Toshiba Chromebook 2 with Broadwell launches in October

Chromebooks are more popular than Chromebase units, simply because they’re extremely portable and in general really affordable.

The Toshiba Digital Products Division, part of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., unveiled on Tuesday two new refreshed versions of its Chromebook 2. Toshiba, Samsung, HP, Acer, Lenovo, Asus… and a number of other companies have been releasing Chromebooks thus far. That’s at least partly due to the move from the low-power Intel Celeron Bay Trail processors in the 2014 models to the more powerful Broadwell chips in the 2015 Chromebook 2 models.

Other features include 802.11ac WiFI, USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports, HDMI output, and an SD card reader. On-board dual array microphones and an HD webcam are also included to enable rich video chats.

The Toshiba Chromebook 2 features a brilliant 13.3-inch diagonal Full HD (1920 x 1080) display with IPS technology that delivers sharpened color reproduction and accuracy, plus wider, more accurate viewing capabilities. This year’s laptop, which will be available in October, will also cost $329.99 with a Core i3 processor and $430 (about £280, AU$515) for a Core i5 processor. As with other Chromebooks, the new machine comes with 100GB of Google Drive storage space; there’s also three months of unlimited Google Play music streaming, and a dozen passes to use GoGo’s Internet. That’s more or less it, if you’d like to take a look at the device up close and personal, check out the gallery down below.

RAM on the new Chromebook 2 models will remain the same, with a max capacity of 4GB that’s factory installed.