, but sturdy and great for carrying all day long. We especially loved the bright and crisp display.

The keyboard and trackpad aren’t the best we’ve used but they’re not bad, either. The omission of backlighting was a bit disappointing, but in the end, we were more than satisfied with both keyboard and trackpad even if we couldn’t give either the level of praise we have for the screen or the materials used.

The screen rotates and flips to turn the Chromebook into a large tablet, and also allows for a “tent” or “easel” configuration to stand the screen without the keyboard area extending. This is a great way to watch a video or full-length film on the display.

The spotlight feature of both devices is Samsung’s S Pen. We’ll see stylus input in future Chromebooks, but Google partnering with Samsung to build the first models was the smart move. The Pen is the same S Pen you’ll find for Note phones and tablets, and Chrome has been tailored to make the stylus an excellent tool for annotating screenshots, taking notes and drawing. The Samsung Chromebook folded into a 12-inch tablet makes for a great canvas for any digital artist.

We give both models high marks on looks, durability, function, and ease of use. These are great laptops.

Where to buy the Samsung Chromebook Pro and Plus

What’s inside

Here is where you’ll find the differences between the Plus and the Pro. Both come with the same 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage configuration, but the processor arrangement and electronics for wireless radios define the price points.

With most things being equal between the two, the processor and extra horsepower that comes with the Pro is the only real hardware difference.

The Pro’s Intel CPU offers more power if you need more power. Most won’t.

On paper, it makes quite the difference. The Intel m3 in the Pro has the potential to render web pages twice as fast as the Plus’ ARM chip. You’ll find plenty of Octane browser benchmarks that show this in a convenient number. In real-world use, the Pro model will let you keep more browser tabs or apps running before things start to slow down. Benchmark differences in rendering web pages may be significant, but you have to factor in that the ARM CPU in the Plus model is plenty fast enough and you won’t see any actual difference when rendering a single web page or opening an app.

The Pro is clearly a more powerful machine on the hardware front, and we shouldn’t dismiss that. But the Plus offers a more than satisfactory experience for the majority of Chrome users.

Software differences

Both models have essentially the same software with Chrome OS being universal across most every Chromebook. The one difference may be a deciding factor — Android apps through the Google Play Store.

There will be Android apps that don’t perform as well on the Pro because of the CPU architecture.

The Play Store will be available for both models, and the majority of apps you can use on a Chromebook will work well on either. But the Intel processor that give the Pro an edge in hardware also holds it back a bit when it comes to app compatibility and user experience.

This is mostly a function of Android itself and not a fault of the hardware. A developer can build a universal application for Android that runs using the same instructions on most any processor architecture. That means an Android app is the same on any device. But certain apps that use specialized code will be less than ideal on the Intel chip. Most notable are graphic intensive apps and games, and while most will install they just don’t run as well. Great developers will step in and rectify this by supporting the Intel CPU better, but Google Play’s relaxed nature means developers aren’t forced to do so.

Which should I buy?

Sometimes this is a difficult question to answer, but this is not one of those times. Most people are better served with the Chromebook Plus.

Most buyers are better served with the Chromebook Plus.

A Chromebook is best as a secure and fast computer built to bridge the gap between your phone and a desktop PC. Mobile apps through Google play round out the software needs and for all but the most demanding users, the $100 difference between the two isn’t worth the upgrade. If you rely on Android applications, right now the faster Intel chip is actually a weakness compared to the tried and true ARM configuration in the Plus.

For the power user: web developers or those looking for an alternative OS for their Chromebook, the Pro was made for you. The extra oomph from the Intel m3 CPU will make a difference and the Chromebook Pro is an excellent machine for developing and testing web applications. The extra money is well spent and you’ll have a more pleasant experience when you’re in the zone with 25 tabs and a text editor open.

It’s great to see two simple and great choices from Samsung in the high end, and anyone’s needs are well covered.

Chromebook Plus at Amazon

Note: The Chromebook Pro has been delayed past its initial release date of the end of April. We will update this post when we have links to purchase the laptop.

Chromebooks

• The best Chromebooks
• Should you buy a Chromebook?
• Google Play is coming to Chromebooks
• Acer Chromebook 14 review
• Join our Chromebook forums

Video referees will be used at 2018 FIFA World Cup Finals

The 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia will be the first tournament to use video assistant referees, to make instant judgements on borderline calls.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has confirmed that video refs will be used at the event after receiving excellent reports on their use: “We will use video refereeing because we’ve had nothing but positive feedback so far,” he said.

