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Google today took the wraps off a couple of new Chromebooks, the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus and the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 11, along with an all-new button which ships with them. Dubbed the "Quick Insert" button, the button gives you instant access to some of Google's latest AI features.
The new Quick Insert button replaces the Search/Launch button on select Chromebooks, starting with the Galaxy Chromebook Plus. Quick Insert is the single menu for a bevy of new AI features. Tapping on it reveals a menu that allows for easy access to things such as "Help Me Write" to help in writing notes, emails and ultimately AI. Image generation, says John Maletis, vice president of product, engineering and user experience for ChromeOS, is key.
Designed to help quickly get you to information without having to dig through menus, the button includes recently visited websites that have links you paste, Google Drive search for photos, videos, documents, and spreadsheets, or your favorite GIFs and emojis. In turn, at the beginning of this year, Microsoft made a similar change, moving the highlighted Copilot key on some laptops to offer quick access to the AI function in Windows:.
Quick Insert joins many other features of artificial intelligence launched this month in the Premium Chromebook Plus Google line. There's "Help Me Read" which summarizes everything you read. Live Translate creates real-time translated subtitles into over 100 languages. Recorder app that can create transcripts of lectures, interviews and conversations. I saw the Recorder app in action during the demo and asked the presenter a few questions about the service. The app accurately typed out what I said into text, and correctly recognized us as different speakers.
Perhaps the most useful feature in this rollout is, arguably, the "Welcome Recap" arriving on all Chromebooks. When you fire the system back up, it will show you a summary of what you were doing before you logged out. Welcome Recap works across devices, offering suggestions like "a reminder for your next video call, quick access to recently opened files, and clickable suggestions to complete an article you started on your Android or iOS phone." For someone like me who tends to hoard tabs, this functionality is pretty useful. The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus marks the first time Google has showed off these new features, and the laptop's grey and blue all-aluminum chassis is sure to turn heads. This weighs in at 2.58 pounds and 0.46 inches thick, this laptop is the lightest and thinnest Chromebook either company has released.
The Chromebook Plus features a 15.6-inch OLED display that looked excellent in person last week, together with an actually first-class keyboard with a numeric keypad. If you're after a formidable computer, this is not the case: the Chromebook Plus comes fitted with an Intel Core i3 100U Raptor Lake Refresh processor, with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Service life is 13 hours when charging.
Without any differentiating quick insert button, this Chromebook Duet 11 Lenovo can access every new function introduced in ChromeOS. An update on the popular detachable model issued in 2020, this 2024 release keeps the predecessor model portable and versatile while updating the internal components of the model. Once you're not using it in laptop mode, the keyboard can detach magnetically, allowing you to use the Duet 11 as a tablet.
The back cover can be folded down to double as a stand for portrait or landscape orientation, and Lenovo touts an advanced palm lock system on the 10.9-inch touchscreen with a 1920 x 1200 resolution. This is an outstanding way to use the included USI Pen 2. The stylus attaches magnetically to the back. Equipped with a MediaTek Kompanio 838 processor with 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage, this Duet is good for light work and multimedia tasks such as note-taking.
On the rear are two 8MP webcams, and on the front are 5MP ones. Lenovo claims it will get about 12 hours of battery life, and the detachable tablet also comes in an education version that puts the tablet portion in a rugged case to protect it from accidental drops. Both laptops will go on sale this month, with the Duet 11 starting at $399 and the far pricier Galaxy Chromebook Plus starting at $699.
