12 ms·

Chromebook

446 points by atularora 15y ago

MatthewB 15y ago
That samsung version looks very nice and 8.5 hours of continuous usage is killer. However, I won't be trading in my brand new Macbook Air 13" any time soon. It doesn't mention harddrive specs because this is supposed to be a "cloud computer." However, it definitely has a harddrive and I wonder if it is a SSD or regular spinning disc drive.
- shrikant 15y ago
  Should be an SSD, as they also tout a startup time of 8 seconds.
  - digitalnalogika 15y ago
    It's probably something really small. Official video mentions external storage (USB flash drive) if you "want to work with files".
    - rryan 15y ago
      The Google I/O keynote certainly did not imply you need external storage to work with files. Others are saying it's 16GB.
- larrik 15y ago
  Why does it have to have a harddrive? The thing can run off an SD card, in theory. I used to sell thin clients that ran off of CompactFlash cards. (they ran a version of XP, too)
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    Boot time.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- shii 15y ago
  If it's anything like the CR-48s, it'll have a decent sized SSD. I own a CR-48, and I believe the capacity is something like 80 gb, but I can't confirm right now. It's very fast to boot. Basically instant, I open, it's booted.
- evilduck 15y ago
  The Cr-48 has a 16GB SSD, uses a 5GB partition for the standard OS, and another 5GB partition to restore the first with, plus some free space leftover that's basically unused if you don't tinker with it. Since ChromeOS is still pretty deficient at file management (even for picture uploading and such), I don't see any reason why they'd provide bigger hard drives unless they were intended to dual boot.
- kewley 15y ago
  Amazon is listing 16GB SSD. http://www.amazon.com/chromebook http://www.amazon.com/chromebook
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  If I were to guess, since Google also just announced programmatic access to 'cloud' storage they are going to create your 'hard disk' in their cloud. Then will be a win for the consumer because if the device is destroyed it won't lose "your" data. It also allows international travellers to have two of them, one at home and one abroad. They don't have to carry one through customs and subject it to an unreasonable search by border agents. For a small number of people this will be a good value. (I know it assumes you trust the Google cloud more than you trust DHS but that isn't too big of a stretch)
digitalnalogika 15y ago
Have they published price of these laptops anywhere? I can't find any info at Amazon/BestBuy or official website http://www.google.com/chromebook/chromebooks.html http://www.google.com/chromebook/chromebooks.html
- jbyers 15y ago
  CrunchGear lists prices. $350+ for the Acer, $425+ for the Samsung: http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/05/11/the-google-chromebook-breaks-cover-at-io-2011/ http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/05/11/the-google-chromebook-b...
- lallysingh 15y ago
  $28/month/user with Google Apps & Support for business $20/month/user for students. (from the Engadget live feed)
  - PagingCraig 15y ago
    I can't see the laptop itself not costing anything. The per month is on top of the laptop cost I take it?
    - martin_k 15y ago
      No, for businesses or schools this is a monthly price that includes software and hardware updates.
swah 15y ago
Oddly, the first video was played for me with Dutch subtitles.
phlux 15y ago
This is a game changer. I plan to get one for my 6 year old daughter. I have started her on Khan academy for math (I have been watching the vids myself - they are fantastic)
- apl 15y ago
  Not intrinsically, no. EDIT: Just for the record, before the OP edited his entry, it simply said "This is a game changer" which I consider an exaggeration. Of course, I can see how it makes for a nice children-appropriate machine, but that's not something new and exclusive to Chrome OS.
  - phlux 15y ago
    Yes, I immediately saw I needed to put some context into that statement :) Also - this announcement I think is great, see my comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2535230 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2535230 which I made last night. The thing is that we will see a fundamental shift in how people compute in the next 18 months. The questions are going to be very interesting relating to data security and privacy, though. We just saw that the NSA captures the equivalent of a Library of Congress in data every 6 hours. The amount that google will potentially capture through the chromebook system will be amazing. They are planning other services as well that will enable these books in the long term. The question about who will be a more valuable / viable company between facebook and google are now clearly ridiculous. Facebook will have a tough time coming anywhere near as influential as google from an infrastructure perspective alone. Facebook will be a valuable service portal for a long time - but it will have to fundamentally shift in a big way to become a global computing infrastructure provider -- and it simply is not in its DNA -- Zuck < Page/Brin. I think the next revolution for the chromebook will be the web-app market that will be put on top of it. It will be interesting to see (and participate) in the building of the various lenses that you can view the web through on these things: Education Lens: Like Khan Academy on Steroids Business Lens: Business Productivity Suite Healthcare Lens: All the EHR/PHR point of care service apps Good times ahead.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
smackfu 15y ago
They don't seem to be priced any better than similar Windows machines, although it's hard to find exact comparisons since most things with Atom processors only go up to 10" screens.
- yanw 15y ago
  I think it will be mainly distributed through the subscription model: $28/user/month for businesses. $20/user/month for students.
- txxxxd 15y ago
  Same price as a windows laptop but much cheaper to support. For anyone who's the the family tech support guy, it's almost worth buying these for your relatives just so you don't have to deal with cleaning up their malware infected, bloated PCs every 6 months.
  - checker 15y ago
    Amen to that.
  - Hov 15y ago
    Thats silly when you can install Ubuntu on the same laptop and be done with it no?
eggbrain 15y ago
A little pricy for me to be honest. Is an all day battery and 100MB of 3G data a month worth giving up a whole lot of features over a netbook? For some, maybe. But for me, no.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- rryan 15y ago
  Those "features" of your netbook aren't actually features (and some are even anti-features, e.g. viruses, not auto-updating) for someone like my parents, or for students at a school or employees at a business. To start, it seems this is aimed squarely in their direction.
  - eggbrain 15y ago