The world football organisation, along with the International Football Association Board, started testing the assistance of technology in order to aid on-pitch decisions in a number of countries last year. Trials were carried out in leagues around the globe, including the US, Germany and Australia. Clearly those have proven to work.

It was also used during the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan at the end of 2016. Again, the tests appear to have been successful.

A video assistant referee (VAR) will be able to help with incidents involving goals, red cards, mistaken identities and penalties. All other decisions will still be solely judged by the on-field refereeing team without interference.

It should help avoid instances like Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal for England against Germany in the 2010 World Cup. The ball was clearly over the line by a considerable distance but none of the pitch officials saw it.

The English FA has also approved the use of video refs, hoping to introduce it to the game in this country as soon as August. It is thought that the English Football League Cup will be the first tournament to have video assistants, with the FA Cup to follow.

Nintendo’s hardware visionary is calling it a day

Alongside today’s impressive earnings report, Nintendo announced that long-serving employee Genyo Takeda is stepping down as company director this June. Holding the title of representative director and also sitting alongside Miyamoto as “Technology Fellow”, Takeda has played a key role in defining both Nintendo’s hardware and software.

During his 46 year career at the Japanese games giant, Takeda produced and directed Nintendo classics like Punch-Out!! and Pilotwings 64 as well as designing the N64’s analog stick. As any gamer will know, this had a huge impact on the industry, with analog sticks becoming most console’s default input method ever since. Takeda had a knack for defining modern control methods for gaming, also leading the charge on arguably Nintendo’s biggest success — 2006’s Wii console.

While Takeda didn’t seem to play as large a role in the development of Nintendo’s latest hardware, his influence on the Switch can still be felt. Close friends with Nintendo’s late president, Satoru Iwata, Takeda shared his colleague’s vision for a hybrid platform.

It’s not clear currently whether Takeda is retiring completely or merely stepping down as director and playing a small role at Nintendo. Filling his role will be Ko Shiota, head of Nintendo’s Platform Technology Development Division and hardware lead on Wii U. Regardless of what Takeda does next, there’s no doubt that his work contributed to making millions of childhoods a better place.

Source: Nintendo

Uber hopes to silence critics with more UK driver benefits

Uber has long argued that its drivers are independent contractors, not employees. While that distinction has been argued in the courts, the company has been upping driver perks to try to keep them on side and silence critics. Its latest effort in the UK is a partnership with the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed (IPSE). For £2 per week, Uber drivers can sign up for IPSE benefits which include sickness and injury cover up to £2,000, jury cover up to £2,000, access to financial advice and support, and occupational accident cover up to £300.

Uber says it’s making “a significant contribution” to the scheme, and that the benefits are worth £8 per week. IPSE offers two plans for regular members in the UK — a standard membership for £154.73 (plus VAT) per year, and a premium “Plus” version for £247.65 (plus VAT) per year. The one offered to Uber drivers is “entirely different,” however, and therefore “you can’t compare them,” a spokesperson for IPSE told Engadget. The scheme will, however, be offered “more widely later in the year,” which could indicate how much money Uber is putting towards the initiative.

The IPSE partnership follows a flurry of Uber driver perks announced back in February. These include FlexPlay, which gives drivers the option to bank their earnings “early” in the week, earning advice sessions and a 12-month premium subscription to language learning app Busuu.

These additions have been overshadowed, however, by a deluge of controversies at the company. These include a messy legal dispute with Alphabet’s Waymo division, a long list of executive departures, the revelations around “Hell,” a program designed to track drivers who also work for Lyft, a crash involving one of its self-driving cars, a “Greyball” initiative designed to mislead law enforcement agencies — the list goes on and on. Luckily we’ve put together a timeline so you can keep track of it all.

Why Amazon wants to replace your mirror with a camera

Years ago, if someone told you that she was buying a camera for her bedroom, you’d imagine she was planning something naughty. But times have changed, and Amazon believes that you’ll spend $200 on a camera that’s both an extension of your smart home and the ultimate fashion accessory. The Echo Look is designed to help you look your best every morning, guiding and improving your style every time it’s used. But what it represents, and what Amazon gets out of it, could be a much bigger deal for the future of fashion.

Echo Look resembles pretty much every other smart home security camera you’d care to find, but it’s not about protecting your property. The unit is designed for fashionable types who like to document their daily outfits and make sure that they’re always looking good. Look comes with a depth-sensing camera, bolstered with four LEDs that’ll turn even the dingiest bedroom into a half-decent photo studio.

