Toshiba Chromebook 2: A Feast for the Eyes
by Jarred Walton on February 11, 2015 10:00 AM ESTToshiba Chromebook 2 Closing Thoughts
I have to admit that when I first saw the pricing on the Toshiba Chromebook 2, I was skeptical. When you have $200 (and sometimes less) alternatives like the Acer C720 floating around, and with a lot of Chromebook users going that route due to pricing considerations, tacking on an extra $130 is a tough sell. On the other hand, there’s no question about which device is more pleasant to use on a regular basis. The Acer C720 can do everything you might need to do, and it’s actually quite a bit faster than the Toshiba Chromebook 2, but the Toshiba CB35 is a far more enjoyable laptop thanks to its improved styling and keyboard, but more especially thanks to the great display – at least on the 1080p model we’re reviewing (don’t bother with the $249 1366x768 display version is our advice).
If you’re not beholden to Microsoft Windows, there are several viable alternatives right now: OS X, Linux, iOS, Android, and Chrome OS all have something to offer. In the case of Chrome OS, it’s a lightweight OS built around one of the most popular web browsers, targeted primarily at laptops. For internet surfing, email, and moderate office tasks, a Chromebook is able to do everything most people need, and it’s able to do it while typically costing less than the Windows incumbents. It’s true that we now have inexpensive Windows laptops, but so far it doesn’t appear anyone has taken the challenge of building a good quality Windows with Bing option at the same price as the Toshiba Chromebook 2. There’s also the question of performance and features, and while living with Chrome OS with just 16GB of internal storage is relatively painless, the same can’t really be said for Windows alternatives. Battery life of Chromebooks also tends to be better than equivalent hardware running Windows, though we need to investigate the subject further before coming to any strong conclusions.
Perhaps more important than the cost and battery life, Chromebooks avoid the headache of viruses and other malicious software – and they do it with minimal effort on the part of the user. It’s possible to get a similar experience with Android or iOS, but the simplified user interface with Chrome OS and integrated keyboard make Chromebooks a great fit for educational purposes as well as for people that don’t have much technical skill (or a desire to acquire it). There are still limitations with Chrome OS, but additional apps appear on a regular basis, and part of the beauty of the platform is in not having too many choices. You can sit down with a Chromebook and surf the web painlessly, and that’s what a lot of people want – no mess, no fuss, no apps to dig through, etc. And if for some reason you do need to swap out for a new Chromebook, you can be up and running in a matter of minutes (or less) after logging in on a new device.
The biggest complaint I have with Chromebooks right now is that no one has really delivered “everything” in a single device at a reasonable price. If you want one of the fastest and least expensive Chromebooks, Acer’s C720 still holds that crown, but the keyboard and display are less than stellar. For a great typing experience and great battery life, I’d rate the Acer Chromebook 13 as the best option, but the display is again lacking and performance is clearly a step down from the C720. Toshiba’s Chromebook 2 with a 1080p display has the best display among the current offerings, but battery life is a bit worse and performance isn’t at the level of the C720 – and given the number of other Chromebooks using Celeron N2830/N2840, the performance story is similar for those. And if you want a touchscreen, the only options right now seem to be the Acer C720p or the Lenovo IdeaPad N20p, both of which again have other areas where they come up short.
My ideal Chromebook right now would be to take the display and general design of the Toshiba Chromebook 2 we’re looking at today, but pull out the Celeron N2840 processor and get a Celeron 3205U in there instead, and then give me a bit more travel on the keyboard – bonus points for keyboard backlighting as well. I’d even take an older Celeron 2955U if necessary, provided the screen and keyboard are left intact. Ironically you could get exactly that minus the display with the original Toshiba CB35-A3120, which is priced at $220 these days – and you can’t tell me that an extra $110 isn’t enough to upgrade the display! It’s almost like Intel has some mandate that you can’t ship a Celeron 2955U Chromebook with anything more than a lousy 1366x768 TN display. I keep saying that the Acer Chromebook 15 might be the closest thing yet to such a device, but then the 15.6” 1080p display means it’s larger and bulkier than the Toshiba.
In light of the lack of a clear winner in all areas, what we’re left with is a decision of where to compromise. Among the 13” Chromebooks the Toshiba Chromebook 2 (specifically, the CB35-B3340 model) is currently my favorite option, and it’s really all about the screen. If you appreciate a good display it’s practically the only game in town for Chromebooks right now, with the 15” 1080p Acer model due in the near future. On the other hand, if you’re not particularly finicky about display quality, you can get better performance and/or better battery life for less money by looking at some of the other options we listed above.
If you’re in the market for a Chromebook, the Toshiba CB35-B3340 is definitely worth a look and earns our Recommended by AnandTech award. It performs reasonably well and gets all of the major areas right, and that’s enough for most people. Give us an updated model with the Broadwell-U Celeron 3205U for under $400 however and this would be an easy Editors’ Choice award.
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tdo51144 - Thursday, February 12, 2015 - link
like itTheJian - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
"In Octane, Kraken, and SunSpider, the N2840 consistently beats the Tegra K1 and in some cases it even ties (roughly) Apple’s A8X."Umm, isn't nexus 9 running a K1, and beating n2840 here in Octane and Kraken?