    This doesn't make sense from a bunch of different perspectives. Yes, with the Chrome computers, you might not get viruses. But that would be the same as if you got any Linux Netbook that they sell, and would still have many more features than the Chromebook. You also bring out a lot of anti-features with the Chromebook as well. When you give this to your parents, and they ask where their little blue "E" is, or where their Spider Solitaire is, what will you say? What about those students and businesses that require to have certain software on their system, that the Chromebook doesn't support? Suddenly you exchange technical problems like getting rid of viruses with explaining how to do things in a new environment, with new rules. And at the end of the day, is it worth it? For me, I'd rather take that $450 dollars (or $350) and buy a fully functional PC that can run all my favorite software and also get me access to the web. That is not to say, however, that I would not buy one in the future. If they brought the cost down ($150 would be almost an instant buy for me), and/or had a fully matured "app" store if you will, I would probably change my mind. But I look at it, and the only key features I see are the great battery life, and free 100MB 3G access a month, and a whole lot of negatives and unanswered questions (Are they going to have bad customer service like they did with the Nexus? Are they going to give up on this like the Wave, or keep pushing it?)
- bxr 15y ago
naner 15y ago
If it is web only wouldn't it be better suited to an iPad form-factor? I would get one if it was around $30/mo and you can trade it in for a newer model every year or two. Better yet if they could figure out how to get unlimited 3G in there cheaply.
- eli 15y ago
  Maybe not trying to out-iPad the iPad is a good thing. You ain't getting a netbook, an apps account, AND unlimited cell data for anywhere near $30/month though.
- Raphael 15y ago
  Typing is an important part of the web.
ChuckMcM 15y ago
Heh, I was amused that on Firefox that Javascript that does that whole stupid "fade in" crap took longer than 8 seconds to load :-). Note to web designers, its not studly its worthless bling, please don't give in to the temptation to do that stuff. From a product perspective it does have some nice benefits for the non-techies. I'd love to get my parents something that they could carry around to read email and view pictures on which wasn't waiting for them to drive by some hijacked site. The pitch about 'let your friend use it' was also clearly the other 'big complaint' about the iPad they are addressing. I hope that means the iPad will get a 'guest' mode where you can hand it to someone without them getting access to your cookies/email etc.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Much more difficult for that to work on iPad. It takes Chrome seconds to sync everything for a particular user. Since iPad apps aren't served on demand ala web apps, you'd have to download every app belong to the guest. Much wasted hard drive space. The iPad will remain a personal device, like a phone.
  - cryptoz 15y ago
    I disagree, actually; it would be simple for a half-solution. A "party mode" for tablets is really really important. I love handing my Xoom around a room full of people for photos but hate that they can see my email widget on my home screen. You don't need to immediately download another users apps. You just need to be able to quickly hide your private info. It would be a mistake for the iPad (or Android tablets) to never get this feature. Edit: In case it's not clear, anyone who looks at my Xoom - without even touching it - can immediately read my first three or four emails. Wonderfully convenient for personal use, terrible for privacy worries.
  - jonknee 15y ago
    I don't think anyone is (yet) asking Apple to support any Mobile Me user to log into any iPad and see all their stuff. Just a way for multiple people to use one. Or for me to be able and make my iPad available to someone without also giving them access to all my email and Dropbox contents. Sort of like OS X...
javanix 15y ago
Google is still planning on making Chrome OS installable on other hardware, right? I already have a thin and light laptop that I'm pretty happy with - hopefully I can install Chrome OS from an image onto it to tinker with.
- ShabbyDoo 15y ago
  I am surprised that Google does not publish a version of the OS which runs on VirtualBox/whatever with special hardware (not even sure what it would be) emulated. Imagine how many software folks would show off the OS running a company's internal apps. Making it easy for potential customers to sell something internally is a cheap and effective sales strategy.
- aj700 15y ago
  http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/ http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/ you can try it now you can try the whole thing on a compatible laptop when the chromiumos builds are the same as the chromeos these ship with.
  - javanix 15y ago
    Is there an official build planned though? Or is Google only planning on supporting "official" hardware?
    - aj700 15y ago
      ChromeOS (not "buildable", pre-shipped) I assume, ONLY on Chromebook and official google devices ChromiumOS, (build or download built) on anything it runs on You can't build the browser Chrome yourself, because that is Google's trademark. But you can build Chromium. There is little difference between ChromeOS and ChromiumOS, so it doesn't matter. What's wrong with something built outside google? Chromium will have all the beta features first, so it'll be better.
      - javanix 15y ago
        I'm not making any value judgements here - I am just wondering whether or not there will be any official way to download an ISO (in the manner of Ubuntu, for insance) of Chrome/Chromium OS and run it on arbitrary hardware. I guess the question really comes down to whether or not Google is planning significant work on the hardware hooks into the OS - will it be possible for manufacturers to write ChromeOS drivers for their devices, or will Google develop that on their own?
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
So does that $28/month/user for businesses include Apps? That's a pretty killer price, if so.
- jackowayed 15y ago
  Well, it's normally $50/year/user, right? So apps is only ~$4/month, meaning the price isn't that different either way.
nkassis 15y ago
Guess I'll have to drive down to the US to get one. Canada is somehow always excluded from new google projects. I'd like them to tell us which laws or limitation cause this. Crappy ISPs and Mobile networks?
- cryptoz 15y ago
  A couple years ago the Google Summer of Code had a restriction on citizens from Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan and Quebec. Language laws, I think, were the culprit in that case. Not sure about this one though.
- robotresearcher 15y ago
  Canada lags because: 1) Small market compared to US, Germany, UK, etc., so not a priority. 2) Service needs to be bilingual.
uniclaude 15y ago
It's a purely personal point of view, but I sincerely think that the CR-48 looked much better than both of those. If Crunchgear is right and those laptops hit the market at 350+ & 425+, I'll regret not having an address in the States back then, when Google was distributing CR-48s ! On a more serious note, I think a worldwide 3G plan would make those laptops very interesting for me.
- lftl 15y ago
  It was barely mentioned in the keynote, but they discussed changing the trackpad from the CR-48, and to me that was practically the biggest announcement of the speech. The CR-48 trackpad is crap. Other than that I would agree with you, it has a very nice feel to it.
pointillistic 15y ago
Can make you phone calls with GVoice on this thing? There might be a lot of value right there.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  I don't see why not.
- fragmede 15y ago
  You can on the CR-48.
hammock 15y ago
It took me a long time of exploring to realize they were talking about a laptop. I was like "Chromebook?" Is it a kindle? Is it an online scrapbook? Is it online literature? edit: why am i being downvoted? because i don't read tech blogs 24/7? because nowhere on the website does it actually say what a chromebook is?
- jonknee 15y ago
  Maybe you're being downvoted because of the large photos of laptops when you hit the heading "Chromebooks"? http://www.google.com/chromebook/#chromebooks http://www.google.com/chromebook/#chromebooks