If you take a selfie in a full-length mirror before leaving the house each morning, then the Echo Look is its modern-day replacement. Rather than holding a phone across your body, you can simply speak and ask the device to take a picture for you. The unit is voice activated and comes with Amazon’s chatty computing platform, Alexa. In addition, the depth-sensing camera will automatically blur the background to hide how messy your place is.

Now, this sort of setup won’t be good enough for hard-core Instagram types and fashion bloggers, of course. Those folks often have lighting rigs and DSLRs and edit their images before uploading them to social media. But if you’re just in the habit of sharing your outfit choices on the internet, then you’ll find that job much easier with the Echo Look than it was before.

Because the Look comes with Alexa, it’ll pull double duty as a Trojan horse to get Amazon’s voice control platform into your bedroom. If you’ve already spent big on an Echo, you’ve probably left it in the family room or kitchen, where you’d get most use out of it. Those who’ve yet to find a reason to jump onto Amazon’s bandwagon may find Alexa a nice extra feature.

The other half of Echo Look’s sales pitch is Style Check, an app that builds on the company’s Outfit Compare platform to keep your “look on point using advanced machine learning and advice from fashion specialists.” Simply submit two snaps of you wearing different outfits and the system will tell you which one looks best. It’ll do that by crunching what’s trending, what fashion experts are saying, how well it fits you and what colors are in season.

Amazon is, of course, storing every single one of those images, along with hundreds of pieces of contextual information too. That data will be constantly crunched not only to understand what style suits you but also what outfits you pick depending on weather, mood or season. In addition, the information will be used to train a machine learning system that can offer better suggestions for every Echo Look user.

Echo Look will also enable Amazon to start tracking customer habits in ways that the fashion industry will envy. After all, most clothing retailers have no clue if their products are worn once or every day. Meanwhile, retailers with loyalty schemes — like Target — can predict purchasing outcomes based on repeated custom. But most people don’t buy scarves every week, so retailers have no idea if their products are successful in the real world.

Since Amazon will store and track every outfit image you send it, it’ll determine what products are getting lots of repeated use. So Jeff Bezos and friends will know what outfits, styles, patterns and brands you already like and offer similar suggestions. In addition, Amazon might be able to work out when your everyday-use biker jacket starts showing signs of wear and offer up a discounted replacement.

“Smart Mirrors are hugely expensive. You know what isn’t expensive? An AR clothes platform that Amazon can get its users to pay for in their own homes.”

Traditional brick-and-mortar retail is having its lunch eaten by the internet, and Amazon has led that charge for decades. Twenty years ago, Main Street would have had a couple of bookstores, a DVD or games emporium and a place to buy electronics. Even grocery shopping is changing with the Dash button, as Amazon eats into purchases for laundry detergent and toilet paper.

But fashion retail is a tougher nut to crack, since there’s still a preference by some people to go into stores and try before they buy. A 2015 survey by analysis firm TimeTrade found that more than 85 percent of consumers prefer to shop in stores. This is for a variety of reasons, including a desire to feel the product, a dislike of waiting for shipping and because they value human advice.

For the past century, at least, there have been ways to shop without visiting stores, either with catalogs or, these days, going online. Products are ordered and mailed to you, with you returning the ones that don’t fit or aren’t right. The shipping and returns are often free or at negligible cost, since they’re still cheaper than renting and staffing a brick-and-mortar store. But it’s still a burden, since those companies have to overbuy inventory and spend big sums on shipping.

Online stores have a huge advantage in that their inventories can be almost limitless compared to the space constraints of a real store. Retailers have belatedly woken up to this threat by building and installing smart mirrors in their flagship stores. These devices are often used as an attraction, enabling people to use an augmented reality overlay to “try on” outfits that aren’t available in store.

But smart mirrors require time and space to set up and are hugely expensive, and you can only have a couple in store. You know what isn’t expensive? An AR clothes platform that Amazon can get its users to pay for to have in their own homes. There, all they have to do is snap themselves in their underwear and their smartphone will let them “try on” pretty much every piece of clothing on sale in the whole country.

We know that AR is going to be hugely important, and Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and startups like Magic Leap are all working on it. Amazon has already dipped its toe into AR with products like Flow, which was designed as a way for people to identify products to buy without bar codes. Using a depth-sensing camera to clock customers’ measurements and overlaying outfits onto them makes perfect sense.

