Review: Samsung's new ARM Chromebook gets by without Intel inside

If you've used a smartphone or tablet at any point in the last five years or so, you have ARM to thank for it. The company doesn't actually manufacture any of its own chips, but it licenses its low-power CPU architectures and instruction sets to others like Samsung, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and Apple, who all use the designs to build better battery life into tiny devices. The company isn't content with its niche, however: it has PCs and servers in its sights, and we're going to be seeing ARM chips in many more devices in the next year or two.

Samsung's recently announced ARM-based Chromebook is one of these devices: a laptop-shaped computer that uses a tablet-like processor. Using these low-power, low-cost CPUs is one reason why these new Chromebooks cost an impressive $249, rather than $449 like their current Intel-based counterparts. The biggest question is whether users of this new, cheaper Chromebook will care that they're not running Intel inside.