  - fragmede 15y ago
    > Chromebooks are built and optimized for the web, where you already spend most of your computing time. So you get a faster, simpler and more secure experience without all the headaches of ordinary computers. Their landing text. Assuming we didn't all see the forbes.com piece about this announcement yesterday, that text doesn't tell me a single thing. (Other than Google has a well-paid marketing department.)
- uuilly 15y ago
  They certainly didn't help you with a picture of the hardware. [edit] Being serious. They're selling a computer without showing a picture of it. I was surprised.
  - jonknee 15y ago
    ... Except for all the photos and videos. Well that and how they aren't selling a computer, they're developing an OS.
- ianl 15y ago
  I too was confused by the name, I thought it was a tablet until they showed the laptop in the video. I had actually totally forgotten about ChromeOS until the announcement. That being said, I really like it. For people (and there seems to being a growing number of my friends and acquaintances) who use primarily only web apps this is an awesome idea. I am actually considering buying one for my girlfriend when they come out. Has any pricing information been released?
wiredfool 15y ago
The data service (http://www.google.com/chromebook/#features-connectivity http://www.google.com/chromebook/#features-connectivity) looks nice for people who don't do a ton of streaming. In fact, if chromeos has ssh, it would probably do for my work laptop at something better than a netbook + verizon dongle, and a whole lot cheaper. (well, I think right now it's $60/5gb, and I rarely hit that).
- spiffworks 15y ago
  I think those rates only apply to the CR-48, not to the new devices announced today, because the new ones are also going to Europe, where CDMA is pretty much non-existent.
  - wiredfool 15y ago
    That's not what the site seems to say: Chromebook that have built-in 3G include up to 100MB per month of Mobile Broadband service for 2 years, provided by Verizon Wireless.
    - cstross 15y ago
      Note that Verizon doesn't operate in Europe, and CDMA is just about unheard of over here. According to this CNET report ( http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20061896-266.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20061896-266.html ) chromebooks will be sold in several EU countries, so I assume there'll be a UMTS/HSPA model sold with contracts from various carriers. (It's fairly clear that Google are targeting the same "curated computing" approach as Apple, but via a radically different delivery vehicle -- a netbook-like notebook PC rather than a tablet with a "clean sheet" multitouch user interface. Be interesting to see how the competition shapes up over the next year.)
      - wiredfool 15y ago
        Well, changing the language to Nederlands got me a different page -- one that I can read but I can make sweedish chef like interpretations of. Looks like Dutch users can expect wireless from kpn, with a gig of transfer per (garbled) for free, and then it's 20 euros/200MB. Hell, I should have done the English/uk, They're getting internets from three, and It's 3gig transfer free for the first three months, then pay as you go after.
coffeejunk 15y ago
I'm pretty thrilled that chromebooks will be available in some european countries from launch on.
nextparadigms 15y ago
I was hoping they'd also announce some ARM based notebooks, maybe with the quad core Tegra 3.Performance should at least be similar to the current notebooks, but they would be cheaper and battery would last even more.
- fragmede 15y ago
  Flash on ARM still isn't there yet, unfortunately; by using x86 chips, they can use a much better version of Flash that's available now.
yanw 15y ago
$28/user/month, software + hardware (updates for both) is a good deal.
- ugh 15y ago
  Doesn't that depend on how often you plan to otherwise replace the device? I'm on a three year cycle, consequently $28/month don't seem like a good deal.
- sterling 15y ago
  Why is this a good deal? Isn't it about $1000 for this machine (let's say 3 years of use x $336/year). Tablets and netbooks are a lot less than that.
  - v21 15y ago
    But from a business point of view, looking at an anticipated total cost of ownership, it might be a pretty good deal.
kenjackson 15y ago
I can't imagine anyone buying this and being happy unless they are already intimately familiar with the device ahead of time. Too many limitations, with virtually no big upside functionality or user experience (unlike the iPad that makes up for limitations with some huge upside). As I'd mentioned before I can buy an ASUS Eee PC with an AMD C30 processor for $289 and be able to use the browser of my choice, sync my iPod/iPad/iPhone, play WoW, use Skype, hook it up to my TV in the dorm, use MS Office, Visual Studio, emacs, vim, etc... It just feels like a half-baked implementation. The price point on this needs to be a LOT cheaper. Like $100 or free for a netbook, and make the money up with targeted advertising based on them being locked into Chrome. Otherwise this doesn't seem recommendable.
- jonknee 15y ago
  It's quite obviously not targeted at you. There are people who use computers who don't even know what Emacs or Visual Studio are. They're also the ones who have major troubles keeping their computers working. Google's working on abstracting away the IT guy. I hope it works.
  - PagingCraig 15y ago
    This is true. Why I recommended my sister get a Macbook. If this were out I'd recommend either. Something simple that just works.
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    And those people don't know what Google Docs are either. And when they get an Excel document where charts don't render correctly, or comments are screwed up, or pivot tables don't work against their datasource, they'll be POed. Or when all their friends are playing WoW and they realize that this device doesn't play it. Or when they want to Skype with their grandkids they realize, they can't do that. Or when they take the photo editing class and realize that the laptop doesn't run the software so they trot halfway across campus to use the lab that has the software installed. Or when they go to get all their stuff on iTunes and sync their iPhone with it and realize that they still need their old laptop. Or, or, or... You can't drop this computer on any average Joe. The subset of people I could recommend this to is crazy small -- maybe zero given the price point. Make it $0-$100 and I think we have a really interesting device. But at $300 or $20/month, that's a non-starter. And I should note that I used to be the IT guy for my family and friends. I still am, technically. But it's basically a non-issue nowadays. The only question I've gotten in the past couple of months is someone forgot how to download pictures from her camera. Speaking of which, how well does that work with Chrome (seriously asking)?
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- aj700 15y ago
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzNn3YKbvR4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzNn3YKbvR4 This is as good an overview of the software as I need. Looks good.
tokenadult 15y ago
"* Obviously, you're going to need a wireless network, be willing to use it subject to the provider's terms and conditions, and be ready to put up with its real life limitations including, for example, its speed and availability. When you do not have network access, functionality that depends on it will not be available." http://www.google.com/chromebook/#features http://www.google.com/chromebook/#features That's some very important information to put in a footnote at the bottom of the webpage. I'll have to check network availability in my most common locations before deciding whether or not this is useful for me or one of my children.
