(SOLD OUT) In-stock: Samsung Chromebook (Wifi, 11.6") for $250 (yes, the hard to find one!)

AS of a 1/27/13 recheck, it sold out but keep checking at Amazon as it keeps going in and out of stock...

This was one of the hardest to find in-stock gadgets of 2012, the 11.6-inch Samsung Chromebook (Wifi-only) is finally in-stock at Amazon by Amazon at its starting price of $250. This runs Google Chrome OS and has solid state memory only. No hard disks to deal with or worry about if you are out and about. Of photographer interest, this can be a digital assistant (emails, browsing, etc) and data mule and such. It has dual-band Wifi (b/g/n), one USB 3.0 port, 2GB DDR3 RAM, 16GB on-board storage, Bluetooth 3.0, SD card reader, HDMI, 6.5 hours of estimated battery life, 100GB of Google cloud storage for two years, etc. No optical media! No wired Ethernet! Obviously it does not have the firepower for image processing and such.

Of all the Chromebooks, this got the best reviews based on price and value. There is a $200 Acer model, but with a hard disk and too many corners cut. Google will find plenty of reviews, including Engadget and Ars Technica and Mobile Tech Review and Tech Time and ZD Net and The Verge et al. [I can't repost the whole Google search results here :)]

This has been consistently selling for $300+ by third-party sellers because it was hard to find. However, Amazon itself keeps its own price to $250.