I opened the second box and gathered the various pieces Google had sent me: laptop; battery; power cord; a card that read, “If you cracked this open, you’d find Intel inside”; another card larger than the previous containing legal jargon (Google comically told me to make it into a paper airplane for my niece or nephew); and a page telling me about my new machine. I plugged the battery into my Cr-48 and opened it up. To my surprise, it instantly began to boot, and in ten seconds, I was at the log in screen. I was shocked at how fast it booted, and I loved the idea that I now owned a machine running my favorite web browser as an operating system. I loved the idea so much that I sold my four-year-old laptop running Windows 7 less than two months later.
Chromebooks have a slew of awesome features that I’ve come to cherish and love over other major brands such as Windows or Mac. As I’ve previously mentioned, the machine boots in ten seconds and you can be browsing the web in less than twenty! You have the option to log in with a Google account using the same user name and password as you’d use to log into your Gmail, or you can log in as a guest which brings you to a Chrome Incognito Window. Once in, you are using a Chrome web browser and browsing the web fast and worry-free. Open a bad webpage (like one known for malware) and Google will warn you before you even get there. You have no desktop like a traditional PC, but instead you can make your homepage a webpage or a New Tab where you can load Applications, most visited sites, and recently closed sites. The device is used differently than a traditional Personal Computer in that it handles everything it can in the cloud, instead of on your device. If you need to write a document, you would write and save it in the cloud instead of on your machine, and in case you require that doc for use elsewhere, you have many options for downloading that doc into various popular doc file types.
The keyboard has seen a radical redesign by Google, dropping age old standards such as Function keys and the CAPS LOCK key and replacing them with Google’s own function keys and a search key, respectively. The function keys are: esc, back, forward, refresh, fullscreen, switch windows, screen brightness lower & higher, mute, volume down & up, and the power button. The search key, which can be changed back into a Caps Lock key if the user so desires, will open a new tab when pressed (in case of accidentally opening a new tab, no fret, just press it again and your accidental tab will go away and you’ll be right back where you left off if you were typing in any boxes).
The trackpad on the CR-48 is a large clickable surface. By pressing in on the back half of the pad you ‘click’ and by pressing with two fingers you ‘right click’ (you can also alt+click to right click). This may confuse typical Windows users at first who are used to tapping the trackpad to click (which can be turned on if the user so desires after the initial setup), and who will probably attempt to do so after seeing the absence of actual left and right mouse buttons. However, the trackpad allows for the use of gestures, such as two finger scrolling where upon placing two fingers on either side of the pad you can scroll a web page up and down, and pinch zoom for use with things such as Maps. Overall, I’ve found the trackpad to be excellent in design and it only improves in performance as times goes on.
The entire Cr-48 notebook is made out of a nice, grippy, soft-touch plastic that feels amazing to the touch and makes you confident you won’t drop your machine when carrying it with one hand. As for the hardware inside: Intel CPU is the single core Atom N455, 2GB sick of Hynix RAM, 16GB SanDisk Solid State Drive, Verizon 3G chip is the Novatel Gobi2000 PCI Express Mini Card, AzureWave Atheros 9280 802.11 a/b/g/n wifi card, and there is also an Atheros AR5BBU12 with V2.1 EDR Bluetooth which has yet to see use in the Cr48. (Hardware specs found at: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/chrome-os-laptop-cr-48-netbook,11786.html ) I’ve also heard there is a GPS chip in the machine as well, however it is also off like the Bluetooth because Chrome OS has yet to utilize it’s functionality. There is also a file system and media player for accessing media stored directly on your device.
If you're wondering about security, look no further than ChromeOS because you can’t get much more secure than this. The BIOS does a verified boot and wipes anything bad after each boot, not to mention you won’t need to worry about viruses or anti-virus software because this machine is entirely different than a Windows machine. Not that you can’t still be victim to bad things such as if you install a bad extension or application, but if you don’t read comments or check ratings before installing apps/extensions then I’d say you deserve what you get.