- euroclydon 15y ago
  It's a little snarky sounding for corporate speak; kinda like someone at Google rolling their eyes at you.
  - jhamburger 15y ago
    When writing emails at work I often find myself starting sentences with 'Obviously,' and then taking it out later. I find it very rarely necessary.
  - Daniel14 15y ago
    Well, since the whole point of the Chromebook is having (only) the web, needing internet connection might really have seemed obvious to some Google employee. I don't find it condescending.
- jonknee 15y ago
  That was the footnote for the "Always connected" header...
- amouat 15y ago
  It's a web browser - how did you expect to use it?
- RainFlutter 15y ago
  To me it sounds incredibly petulant and defensive, especially considering that it basically contradicts the "always connected" header which it's footnoting. ~Always connected! ~PS OBVIOUSLY this computer will not ACTUALLY be always connected in the REAL WORLD, what were you expecting Really weird of them.
ebiester 15y ago
Perhaps someone with a CR-48 can enlighten me... how does one get their photos from their camera to the cloud on one of these?
- stanleydrew 15y ago
  They went into a bit of detail during the keynote. It's worth checking out a video if you can find one. It's towards the end, in the last 20 minutes. Anyway, the gist is, a web application (say, Picasa, or Facebook) can register as a file handler for certain kinds of file types (say images) and then handle the upload from the client. A little contextual menu comes up when you plug in a sd card or whatever that asks you which (if any) file handler you'd like to deal with the files.
- guywithabike 15y ago
  In the keynote, the demo showed them putting an SD card in the machine and using a file manager to manually select and upload the files to Picasa.
- aj700 15y ago
  with https://picasaweb.google.com/home https://picasaweb.google.com/home as demo'd here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzNn3YKbvR4&feature=player_detailpage#t=60s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzNn3YKbvR4&feature=playe...
r00fus 15y ago
Something that's not confidence inspiring from the site: "Get everything you need directly from Google, including support - online, email and phone." Contrast with the current CEO's views on support http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/mf_larrypage/3/ http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/mf_larrypage/3/ "...Denise Griffin, the person in charge of Google’s small customer-support team, asked Page for a larger staff. Instead, he told her that the whole idea of customer support was ridiculous. ..." If Google is truly going to support these devices, they're going to need a paradigm shift from Page's pre-existing "support doesn't scale" attitude... and bring their A-game.
blhack 15y ago
Am I missing something here? It's ~$400 for a laptop, then $28/mo to use it? What are you getting from this that I'm not already getting for free from google? Or is it $28/mo and the hardware is free...?
- jahmed 15y ago
  You can buy one for $400ish. For Google Apps for Business you can get them for $28 per user per month, this includes the hardware and periodic hardware refreshes.
jasongullickson 15y ago
It's like the litl plus 3G but minus the clever industrial design (and two years later) http://litl.com http://litl.com
icandoitbetter 15y ago
So is there an initial fee apart from the $20/28 per month?
guywithabike 15y ago
How well would the interactive music video they demoed work on these?
aj700 15y ago
One big point about this, esp if it takes off. It answers a big question: How do you get J. Random User to use Linux? Don't call it Linux. Don't make it look like Linux. And Chrome for Windows synced over to an identical looking ChromeOS means he's escaped Microsoft lockin without even knowing it.
- cryptoz 15y ago
  > Don't call it Linux. That happened a long time ago. Google is already activating 400,000 Linux computers every single day for people all around the world. They call it Android.
  - aj700 15y ago
    Yes. I meant get them to use it on a desktop computer. A computer that goes in your pocket is not, to my generation, "a computer", it's "a mobile device". If it's not a fullsize or laptop x86 machine (or sparc or whatever, not ARM) it's not "a computer".
    - cryptoz 15y ago
      So my dual core 10" Android tablet isn't a computer? The one with two cameras, one able to film 720p video, incredible 3D graphics abilities, video editing software preinstalled, voice-activated search and email dictation, crazy awesome Google Earth experience? The one that I can use my hands to paint pictures, watch live TV broadcasts (video out to big screens!), point at the sky and see what planets and stars I'm looking at, watch YouTube videos, record barometer data, write code and listen to music? You, sir, are living in the past. (Sure, the tablets aren't shipping in the hundreds of thousands per day. But they will be soon)
      - aj700 15y ago
        Your tablet is a computer. But it's not what I call "a computer" with quotes. I'm not living in the past. I was just born long ago in it. The commonly accepted meaning of words and phrases will change during your life too. My mother would probably call your tablet "an ipad" because she understands the equivalence even less and would use a genericized trademark.
ansy 15y ago
The Chromebook has a lot of parallels with the electric car. For a lot of people it is a real improvement for the normal routine, but there are a few use cases outside that routine for which it just won't work. ChromeOS has a lot of potential in institutional settings (much like the electric car) where corner cases don't exist or there can be a small handful of special purpose machines for those cases. IT costs for most organizations would plummet and manageability would go up significantly. I can't imagine how much money and software is used to lock down and secure Windows machines and back up data nine different ways. And subsequently how much is spent recovering or mitigating the loss / theft of sensitive data.
runjake 15y ago
- browses web? check. - runs the latest fad games, like Angry Birds (and more soon thanks to WebGL)? check. - can connect digital camera and upload photos? check. - can browse facebook, twitter, youtube, gmail, hotmail, etc? check - can play flash games & netflix, hulu, & other crap? check. This will satisfy the needs of all my immediate non-techy family members. And I won't get the monthly calls about malware anymore.
- ippisl 15y ago
  So why don't you just install something like deepfreeze(or it's competitors) and be done with the support calls ? Deepfreeze basically starts before the os and returns the computer to a frozen state you defined. it's used in libraries and internet cafes and schools , and seem to work pretty well. This way you get: no support calls + better experience to family(apps, better privacy, known interface) + less risk and more control on the solutions you offer.
