Now, before someone snipes me with a “Chromebooks are already available at Best Buy’s online store,” the significance of this is Google’s portable computer will be available in Best Buy’s brick-and-mortar stores, meaning you can go in and get a hands-on perspective before you lay your money down.

Naturally, this directly affects American consumers. While there are international Best Buy outlets–Puerto Rico, Mexico, Canada and China–as you can see, Europe is lacking Best Buy stores. To address that, Google is making their Chromebooks available in the brick-and-mortar versions of Dixon’s, an electronics retailer in the United Kingdom. During the second day of their I/O presentation, it was also revealed that more stores will be added before the holiday season.

For those of you who have been interested in buying one of Google’s Chromebooks, but were unsure of making your purchase because you haven’t had an opportunity to play with one, the inclusion of these devices in physical stores should help you in your pursuit of an inexpensive laptop. In case you’re wondering the locations of the participating Best Buys, Google has you covered there, too, thanks to a neat little filter applied to Google Maps:

If you can’t read the text at the bottom of the map, it says, “Best Buy stores currently stock the Samsung Chromebook Series 5 550 (Wi-Fi).” If you want another version, you’re going to have to buy it online.

[Lead image courtesy]