3 ms·

My parents, my in-laws, and to some degree my wife and kids. I was lucky enough to receive a Cr-48 and it's been in constant use for the small time we've had it

by bockris 16y ago

My parents, my in-laws, and to some degree my wife and kids. I was lucky enough to receive a Cr-48 and it's been in constant use for the small time we've had it. Some of that is the 'new' factor but my wife has a regular laptop that she uses on the couch occasionally. Now she asks "Where is the Google laptop?" It is partially form factor but the boot/wakeup speed is addicting. Also the fast user switching makes it very easy to trade around. Last night I was using it for Google reader and my wife asked when she could use it. I was just messing around so I closed the lid and handed it to her. She lifted the lid, it was on instantly, she signed me out and signed herself in and was reading her mail in probably about 10 seconds. Even with the problems with the trackpad and the stuttering flash I can see the potential. I would buy at least 2 Cr-48's today if they were for sale. Another one for my family to share and the other for my parents. I would set up a gmail account for my parents and ship it to them and be safe in the knowledge that I would only be doing application support for them, not system support.

trezor 16y ago
> My parents, my in-laws, and to some degree my wife and kids. Until they want to play some music not on youtube, dig up some pictures they didn't upload to facebook etc etc. Or just actually do a slideshow of pictures, since most web-pages don't really allow you to do slideshows. There's a ton of use-cases I see most people do all the time which a no-local-storage platform will simply not support. > She lifted the lid, it was on instantly, she signed me out and signed herself in and was reading her mail in probably about 10 seconds. I fail to see how this is different from any other laptop on the planet. I have a regular Windows laptop and this has always been my experience. Heck, switching from my GFs account to mine I can be on in about 5 seconds. A cold boot however will take me 10. SSDs are pretty cool that way. Regardless. Back to the topic: I also fail to see how any of this relates to a platform being locked down to not allow local applications. Just where does the Linux-lockdown start providing real, actual benefits you don't get elsewhere? I'm not saying you must be wrong or mistaken, but what I do suggest is that there are normal use-cases which will benefit from having local-storage and applications and that I see absolutely no use-cases where having the local option completely blocked and removed provides any benefits. Your "google laptop" is my Windows-laptop. Amputated. Without any benefits added what so ever.
- bockris 16y ago
  We agree to disagree. I don't see any of these things as issues for my use case. My parents don't have a computer now. They don't want to listen to music and they mostly want to consume pictures of their grandkids which we would email to them or post to Picasa. The video chat through google talk is icing on the cake. I can't get rid of my 'real' laptop because I need to interface with other hardware like my Arduino, etc. But for emailing and reading my news feed I like the Cr-48. Would the same purpose be served by a different netbook? Probably but I don't have one of those to compare to. And my experience with fast user switching on windows is totally different from yours. Maybe it's the age of the laptop and not having an SSD but it's not even something I consider doing it's so slow. When my kids want to check their email, we fire up an incognito session on chrome on the existing windows session. Again, probably to do with my hardware.
  - flogic 16y ago
    I think it's important to not compare this to Windows. Windows is such a complete disaster on so many fronts of course ChromeOS seems like a better idea. The problem I and other have with it is "ChromeOS isn't really a better idea when compared to other operating systems." It's more crippled then iOS and Android for gains that aren't significantly better. Sure Chrome maybe a better browser but that's just a matter of porting Chrome not a new OS.
  - sid0 16y ago
    As long as both users are already logged in and (obviously) the other user's stuff hasn't been paged out, fast user switching on Windows is lightning fast. 4 GB of RAM, standard with laptops today, is more than sufficient to ensure that.

by bockris 16y ago

trezor 16y ago

> My parents, my in-laws, and to some degree my wife and kids. Until they want to play some music not on youtube, dig up some pictures they didn't upload to facebook etc etc. Or just actually do a slideshow of pictures, since most web-pages don't really allow you to do slideshows. There's a ton of use-cases I see most people do all the time which a no-local-storage platform will simply not support. > She lifted the lid, it was on instantly, she signed me out and signed herself in and was reading her mail in probably about 10 seconds. I fail to see how this is different from any other laptop on the planet. I have a regular Windows laptop and this has always been my experience. Heck, switching from my GFs account to mine I can be on in about 5 seconds. A cold boot however will take me 10. SSDs are pretty cool that way. Regardless. Back to the topic: I also fail to see how any of this relates to a platform being locked down to not allow local applications. Just where does the Linux-lockdown start providing real, actual benefits you don't get elsewhere? I'm not saying you must be wrong or mistaken, but what I do suggest is that there are normal use-cases which will benefit from having local-storage and applications and that I see absolutely no use-cases where having the local option completely blocked and removed provides any benefits. Your "google laptop" is my Windows-laptop. Amputated. Without any benefits added what so ever.

bockris 16y ago
We agree to disagree. I don't see any of these things as issues for my use case. My parents don't have a computer now. They don't want to listen to music and they mostly want to consume pictures of their grandkids which we would email to them or post to Picasa. The video chat through google talk is icing on the cake. I can't get rid of my 'real' laptop because I need to interface with other hardware like my Arduino, etc. But for emailing and reading my news feed I like the Cr-48. Would the same purpose be served by a different netbook? Probably but I don't have one of those to compare to. And my experience with fast user switching on windows is totally different from yours. Maybe it's the age of the laptop and not having an SSD but it's not even something I consider doing it's so slow. When my kids want to check their email, we fire up an incognito session on chrome on the existing windows session. Again, probably to do with my hardware.
- flogic 16y ago
  I think it's important to not compare this to Windows. Windows is such a complete disaster on so many fronts of course ChromeOS seems like a better idea. The problem I and other have with it is "ChromeOS isn't really a better idea when compared to other operating systems." It's more crippled then iOS and Android for gains that aren't significantly better. Sure Chrome maybe a better browser but that's just a matter of porting Chrome not a new OS.
- sid0 16y ago
  As long as both users are already logged in and (obviously) the other user's stuff hasn't been paged out, fast user switching on Windows is lightning fast. 4 GB of RAM, standard with laptops today, is more than sufficient to ensure that.