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  Can this put music on an MP3 player? Just how is the real filesystem abstracted away in Chrome OS? If you buy music from Amazon MP3, can you run their downloader? (If you buy music from iTunes, I am pretty sure you are SOL already. ;) ) There's a lot of uses that still require a real, local desktop, and I think once you give this to all of your non-techy family members you'll start to run into them. I don't understand why those complaining about maintaining Windows don't just put on Ubuntu. LibreOffice is certainly more familiar to Office users and more compatible with existing Office documents than Google Docs. If you haven't considered Ubuntu yet, why do you consider Chrome OS? It's not very hard to teach even the least technically literate person that they just need to click the big multi-colored circle to get to the internet, so it seems weird that abstracting that one step away makes everyone go wild about giving their mom a Chromebook.
  - spiffworks 15y ago
    It's all the other nonsense that comes along with managing a typical PC that's the problem. System update every so often, upgrade the system every six months, driver problem with graphics, an endless stream of support requests. On the Windows side, its even worse. I shudder every time I see my Mom's Windows install after a gap of a few months - only half the screen is visible in Firefox because of all the malicious toolbars that got installed in the meantime. An iPad would actually be perfect, but its not as affordable(at least for some models). I'm getting the Acer model for my parents when this comes out.
pjy04 15y ago
It's called getting an SSD...
jgv 15y ago
I think there's a bug at http://www.google.com/chromebook/#support http://www.google.com/chromebook/#support When I click on "Guided Tour" and then try to watch the video, the lightbox closes. Seems like its registering the mouseclick as a click outside the lightbox. I'm using the most recent version of Chrome 11. Anyone else?
pw 15y ago
"3G-enabled Chromebooks connect to the web using blazing-fast mobile data networks" Eh, "blazing-fast" might overselling things a bit.
- ZeroGravitas 15y ago
  I wonder if they'll offer an Opera Turbo style proxy to compress sites with SPDY and WebP etc. for Chromebook users?
Jun8 15y ago
I am frustrated by the fact that I have to buy it in a hardware-packaged form, why can't I just download Chrome OS to an older laptop to experiment (like I do with Linux distros)? I guess at this stage the OS is flimsy enough that they need to control all aspects of hardware. Also, the support & distribution thing from Google doesn't work, we have already seen it with G1. Why do they want to repeat the mistake?
- abronte 15y ago
  Chrome OS is open source http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os A quick search in google you can find tutorials on how to run it on your own hardware.
  - Jun8 15y ago
    Not so easy! Currently most people use a build by Hexxeh, which is a slightly tweaked version of Chrome. Installation is nowhere as easy as, say, Ubuntu. I don't understand why I need to use builds from third parties rather than directly from Google?
arihant 15y ago
Interesting. But with the functionality mentioned above, as a student I would rather buy an iPad with hook-in keyboard. If this device is available in similar form factor, I might consider. Just a thought. I'd still buy one of these. I think the cost of the device should be low, most people in 2011 will buy these as an add-on gadget rather than one-sto-shop. I don't know of many add-on gadgets being massively popular while costing more than $250. I don't think this is a PC, this is an internet window. What google probably chose wrong was the netbook form factor. It's an internet window which looks like a PC, specially the one that Steve Jobs trashed at iPad launch.
mbertrand 15y ago
I'd be interested to see if we'll see similar models emerge from other manufacturers biz in the near future. Is an interesting concept and with a feature set and price point that will appeal to the masses.
headShrinker 15y ago
Manufactures: Samsung or Acer? No thanks. Reliance on current shit telecom network? No thanks.
aj700 15y ago
http://www.thechromesource.com/google-io-chrome-keynote-liveblog/ http://www.thechromesource.com/google-io-chrome-keynote-live...
zoba 15y ago
Does anyone know if a monthly subscription is required to have one of these? I've already got laptops that work and I'm not interested in paying a monthly fee for something that doesn't do everything I want it to, when I wont even be using it 100% of the time. In fact, I hate monthly fees on just about everything.
ellyagg 15y ago
So, you can get a full featured eeepc for the same price as a chromebook, but google expects people to pay just as must because (I guess?) it's so simple to use and doesn't have viruses? I don't think that's how normal people buy things. People don't want simple for simple's sake. They want good design. People do want features. They do want power. They will not choose a less powerful solution because of vague imputed simplicity. As far as I can tell, the only simplicity benefits a chromebook has to offer is by providing strictly less features. The ipad, although superficially similar to a chromebook in some senses, is a completely different product. Its design, both software and hardware, is utterly and completely unlike chromebook. You won't get far extrapolating ipad's success to chromebook. Microsoft would not be able to sell a version of Word without print capabilities, even though it would be slightly simpler. No one would buy it obviously. I think a lot of technically oriented people have the wrong idea about what constitutes a valuable trade-off between simplicity and power in a product. Like I mentioned, people want well-designed. Chromebook is an uncanny valley netbook, and it will be a disappointment. Unless I'm wrong. :) PS - Another thing technically literate folks overestimate due to tribulations of the past is the extent to which viruses continue to be a nuisance.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- haberman 15y ago
  Features: - boots in 8 seconds - updates itself without bothering you - battery that lasts all day - backups taken care of (all data is in the cloud) - built-in 3G with 100MB/month included - doesn't get viruses
  - ellyagg 15y ago
    Right, so not very compelling. - Boots in 8 seconds: Why power off your laptop? I don't nor anyone I know. - Updates itself without bothering you: Low value. - Battery lasts all day: This is strong, if verified. - Backups taken care of: Implications are mixed at best. - Built-in 3G: This is probably stronger than some will give credit. - Doesn't get viruses: As I suggested above, low value. I was aware of these, of course. Still don't think it overcomes massive loss of power and features.
wslh 15y ago
I prefer a TV :-(
conradboyle 15y ago
"In the near future, you’ll also be able to run traditional software remotely on our Chrome notebook. Companies like Citrix are developing solutions that will be available in the Web Store, and we are developing a free service called Chromoting that will enable Chrome notebook users to remotely access their existing PCs and Macs." I wonder what the timeline is on this, and if it will be frustratingly slow vs. a netbook.
DTrejo 15y ago
direct link to app: http://chrome.angrybirds.com/ http://chrome.angrybirds.com/
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
83457 15y ago
I wonder if an OnLive client is on the way. That would provide a lot of gaming options that will not be available through browsers for years.
defroost 15y ago
Just what we need: Google involved in more aspects of our lives. No thank you. Nothing against Google per se, but letting any huge corporate conglomerate control the majority of your data seems foolish. I use OS X as it has the perfect mix of Unixy goodness where superb OSS developer tools run great, graphics tools like Photoshop, and VMWare for Linux. Honestly, it is such a good platform, I cannot for the life of me think of a use-case for Chromebook. I'm actually a bit shocked that many HN users seem to be touting this thing as something revolutionary and/or desirable.