As for the Chromebooks that hit the market on June 15th, you have four choices: A $499 3G+wifi Samsung, a $429 wifi-only Samsung, a $349 Acer, or renting any of these devices through your school or business. Before you assume the Chromebooks are overpriced, lets look at then hardware you get with that nice pricetag. The Samsung has a 12.1” 16:10 (1280x800) 300 nit display, weighs 3.26 lbs, and runs for about eight and a half hours of regular usage (things like streaming video and playing facebook games will eat power faster than regular Internet browsing). It has a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N570 Dual Core processor, built-in dual-band Wi-Fi & World-mode 3G, and 2GB of DDR3 SDRAM. The webcam is 1 Mega Pixel and includes a noise-cancelling microphone that supports 4-channel HD audio, and the various ports on the device include: two USB 2.0, a 4-in-1 memory card slot, a mini-VGA, and dual mic/headphone jack.
The Acer is a little less powerful than the Samsung, but it is a little more affordable for those strapped on cash. It has an 11.6” 16:9 (1366x768) CineCrystal LED-backlit LCD HD Widescreen display, weighs 2.95 lbs, and sees six hours of continuous usage before you’ll need to plug your Chromebook into a wall. It also uses a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom Dual-core processor, has a built-in Wi-Fi card but no cellular chip for 3G, and also has 2GB of RAM. The webcam in the Acer is a 1.3 Mega Pixel webcam and it also includes a noise-cancelling microphone that supports HD audio. The ports on it include two USB 2.0, a 4-in-1 memory card slot, an HDMI port, and dual mic/headphone jack. Both machines have a 16GB SSD (Solid State Drive like you would find in a flash drive) so don’t listen to the hype that Chromebooks don’t have local storage. All in all, I feel the price of the Chromebooks are fair and affordable for the hardware you get with the machine, and unlike Windows machines you don’t have to purchase a copy of the OS since ChromeOS is open source and free.
Various Chromebook Hardware spec links:
http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/index.php?/topic/31598-google-chromebooks-hardware-specifications/ http://www.chromeosforums.net/forum/samsung-chromebook/742-how-much-does-samsung-chromebook-cost-344-a.html
http://www.axleration.com/acer-chromebook-vs-samsung-chromebook/
http://reviewunit.com/acer-chromebook-chrome-notebook-specs-price-pics/ http://www.pcworld.com/article/227773/battle_of_the_chromebooks_acer_vs_samsung.html
People regularly ask me if I like Chrome OS and I tell them I love it! However, this is still beta testing and doesn’t mean I’m free of small annoyances or bugs. The file system wasn’t always available and the media player used to not work in earlier OS builds, but the Chrome team has finally gotten a lot of the basics to work and they work wonderfully. Some people may tell you that this machine is useless without an Internet connection, and though they may have a valid point in the matter, Chromebooks can still be very useful while offline. There are many Applications that have offline support and Google Docs will also have offline support by the end of summer. Besides, with so many Wi-Fi hotspots everywhere you should rarely find yourself without Internet, especially while on the go. ChromeOS, albeit still a work in progress, is fast, reliable, and updates automatically so you’ll never have to worry about your OS being out of date.
Is a Chromebook the right choice of machine for you? Think about what you use a personal computer for most. The average user would probably reply with “Browsing the Internet,” and that is exactly what these Chromebooks do best. Sure, you can’t play all of your favorite video games (yet), but that's besides the point - Chromebooks are built for users who live on the web. The Internet will only become faster over time and living in the cloud is slowly becoming the computing choice of the future.
Visit the Chromebook Central for anything and everything related to Chromebooks! It is comprised of the Pilot Program users as well as any and all new Chromebook users and they have many topics to cover a wide range of questions about Chromebooks and similar topics.
Questions or comments about Chrome OS? Leave 'em below!