Amazon has had envious eyes pointed toward the clothing retail market for a while. Amazon Fashion pushed a $15 million ad campaign over the 2016 holiday season to highlight its new in-house clothing lines. These marques, called things like Franklin & Freeman, North Eleven and Scout + Ro, are designed to look like fashion brands in their own right.

But all of these are just toes in the water compared to what Amazon could do when it begins to join up these ideas. It is building fashion brands and learning how to make its own clothes quickly and efficiently. It already has a logistics platform that can deliver goods to people in less than a day. Now it’ll begin documenting the vital statistics and shopping preferences of every one of its customers who owns an Echo Look.

It’s the depth-sensing camera that’s the giveaway, since that technology is clearly going to become vital. Brooks Brothers, for instance, already harnesses the powers of depth-sensing technology to tailor shirts for its customers. Feetz is doing a similar job to create custom-made, 3D-printed shoes for people with problematic feet.

Clearly, the end goal is to have a system whereby Amazon can produce tailored clothes with custom sizing and next-day shipping. At that point, you’d have to wonder why you’d bother trekking down to Nordstrom’s, Barney’s or Bloomingdale’s for an on off-the-shelf number. Or not, because while Amazon may not reveal how many people buy its Kindle readers and Echo products, Echo Look could be a Fire Phone-esque dud. Only the future knows for now.

Google has already lost the hardware chief it poached from Amazon

You probably have food that’s been in your freezer longer than David Foster (nope, still not the composer) stayed at Google after leaving Amazon. After six months, Foster is vacating his position as vice president of Google’s vice president of hardware product development, according to Bloomberg. In case you forgot, he played a role in the launch the Pixel phone and Google Home speaker’s launches. Prior to that, he led hardware development on Amazon’s Echo speakers, the Kindle Paperwhite and Voyage e-readers.

Looking at his resume on LinkedIn, his short stay is something of an anomaly. Foster previously held posts at Apple, Amazon and IBM for almost six years each. Google is where he stayed the shortest amount of time, behind 13-month stints at both Gibson Guitar and SuperMac Technology.

Bloomberg’s sources say that the search juggernaut won’t be replacing Foster either. At least not immediately. Which makes us wonder what Google has up its sleeve for this year’s round of hardware. It’s rumored that the big G will unveil a pair of new Pixel devices this year, and seeing a new version of the Home smart speaker wouldn’t be too surprising either. With I/O around the corner, we might not have to wait long to find out.

Source: Bloomberg

Mixtile Hub Smart Home Bridge Won’t Support HomeKit After All

At CES 2017 earlier this year, Chinese company Focalcrest debuted the Mixtile Hub, a supposedly MFi-certified smart home bridge that promised to bring HomeKit connectivity to various connected home products that would not otherwise be able to interface with Apple’s smart home platform.

Specifically, Focalcrest said the Mixtile Hub would be able to interface with Z-Wave and ZigBee devices and sensors, as well as connect to various smart home devices through Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

As it turns out, however, the Mixtile Hub won’t support HomeKit after all. At some point between CES and now, Focalcrest removed any mention of HomeKit from its press release—see the original for comparison—and the company now plans to launch the Mixtile Hub with Amazon Alexa support only.

In a recent email to MacRumors forum member Macwick, shared with us, Focalcrest said Apple doesn’t permit smart home bridge products to be compatible with other standards or brands such as Z-Wave and ZigBee.

In the past few months, we kept to contact Apple for approval the HomeKit related designs. But this stage really takes a bit long and till now we still don’t get a positive reply from Apple.

From our communication with Apple, we feel that they don’t permit bridge products to compatible with different brand devices upon some uncertain reasons, as you know, our Mixtile Hub is a bridge product too.

While it’s unsurprising that Apple isn’t backing the Mixtile Hub, it’s disappointing that Focalcrest so prominently advertised HomeKit support prior to receiving certification for the product. Focalcrest admitted that it’s uncertain if its “redefined” Mixtile Hub will still be attractive to homeowners.

Tag: HomeKit
Discuss this article in our forums

Sean Combs’ Documentary ‘Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop’ to Debut Exclusively on Apple Music This June

In the wake of Jimmy Iovine detailing Apple Music’s ongoing efforts to become “an overall movement in popular culture,” today Sean Combs — aka Puff Daddy — announced that his new documentary Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story is coming exclusively to Apple Music on June 25 (via Billboard). The announcement comes after the documentary’s premiere at the TriBeCa Film Festival yesterday.