bergie 15y ago
I find it interesting that most comments here mirror the classic Slashdot iPod review: No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame. I think this isn't targeted at the classic computer market, the one that Steve Jobs said is like like trucks. instead, it is an attempt at building a computer market that is closer to general appliances, like TVs or cell phones. Quite similar to iPad's approach, but with more focus on productivity and the web. Whether it works will depend a lot on marketing, and also on us hackers creating the compelling web ecosystem. I already mostly live just in the browser and many do the same, so maybe the world is ready for this. We'll see
- bbest86 15y ago
  While I think there's a market here, I wonder if the Chromebook will feel enough like a separate appliance to make inroads. The iPad feels like something different - a Chromebook just feels like a laptop. To me the marketing feels too much like a laptop that can only access the web than something completely different that is compelling to the average consumer.
- ellyagg 15y ago
  I don't think so. I think people are well aware of what these trade-offs hope to accomplish, but don't feel it'll pan out with the consumer market. Just because someone radically rebalances features in a device doesn't mean it's going to be a winner. We'll see. Part of the difference is that with ipod, apple had no other incentive for its design than to make consumers happy and thus get money. That isn't even close to the case here. Google has strategic objectives, and it hopes to promote those aims with chromebook. Google has a ton of bias distorting its vision as to what will excite users.
hajrice 15y ago
If only you could code on it...
sterling 15y ago
My first reaction to this was: creepy. The sales pitch is creepy - telling us in the best newspeak that less is more. The sales language is creepy, describing how much more "secure" a machine is because it only browses the web. The sales video has the smell of a lecture, with a message that hints at Big Brother. The layout of the product page is even creepy, with all kinds of colors and icon styles. Google doesn't want to add value to anything here. They want control, and they are playing catch up with the iPad. This is the textbook way to run business, and it will fail.
kmod 15y ago
Based on my experiences with the CR-48 (which I used extensively for a few months), I have to suggest that you not get one of these laptops. Basically, ChromeOS is great, but using Atom processors is simply unacceptable for the tasks that they advertise. The only thing the CR-48 can do well is viewing static content -- and I mean truly static! Scrolling around on an otherwise-static web page is far to dynamic for it to handle. Want to play flash? Yeah right. These new models have dual-core atoms, which will help, but mostly it's just the awful single-core performance that gets you. Even tying emails in gmail was an extremely painful experience; often the characters on the screen would lag significantly behind my tying, and it would take forever to load the different pages. I don't think anyone is arguing that you can use these things for "real work". I'm going to argue that if you care about your time, you can't even use these things for any of the other stuff they advertise. Unless the new processors are significantly better, I'd say get something else.
- ElliotH 15y ago
  Atom processor in my year old netbook handles scrolling and gmail easily, and flash tolerably. Is there not a chance that these things have improved?
- peregrine 15y ago
  That's really strange because I've had the opposite experience. I use ssh for most of my work. I can play hulu videos in 280p, I can view almost all pages and content slowdown free. The cavet being I cannot run hundreds of tabs, I usually keep it around 5, and when I'm on a flashy website it slows everything down. Its getting better almost everyday though and now I can almost watch hulu videos in 480p.
run4yourlives 15y ago
I'm not really seeing how this wins in the "computer as appliance" market when the competition is the iPad, the Playbook and all the other imitators... Am I missing something here? Why wouldn't you just purchase an iPad?
- dunSHATmyself 15y ago
  Because it's not an iPad?
  - run4yourlives 15y ago
    Well, I wouldn't be betting my shares on that particular marketing point.
- tjmc 15y ago
  Very good question. The Chromebook hardware is completely uninspiring. They just look like cheap corporate laptops. Not surprising given that Google are basically embracing the Microsoft model of leaving the hardware to the usual suspects.
- jeffgreco 15y ago
  A new iPad costs (quite a bit) more?
alinspired 15y ago
is there a dedicated screen for always on advertisement yet ? :) And seriously I'd need at least ssh and rdp clients on this to even consider it
slowpoison 15y ago
I see a lot of criticisms here but it was apparent in the presentation today that Google is targeting this mainly towards business, organizations and schools. Their selling point is elimination (or significant reduction) of the maintenance and support that the IT infrastructure requires.
dmazin 15y ago
As an owner as one of the CR-48 test units, let me just tell you that I can get on the internet quicker on my three-year-old MacBook than this thing. The MacBook is connected to WiFi by the time I'm logged in from sleep. Not so with the CR-48. However, the 100 free megabytes of 3G per month is nice. I've used about 400kb total since December.
danbmil99 15y ago
been beta testing this thing for a few months (at least something very similar). There are issues. And no webGL
becomevocal 15y ago
I see enormous potential here for SaaS startups dealing with businesses to ease 1) initial hardware costs for a computer with a competent browser, and 2) support issues from hardware / software fragmentation. You can now give businesses an option that doesn't light the checkbook on fire while supporting all the bleeding edge web technologies we all wish were more widely supported. Sounds pretty awesome to me.
pippy 15y ago
With Google competing with Microsoft for the Lower to mid range market, Microsoft will have corporate competition on a large sector of their traditionally cornered market. It's going to be an amazing next 10 years for the desktop and web technologies. Late 90's/early 2000's progress was impeded by the Microsoft monopoly. Even better Chromium listening to what Developers want, the web will move forward at a staggering pace. Combined with the realization of interface importance, mind blowing UI hardware improvements are already happening. I'm usually cynical, but this really may usher in the golden age of computing.
kloncks 15y ago
Google is such an interesting company. Compare this page with an Apple page trying to sell a product: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/ http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/ or http://www.apple.com/ipod http://www.apple.com/ipod There's absolutely no comparison. My non-technical friends (heck, even me) are just absolutely more receptive towards that second page. For all of Google's resources as a gargantuan company...can't they just find some small dash of good design somewhere? (Not bashing Chrome OS. Looks absolutely wonderful. This is just what I thought when I visited the page...and HN sometimes is for nitpicking :)
- spot 15y ago
  This is the page you should be comparing to: http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/chromebook http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/chromebook
larrywright 15y ago
If this thing could run Emacs, I might be tempted to get one.

