Google and Samsung have announced a new sub-notebook running Chrome OS running on an ARM-based processor with a lower price point than any previous Chromebook before. The new Chromebook has an 11.6-inch display with a 1366 x 768 resolution and is reasonably priced at £229 in the UK and $249 in the U.S. The U.S. pricing is likely excluding applicable sales taxes while the UK price is inclusive of VAT.

The new Chromebook comes with a 1.7GHz Samsung Exynos 5250 ARM processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal SSD storage. The Chromebook has a built-in HDMI port, one USB 3.0 port and one separate USB 2.0 port.

Chrome OS is a web-centric operating system from Google which primarily consists of the Chrome web browser and web applications that can be found in the Chrome web store and from web apps yoou can find on the Web. Google believes many of our daily activities can be performed via the Web, such as e-mail, instant messaging, social media, office productivity, etc.

While it remains to be seen how well the Chromebook sells, at £229 it is certainly by far the cheapest Chromebook ever sold and may entice buyers who have been considering a Chromebook to buy one. It is as cheap as a netbook while not having the standard compromises of one – the Chromebook itself comes with a comfortable-sized keyboard, trackpad and display resolution, and runs an operating system that is more optimised for low-power processors, like the ARM processor built-in to the device or low-power Intel Atom processors that some previous Chromebooks had.

The new Chromebooks will be available starting this week. In the UK, you can find the new ARM-based Chromebooks via PC World and Amazon UK.