You can buy a small-screen tablet like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 for as low as $250 ($200, if you consider the Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet, devices that have some e-mail functions).

This does not seem too big a difference but it means a smaller screen for the same diagonal - hence cheaper to make.

As Google claims, this Chromebook can play 1080p video, but the screen resolution is only 1,366x768 pixels, so it's not displaying full HD.

After 20 months, my screen now has 2 lines of dead pixels vertically on the screen.

Powered by an Intel dual-core Atom processor and backed by 2GB of memory, integrated graphics, and a 16GB solid-state drive (SSD), the system does what it's designed to do-run the Internet.

For this price point the CPU and memory is fantastic.

Chrome OS is a lightweight, web-based operating system so you would think Samsung would know the deal: simple dual core processor (Atom N570 1.66Ghz - tick), usable amount of RAM (2GB - tick), minimal fast storage (as mentioned, 16GB SSD - tick), integrated 3G to make the Chrome usable on the move and decent graphics for all that Adobe Flash and HD streaming video you’ll be watching.

From the start, it was plenty fast for video streaming with Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor 2.1GHz, standard 4GB RAM, and decent 250GB Hard Drive.

The processor and the added RAM allow more windows to be open at once and better handling of documents and files: 1080p video can stream smoothly,albeit at 1,280x800 pixels, and some basic Web-based games run passably.

I figured that a $619 laptop would be the low end of the spectrum when looking for performance, but this has all the componants of the "high end", as far as RAM and Hard disc.