"Take NVIDIA’s Tegra K1 SoC, which pairs one of the fastest SoC GPUs with a respectable ARM-based CPU; by contrast, the N2840’s CPU is generally faster than the Tegra K1’s CPU"
Both won 2 of the 4 benchmarks you ran (if comparing to nexus 9 which houses the latest K1 rev), not sure how you say either won. Seems like a tie? But yes, gpu lopsided to NV. I think we'd need Denver in a chromebook before you could say these statements for sure correct? You talk as if there is only ONE version of K1. There's only one version in a chromebook, but it's incorrect to say faster than both K1 versions here. Maybe I'd feel better about the statement if you called it 32bit K1 in this context. I can see you're talking chromebooks, but people may not get that denver simply can't be bought yet in one (or at least note that when saying it). We'll probably see an x1 based chromebook before denver again but still...Since I don't think it will be back until 14nm samsung version that is.
You compare the cpu to apples A8x, so why are you not mentioning the 64bit Denver version of K1 in Nexus9? Apple isn't a chromebook either, but is lopped in the cpu talk. If you hadn't done that, it would be clear you're not comparing cpus from tablets and chromebooks. But with apple you ARE adding tablet cpus to the talk, so why not nexus 9's K1?
JarredWalton - Sunday, February 15, 2015 - link
Technically the Nexus 9 is the Tegra K1-64, or more commonly referred to as Denver. Of course, Denver has its own pros and cons, with performance sometimes being quite a bit slower due to the way the binary translation works. I'm not super hung up on which CPU is fastest by 5-10%; it's merely interesting to see Bay Trail Atom doing reasonably well. K1-32 and A8X are both more power efficient however, which is at least as important as raw performance.But you're missing the real point, which is that as slow as the N2840 is, it's as fast as (faster than) the top smartphone SoCs. And yet the slowest Haswell-U processor runs circles around N2840. And the 2955U does that without really sacrificing a lot of battery life. I'm super interested in the 3205U, as you might guess.
LazarusNine - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
@JarredWalton Excellent review. Informative and useful for comparison. I would very much like to see a review of the Windows 'chromebook', the Acer ES1-111M, or one of its variants. It is very similar to the HP Stream 11, but with upgradeable RAM, it makes for an interesting contender in the sub $200 range.benelux - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
This was a really nice article, thanks. Would you mind providing the vintage of your benchmark results? That 5440 Octane score for the HP Chromebook 11 looks dated. My girlfriend's HP Chromebook 11-1101 is on Chrome 41 the current beta release. I get octane scores that average around 6800 on it. My 2013 Samsung Chromebook X303C12 has very similar hardware. It has the same SOC, the same display resolution, and the same 2G ram and 16 GB SSD. My Samsung is on Chrome 40 stable. It has Octane scores above 6400.I realize you might not have all the devices lying around to retest, but if you could indicate when a test was done and on what release that would be great. Chrome OS is very much a moving target. My Samsung Chromebook had Octane scores in the mid-3000 range when it came out in Q4 2013. Now it's in the mid-6s.
benelux - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
Correction: the Samsung Chromebook came out in fall 2012, not 2013.JarredWalton - Sunday, February 15, 2015 - link
You're right: some of the scores are quite old. The only recent scores for Chromebooks are the two Acers (C720 and CB13) and the Toshiba; everything else is probably at least a year old. I hope to retire some of the results soon and replace them with more recent offerings.realwarder - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Is this a paid article? It sounds very pro-Chrome OS, which given the severe limitations of that OS seem to skip over that completely and even mention it as a benefit.Given that an end-user are basically buying a web browser with no ability to do simple things like print or work offline, it's a lot of money for a pretty worthless PC. It only has 16GB storage (or whatever is left of that).
There are cheaper and more capable PCs around these days running Windows that provide so much more functionality. If all you do want is a portable web browser, there are many tablets that provide more for less too.
JarredWalton - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
The Windows alternatives have garbage displays, and while you *can* run the stripped down version of Windows on 32GB of storage, it's not comfortable to do so. Chrome OS also boots faster and stays peppier than Windows in general with limited resources. It's so far the best Chromebook in my opinion, but would I personally want to do all my work on it? No, because Chrome OS has plenty of limitations. I covered those extensively in a previous article, and rather than trot out the same content every time I just link back to the relevant review. Like this:http://www.anandtech.com/show/8928/acer-chromebook...
Christopher1 - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
Chrome OS is a waste. It is not as 'fully featured' as Windows 8.1 even and is not able to do a lot of the things that Windows 8.1 can do.Such as full-featured multimedia viewing. Such as even low-end ACDSee Pro-esque photo viewing and editing.
Need I keep on going? Chrome OS is a toy to the most 'in the know' out there today and just is not going to overtake even iOS for most people.
Give me a cheap 400 dollar Windows laptop for each of my children and they are pretty much golden.
It can do nearly ANYTHING save for high-end, last 5 year AAA gaming.