446 points by atularora 15y ago

That samsung version looks very nice and 8.5 hours of continuous usage is killer. However, I won't be trading in my brand new Macbook Air 13" any time soon. It doesn't mention harddrive specs because this is supposed to be a "cloud computer." However, it definitely has a harddrive and I wonder if it is a SSD or regular spinning disc drive.

shrikant 15y ago
Should be an SSD, as they also tout a startup time of 8 seconds.
- digitalnalogika 15y ago
  It's probably something really small. Official video mentions external storage (USB flash drive) if you "want to work with files".
  - rryan 15y ago
    The Google I/O keynote certainly did not imply you need external storage to work with files. Others are saying it's 16GB.
larrik 15y ago
Why does it have to have a harddrive? The thing can run off an SD card, in theory. I used to sell thin clients that ran off of CompactFlash cards. (they ran a version of XP, too)
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Boot time.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
shii 15y ago
If it's anything like the CR-48s, it'll have a decent sized SSD. I own a CR-48, and I believe the capacity is something like 80 gb, but I can't confirm right now. It's very fast to boot. Basically instant, I open, it's booted.
evilduck 15y ago
The Cr-48 has a 16GB SSD, uses a 5GB partition for the standard OS, and another 5GB partition to restore the first with, plus some free space leftover that's basically unused if you don't tinker with it. Since ChromeOS is still pretty deficient at file management (even for picture uploading and such), I don't see any reason why they'd provide bigger hard drives unless they were intended to dual boot.
kewley 15y ago
Amazon is listing 16GB SSD. http://www.amazon.com/chromebook http://www.amazon.com/chromebook
ChuckMcM 15y ago
If I were to guess, since Google also just announced programmatic access to 'cloud' storage they are going to create your 'hard disk' in their cloud. Then will be a win for the consumer because if the device is destroyed it won't lose "your" data. It also allows international travellers to have two of them, one at home and one abroad. They don't have to carry one through customs and subject it to an unreasonable search by border agents. For a small number of people this will be a good value. (I know it assumes you trust the Google cloud more than you trust DHS but that isn't too big of a stretch)

digitalnalogika 15y ago

Have they published price of these laptops anywhere? I can't find any info at Amazon/BestBuy or official website http://www.google.com/chromebook/chromebooks.html http://www.google.com/chromebook/chromebooks.html

jbyers 15y ago
CrunchGear lists prices. $350+ for the Acer, $425+ for the Samsung: http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/05/11/the-google-chromebook-breaks-cover-at-io-2011/ http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/05/11/the-google-chromebook-b...
lallysingh 15y ago
$28/month/user with Google Apps & Support for business $20/month/user for students. (from the Engadget live feed)
- PagingCraig 15y ago
  I can't see the laptop itself not costing anything. The per month is on top of the laptop cost I take it?
  - martin_k 15y ago
    No, for businesses or schools this is a monthly price that includes software and hardware updates.

swah 15y ago

Oddly, the first video was played for me with Dutch subtitles.

phlux 15y ago

This is a game changer. I plan to get one for my 6 year old daughter. I have started her on Khan academy for math (I have been watching the vids myself - they are fantastic)

apl 15y ago
Not intrinsically, no. EDIT: Just for the record, before the OP edited his entry, it simply said "This is a game changer" which I consider an exaggeration. Of course, I can see how it makes for a nice children-appropriate machine, but that's not something new and exclusive to Chrome OS.
- phlux 15y ago
  Yes, I immediately saw I needed to put some context into that statement :) Also - this announcement I think is great, see my comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2535230 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2535230 which I made last night. The thing is that we will see a fundamental shift in how people compute in the next 18 months. The questions are going to be very interesting relating to data security and privacy, though. We just saw that the NSA captures the equivalent of a Library of Congress in data every 6 hours. The amount that google will potentially capture through the chromebook system will be amazing. They are planning other services as well that will enable these books in the long term. The question about who will be a more valuable / viable company between facebook and google are now clearly ridiculous. Facebook will have a tough time coming anywhere near as influential as google from an infrastructure perspective alone. Facebook will be a valuable service portal for a long time - but it will have to fundamentally shift in a big way to become a global computing infrastructure provider -- and it simply is not in its DNA -- Zuck < Page/Brin. I think the next revolution for the chromebook will be the web-app market that will be put on top of it. It will be interesting to see (and participate) in the building of the various lenses that you can view the web through on these things: Education Lens: Like Khan Academy on Steroids Business Lens: Business Productivity Suite Healthcare Lens: All the EHR/PHR point of care service apps Good times ahead.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

smackfu 15y ago

They don't seem to be priced any better than similar Windows machines, although it's hard to find exact comparisons since most things with Atom processors only go up to 10" screens.

yanw 15y ago
I think it will be mainly distributed through the subscription model: $28/user/month for businesses. $20/user/month for students.
txxxxd 15y ago
Same price as a windows laptop but much cheaper to support. For anyone who's the the family tech support guy, it's almost worth buying these for your relatives just so you don't have to deal with cleaning up their malware infected, bloated PCs every 6 months.
- checker 15y ago
  Amen to that.
- Hov 15y ago
  Thats silly when you can install Ubuntu on the same laptop and be done with it no?

eggbrain 15y ago

A little pricy for me to be honest. Is an all day battery and 100MB of 3G data a month worth giving up a whole lot of features over a netbook? For some, maybe. But for me, no.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
rryan 15y ago
Those "features" of your netbook aren't actually features (and some are even anti-features, e.g. viruses, not auto-updating) for someone like my parents, or for students at a school or employees at a business. To start, it seems this is aimed squarely in their direction.
- eggbrain 15y ago
  This doesn't make sense from a bunch of different perspectives. Yes, with the Chrome computers, you might not get viruses. But that would be the same as if you got any Linux Netbook that they sell, and would still have many more features than the Chromebook. You also bring out a lot of anti-features with the Chromebook as well. When you give this to your parents, and they ask where their little blue "E" is, or where their Spider Solitaire is, what will you say? What about those students and businesses that require to have certain software on their system, that the Chromebook doesn't support? Suddenly you exchange technical problems like getting rid of viruses with explaining how to do things in a new environment, with new rules. And at the end of the day, is it worth it? For me, I'd rather take that $450 dollars (or $350) and buy a fully functional PC that can run all my favorite software and also get me access to the web. That is not to say, however, that I would not buy one in the future. If they brought the cost down ($150 would be almost an instant buy for me), and/or had a fully matured "app" store if you will, I would probably change my mind. But I look at it, and the only key features I see are the great battery life, and free 100MB 3G access a month, and a whole lot of negatives and unanswered questions (Are they going to have bad customer service like they did with the Nexus? Are they going to give up on this like the Wave, or keep pushing it?)
bxr 15y ago

naner 15y ago

If it is web only wouldn't it be better suited to an iPad form-factor? I would get one if it was around $30/mo and you can trade it in for a newer model every year or two. Better yet if they could figure out how to get unlimited 3G in there cheaply.

eli 15y ago
Maybe not trying to out-iPad the iPad is a good thing. You ain't getting a netbook, an apps account, AND unlimited cell data for anywhere near $30/month though.
Raphael 15y ago
Typing is an important part of the web.

