Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The Toshiba Chromebook 2 offers a fantastic experience that really shows what Chromebooks are capable of. The 1080p display is the clear star here, and it's worth every extra penny. Being an IPS display, colors are superb and viewing angles are great. I was particularly surprised how bright it gets. I can comfortably keep the brightness at around 20-25%, which definitely helps with battery life. As someone who writes a lot, the keyboard is a joy to use. The keys have a nice little spring to them, and it feels natural and comfortable. The touchpad is very accurate, and I don't need or even want to use a separate mouse. As a side note, Google "Chromebook touchpad tips" and click the first result. There's cool gestures you can use which will dramatically improve your experience. In terms of design, this is hands down the best looking Chromebook on the market. The curves and sharp edges really make it stand out, and despite having a plastic body, it's very solid and not flimsy. Doesn't feel cheaply made, and the finish is relatively fingerprint resistant. The webcam is on par with other Chromebooks, and offers okay quality. However, the dual microphones do give slightly crisper audio. Toshiba teamed up with Skullcandy for some pretty interesting speakers. They're actually hidden inside the keyboard facing up. At first, the sound is a bit tinny like other laptop speakers, but the quality does improve. I can pick up all the little nuances in a wide variety of music, and it gets fairly loud. Sadly, if you're into bass, it's pretty much nonexistent, which is a bit odd considering what Skullcandy is known for. One early concern of the Toshiba Chromebook 2 was that it has an Intel Bay Trail processor versus Haswell. The Haswell performs better in benchmarks and real world use, there's just no way around it. However, there are a couple pros of going Bay Trail. It uses just 7.5 watts of power under full load, and it's fanless. Even after several hours of use, the Toshiba gets just slightly warm. From watching full 1080p video to browsing webpages, I didn't share the same worries in terms of performance. Even with 10+ tabs open, I could switch back and forth with no lag. If you do a lot of graphic-intensive stuff, you'll probably notice a drop, but for normal everyday use, the Toshiba Chromebook 2 is more than capable. With the Full HD model, Toshiba claims up to 9 hours of battery life. I've been consistently getting over 8 hours on a full charge with around 15% battery left. Under the right circumstances, I think it's very possible you could squeeze out close to 10 hours.