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop documents the rise of Combs and his record label throughout the 1990s, and extends to the process Combs went through when he put together the 20th anniversary Bad Boy reunion show tour in 2016. The partnership with Apple Music began when Iovine attended one of those shows.

“I went to the [Bad Boy Reuion] concert and thought it was incredible,” Jimmy Iovine, Apple Music chairman and CEO, tells Billboard. “I think Puff and Bad Boy’s story is incredible and one that a lot of people can relate to in any genre or in any business. His story is powerful. He really overcame a lot to get to where he’s at today and the documentary shows that.”

Apple Music is said to have exclusive rights to the documentary for at least one year. According to Combs himself, he feels “blessed” to be working with Apple to show the impact that the Bad Boys have had on fans throughout the years, including the death of Notorious B.I.G.

“I knew this was a story that should be shared with the world,” Diddy said in a statement “Heather Parry and Live Nation Productions, and Director Daniel Kaufman, helped create this very special documentary. Now I’m blessed to also be working with Apple to showcase the film and share Bad Boy’s history and impact with fans. The support Live Nation, Apple and everyone on the team has given to this project is a true testament to the Bad Boy legacy.”

In his interview with Billboard today, Iovine detailed near-term plans for Apple Music that would focus on original video content with music-related themes, a category that Combs’ Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop fits right into. Brad Paisley also just announced a “visual album” coming as a timed exclusive to Apple Music tomorrow, April 28. Further down the line, Apple Music subscribers will have access to a much wider variety of shows, which might even include content from J.J. Abrams.

Tags: Jimmy Iovine, Apple Music
Discuss this article in our forums

Gboard on Android makes it easier to type and tweak your text

Google has made a few seemingly minor tweaks that could make Gboard on Android much easier to use. The keyboard now comes with a new text editing mode with arrow keys that you can use to quickly go to the part of your text that you want to edit or delete. You’ll also find huge select, cut, copy and paste buttons right next to those keys, so you won’t have to long press on the text box and to drag the text pointer around. You can access all these by pressing the G button and tapping the new text edit icon that looks like a “I” in between two pointers.

If selecting, cutting and copying text have never been an issue for you, you may find Gboard’s other new feature more useful. You’ll now be able to resize and reposition the keyboard for when you’re typing with one hand on a big phone or for any other scenario when it’s needed. Simply press G and then tap the triple-dot icon to see the option to choose one-handed mode. That’s where you can customize your keyboard.

In addition to these two changes, Google has added support for 22 Indic languages. The Gboard team even worked with native speakers across India to get enough samples for the more obscure languages of the lot to train its machine learning models. As a result, you can not only type in any of those languages in their native script, but also in the English alphabet. The keyboard has transliteration support for all of them that can convert what you type on the QWERTY keyboard to their native script.

[Image credit: Mariella Moon/Engadget]

Source: Google

Atlus has change of heart over ‘Persona 5’ streaming restrictions

Since launching last month, Persona 5 has already comfortably earned its place among the JRPG greats. Yet for streamers, this highly acclaimed title has become more of an archaic headache than a gaming highlight. Upon launch, developer Atlus forbade fans from streaming any content past a certain point in the game, threatening to hit ‘offending’ fans with copyright claims or even to ban their account. Now, after community outrage, the developer has decided to relax its punitive stance.. slightly.

For the uninitiated, Persona 5 runs on an in-game calendar, letting players choose how best to spend their time. Previously, players were forbidden from showing any content that took place past mid-July in the game world. Now, Atlus has apologized, instead asking streamers not to show anything that happens beyond November 19th in Persona 5. While it’s Atlus’ right to protect its intellectual property, attempting to prevent spoilers in such an aggressive manner feels counter intuitive in 2017. With the game launching in Japan months before it arrived in the west, players could easily find out Persona 5’s ending long before it was streamed.

It begs the question whether preventing spoilers was really Atlus’ true motivation here. Streamers and YouTubers can both command huge audiences, and many publishers have embraced this, seeing people showcasing their games as free marketing. With Persona 5 presumably clocking up a hefty development budget during its lengthy creation time, it’s difficult not to wonder whether the move was simply a bid to forcibly drive more sales.

Either way, it’s good to see Atlus loosening its archaic restrictions and apologizing for the heavy-handed threats. Whether Persona fans will forgive them, however, is another matter entirely.

Source: Atlus