This $209 Samsung Chromebook deal is good, but your kid deserves better
While you'll have to wait till Black Friday itself to see some of the biggest deals on the big-ticket items, deals on the best Chromebooks kick off early because Chromebooks usually have great sales almost every week. This week, Walmart has dropped the 2019 Samsung Chromebook 4+ down to $209, and While this could be a great Chromebook for some kids, if you want a big-screen Chromebook for your grandparents who need big fonts, the 4+ will not serve you well.
The Samsung Chromebook 4+ features a Celeron N4000 processor, which we've seen in dozens of good budget Chromebooks like the Lenovo C340-11 and ASUS Chromebook Flip C214. This processor is great for homework and casual, but not for heavy use or for video calls with more than 4 participants. If your kid needs a Chromebook they can use for class-wide Google Meet calls when there's a bad weather day or the school is closed for a local outbreak, they won't have a great time on the Samsung Chromebook 4+. Granted, they can always do what I do and join the Google Meet call from their phone while they keep working on their Chromebook, but that small screen often makes it hard to see slides or notes on-screen.
Otherwise, the Chromebook 4+ is a decent choice for kids that just need to get online and get their assignments turned in on Google Classroom before they go back to their YouTube binge, but with a 15.6-inch 1366 x 768-pixel display, they'll probably move the party over their phone, tablet or TV. See, 1366x768 isn't that bad on 11.6-inch Chromebooks, but 15.6-inch Chromebooks cover a much larger area and make the pixels quite noticeable, especially when zooming in or increasing the size of the font/display for someone with aging eyes. I'm only 30 years old, and even I sometimes get headaches when using large, low-res screens like this one.
Samsung Chromebook 4+
Using standard 45W USB-C Power Delivery Charging and the same software and features as Chromebooks twice its price, the Samsung Chromebook 4+ can feel like a steal, but the lackluster screen spoils the experience for weaker, older eyes. 4GB of RAM combine with the Celeron N4000 for easy homework but not easy video calls with the whole class.
If you need a cheap laptop for your kid - or yourself - the Samsung Chromebook 4+ could serve you well for the next three years before it stops getting Chrome OS updates between June 2025 and June 2026. That said, if you're willing to spend more, there are better deals to be had. For instance, the Lenovo Flex 5 sports a 13.3-inch 1080p touchscreen, a 10th Gen Intel Core processor, and a backlit keyboard for $300 - and we've already seen it drop to $230 once in the last month! And did I mention this Chromebook has held the title of Best Chromebook on Android Central for the last year?
Lenovo Flex 5
$300 at Amazon $425 at Walmart
Snap this Chromebook up once it drops below $250.
This is the best overall Chromebook on the market and a great all-around choice for anyone and everyone in your life (except maybe your clumsy 6-year-old). The touchscreen is crisp and responsive, up-facing speakers surround the backlit keyboard for better sound during video calls and Netflix marathons, and the latter should last you the full workday and then some.
If you're willing to wait a little while longer and keep an eye on our best Black Friday Chromebook deals, you'll be sure to grab it for almost the price of the Samsung Chromebook 4+ with getting a better display, a touchscreen for better app interaction, Chrome OS updates until June 2028, and a damn good overall experience.
If you still want a 15.6-inch Chromebook for the grandma, weird uncle, or enterprising teenage daughter in your life, the ASUS Chromebook Flip C536 is twice the price of the Samsung and worth every penny. This laptop will get Chrome OS updated until June 2029, it has a significantly better processor, memory, SSD storage, touchscreen display, design, and port selection. This Chromebook normally goes for $569, but Best Buy has it down to $399, blowing most other 15.6-inch laptops out of the water with their subpar screens and lackluster memory.
ASUS Chromebook Flip C536
This stellar supersized Chromebook features the latest 11th Gen processors powering your experience, 8GB of RAM for multitasking, and a full keyboard with a number pad for typing in all those lovely, lovely quarterly report numbers. The 1080p touchscreen wonderfully split-screens your emails and the baseball game you're missing because you had to work.
The ASUS C536 is what I've spent most of the last four months using, and even while three windows and 25 tabs are open, she keeps going like a champ. That higher resolution, higher brightness screen does eat a little more battery, but the C536 recharges quite quickly and should be perfect for grandparents that need a good screen for large-print text and enough power to handle video calls with all the cousins and nephews with grace.
Its striking reverse tuxedo colorway also looks quite fetching in any environment from the coffee shop bar to your cluttered home office, too, shedding that awful "all Chromebooks are cheap" slander with a crisp look that will turn heads while being harder to compromise or corrupt. You get what you pay for, and you deserve the best experience Chrome OS has to offer you, especially when it's 30% off.