The Google Cr-48 ChromeOS Laptop - First Impressions
AlexDeGruven
Wut?Meechigan Icrontian
During Tuesday's ChromeOS announcement presentation, Google flashed a QR code on one slide that pointed to a signup URL to evaluate a ChromeOS laptop. unlike the publicly announced URL, this signup form only asked for pertinent details (Name, Address, Phone Number, and e-mail). That's it.
On a whim, I signed up, expecting to get an e-mail asking more questions to validate my worth as a ChromeOS tester. I also sent the URL to a co-worker in the hopes that he might get one as well. Lo and behold, we both had one sitting on the porch waiting for us this afternoon.
It's a completely unbranded laptop. No stickers, logos, embossings, nothing. Not even a Google logo to tell you who it's from.
It has a large, Mac-style touchpad with right and left-click buttons embedded under the surface.
Screen resolution is a relatively hearty, but not unheard-of for this size 1280x800. Judging by the extreme lack of thickness of the screen, and the extremely uniform lighting, I'm guessing it's LED backlit, but I can't confirm that at the moment.
Overall size is pretty much what you'd expect from a 12" laptop. Though the deletion of any kind of spindle (SSD and no optical drive) allows for more than half of the bottom section to be made of battery. The keyboard is roughly the size of a 13" Macbook (same type of keys, as well), and saves some space by eliminating the function keys (I'm not sure how I feel about that being a power-user/administrator, but I haven't missed them so far).
The first boot took about 15 seconds. It immediately asked to hook up to the available wireless network. Once connected, it downloaded and installed an update, then quickly rebooted.
It's an interesting front-end experience. It's obviously Linux under the covers (Google rolled their own distribution from source), but they have also done a lot of work in the font rendering and spacing areas, as pages look just like they do under Windows. It's also interesting having Chrome (the browser) be your only window into the user experience.
Resuming from suspend is as close to instant as I can imagine getting without fundamentally reworking the way hardware functions. The screen is back on in about 2 seconds, and the WiFi reconnects almost instantly.
Google touts the Cr-48 as having 8 hours of usage with 8+ days of standby, which is pretty impressive, but also makes sense when seeing the size of the battery.
I'll take some pictures when I get home tonight. It's nothing super-exciting, since it's a matte black and completely featureless, but I suppose it's worth posting for everyone's benefit.
On a whim, I signed up, expecting to get an e-mail asking more questions to validate my worth as a ChromeOS tester. I also sent the URL to a co-worker in the hopes that he might get one as well. Lo and behold, we both had one sitting on the porch waiting for us this afternoon.
It's a completely unbranded laptop. No stickers, logos, embossings, nothing. Not even a Google logo to tell you who it's from.
It has a large, Mac-style touchpad with right and left-click buttons embedded under the surface.
Screen resolution is a relatively hearty, but not unheard-of for this size 1280x800. Judging by the extreme lack of thickness of the screen, and the extremely uniform lighting, I'm guessing it's LED backlit, but I can't confirm that at the moment.
Overall size is pretty much what you'd expect from a 12" laptop. Though the deletion of any kind of spindle (SSD and no optical drive) allows for more than half of the bottom section to be made of battery. The keyboard is roughly the size of a 13" Macbook (same type of keys, as well), and saves some space by eliminating the function keys (I'm not sure how I feel about that being a power-user/administrator, but I haven't missed them so far).
The first boot took about 15 seconds. It immediately asked to hook up to the available wireless network. Once connected, it downloaded and installed an update, then quickly rebooted.
It's an interesting front-end experience. It's obviously Linux under the covers (Google rolled their own distribution from source), but they have also done a lot of work in the font rendering and spacing areas, as pages look just like they do under Windows. It's also interesting having Chrome (the browser) be your only window into the user experience.
Resuming from suspend is as close to instant as I can imagine getting without fundamentally reworking the way hardware functions. The screen is back on in about 2 seconds, and the WiFi reconnects almost instantly.
Google touts the Cr-48 as having 8 hours of usage with 8+ days of standby, which is pretty impressive, but also makes sense when seeing the size of the battery.
I'll take some pictures when I get home tonight. It's nothing super-exciting, since it's a matte black and completely featureless, but I suppose it's worth posting for everyone's benefit.
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These specifically won't be sold, but OEMs should start shipping units in March according to their presentation on Tuesday.
It's a cool feeling to know I now own something like this.
Daww... that makes me a little sad
You should let me know how long the battery actually lasts when you get around to testing that. I'm very interested. Also, I hope that OEMs don't stray too far from this design (from the sounds of it). I'm not a Mac fan, but I do love the MacBook Pro keyboards. The keyboard on my Eee PC is similar, but not quite the same thing.
If you opened this off, at first glance, you'd think it was a 12" MB/MBP.
http://twitpic.com/3elgd2
The first thing I need to figure out is how to get xsupplicant going so I can hook into my work WiFi.
The Verizon signup is broken at the moment, as well. It signs you up, but then won't connect you (good thing I chose the free version).
It does, however, do tap-to-click, and you can right-click by tapping with 2 fingers.
You can also scroll by sweeping 2 fingers down or up.
Took a little getting used to, but it was a really minor thing.
I'm the same way, but I signed up for one anyway because I'm more than a little bit of a gadget-whore.
I've been using it pretty heavily for the last 4 days now, and I love it more and more. Once the rest of the functionality that I would like (xsupplicant, Java, etc) is in place, it will be very hard for me to use anything but this for all but the most computationally or OS demanding reasons, even at work.
Playing the single-dad role while prepping for Christmas this week means I have about 8 minutes/day to myself.
I'm guessing we'll see one pop up in the Chrome marketplace before too much longer.
I had to:
1. Manually reset the modem from the command line
2. Reboot
3. Manually activate the modem using the string provided for the command line
4. Reboot again
5. Click 'Activate Verizon Wireless' from the network menu after confirming that the appropriate information is displayed in modem status.
At that point it started working just fine.
I can be in the Chromebook club?
I'd call it akin to a Galaxy Tab with a keyboard; it's more like a tablet device but with a keyboard and no touch screen? It has a browser and a spare app store right now. It's a hard device to pin down and I'm not sure what niche it's supposed to fill.
With no OS, really, it doesn't feel like a full-fledged computer. The 3G modem and free data is nice. It means I can take it with me almost anywhere and at least have my email and stuff, but then, I can already do that with my phone.
I dunno. It's weird.
As well as an "I just need something that boots really fast and lets me check my email/twitter/dickboat/etc." niche
My parents/ those whom you consider "HALP LOL" wouldn't know wtf to do with this thing.
I could perform every single one of my job duties on this machine, just sayin'. And it is super light.
-surf the internet
-write about the internet
-bitch about the internet
-profit!
I applied, gonna use it to save the USPS