ChuckMcM 15y ago

Heh, I was amused that on Firefox that Javascript that does that whole stupid "fade in" crap took longer than 8 seconds to load :-). Note to web designers, its not studly its worthless bling, please don't give in to the temptation to do that stuff. From a product perspective it does have some nice benefits for the non-techies. I'd love to get my parents something that they could carry around to read email and view pictures on which wasn't waiting for them to drive by some hijacked site. The pitch about 'let your friend use it' was also clearly the other 'big complaint' about the iPad they are addressing. I hope that means the iPad will get a 'guest' mode where you can hand it to someone without them getting access to your cookies/email etc.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Much more difficult for that to work on iPad. It takes Chrome seconds to sync everything for a particular user. Since iPad apps aren't served on demand ala web apps, you'd have to download every app belong to the guest. Much wasted hard drive space. The iPad will remain a personal device, like a phone.
- cryptoz 15y ago
  I disagree, actually; it would be simple for a half-solution. A "party mode" for tablets is really really important. I love handing my Xoom around a room full of people for photos but hate that they can see my email widget on my home screen. You don't need to immediately download another users apps. You just need to be able to quickly hide your private info. It would be a mistake for the iPad (or Android tablets) to never get this feature. Edit: In case it's not clear, anyone who looks at my Xoom - without even touching it - can immediately read my first three or four emails. Wonderfully convenient for personal use, terrible for privacy worries.
- jonknee 15y ago
  I don't think anyone is (yet) asking Apple to support any Mobile Me user to log into any iPad and see all their stuff. Just a way for multiple people to use one. Or for me to be able and make my iPad available to someone without also giving them access to all my email and Dropbox contents. Sort of like OS X...

javanix 15y ago

Google is still planning on making Chrome OS installable on other hardware, right? I already have a thin and light laptop that I'm pretty happy with - hopefully I can install Chrome OS from an image onto it to tinker with.

ShabbyDoo 15y ago
I am surprised that Google does not publish a version of the OS which runs on VirtualBox/whatever with special hardware (not even sure what it would be) emulated. Imagine how many software folks would show off the OS running a company's internal apps. Making it easy for potential customers to sell something internally is a cheap and effective sales strategy.
aj700 15y ago
http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/ http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/ you can try it now you can try the whole thing on a compatible laptop when the chromiumos builds are the same as the chromeos these ship with.
- javanix 15y ago
  Is there an official build planned though? Or is Google only planning on supporting "official" hardware?
  - aj700 15y ago
    ChromeOS (not "buildable", pre-shipped) I assume, ONLY on Chromebook and official google devices ChromiumOS, (build or download built) on anything it runs on You can't build the browser Chrome yourself, because that is Google's trademark. But you can build Chromium. There is little difference between ChromeOS and ChromiumOS, so it doesn't matter. What's wrong with something built outside google? Chromium will have all the beta features first, so it'll be better.
    - javanix 15y ago
      I'm not making any value judgements here - I am just wondering whether or not there will be any official way to download an ISO (in the manner of Ubuntu, for insance) of Chrome/Chromium OS and run it on arbitrary hardware. I guess the question really comes down to whether or not Google is planning significant work on the hardware hooks into the OS - will it be possible for manufacturers to write ChromeOS drivers for their devices, or will Google develop that on their own?

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

So does that $28/month/user for businesses include Apps? That's a pretty killer price, if so.

jackowayed 15y ago
Well, it's normally $50/year/user, right? So apps is only ~$4/month, meaning the price isn't that different either way.

nkassis 15y ago

Guess I'll have to drive down to the US to get one. Canada is somehow always excluded from new google projects. I'd like them to tell us which laws or limitation cause this. Crappy ISPs and Mobile networks?

cryptoz 15y ago
A couple years ago the Google Summer of Code had a restriction on citizens from Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan and Quebec. Language laws, I think, were the culprit in that case. Not sure about this one though.
robotresearcher 15y ago
Canada lags because: 1) Small market compared to US, Germany, UK, etc., so not a priority. 2) Service needs to be bilingual.

uniclaude 15y ago

It's a purely personal point of view, but I sincerely think that the CR-48 looked much better than both of those. If Crunchgear is right and those laptops hit the market at 350+ & 425+, I'll regret not having an address in the States back then, when Google was distributing CR-48s ! On a more serious note, I think a worldwide 3G plan would make those laptops very interesting for me.

lftl 15y ago
It was barely mentioned in the keynote, but they discussed changing the trackpad from the CR-48, and to me that was practically the biggest announcement of the speech. The CR-48 trackpad is crap. Other than that I would agree with you, it has a very nice feel to it.

pointillistic 15y ago

Can make you phone calls with GVoice on this thing? There might be a lot of value right there.

nextparadigms 15y ago
I don't see why not.
fragmede 15y ago
You can on the CR-48.

hammock 15y ago

It took me a long time of exploring to realize they were talking about a laptop. I was like "Chromebook?" Is it a kindle? Is it an online scrapbook? Is it online literature? edit: why am i being downvoted? because i don't read tech blogs 24/7? because nowhere on the website does it actually say what a chromebook is?

jonknee 15y ago
Maybe you're being downvoted because of the large photos of laptops when you hit the heading "Chromebooks"? http://www.google.com/chromebook/#chromebooks http://www.google.com/chromebook/#chromebooks
- fragmede 15y ago
  > Chromebooks are built and optimized for the web, where you already spend most of your computing time. So you get a faster, simpler and more secure experience without all the headaches of ordinary computers. Their landing text. Assuming we didn't all see the forbes.com piece about this announcement yesterday, that text doesn't tell me a single thing. (Other than Google has a well-paid marketing department.)
uuilly 15y ago
They certainly didn't help you with a picture of the hardware. [edit] Being serious. They're selling a computer without showing a picture of it. I was surprised.
- jonknee 15y ago
  ... Except for all the photos and videos. Well that and how they aren't selling a computer, they're developing an OS.
ianl 15y ago
I too was confused by the name, I thought it was a tablet until they showed the laptop in the video. I had actually totally forgotten about ChromeOS until the announcement. That being said, I really like it. For people (and there seems to being a growing number of my friends and acquaintances) who use primarily only web apps this is an awesome idea. I am actually considering buying one for my girlfriend when they come out. Has any pricing information been released?

wiredfool 15y ago

The data service (http://www.google.com/chromebook/#features-connectivity http://www.google.com/chromebook/#features-connectivity) looks nice for people who don't do a ton of streaming. In fact, if chromeos has ssh, it would probably do for my work laptop at something better than a netbook + verizon dongle, and a whole lot cheaper. (well, I think right now it's $60/5gb, and I rarely hit that).

spiffworks 15y ago
I think those rates only apply to the CR-48, not to the new devices announced today, because the new ones are also going to Europe, where CDMA is pretty much non-existent.
- wiredfool 15y ago
  That's not what the site seems to say: Chromebook that have built-in 3G include up to 100MB per month of Mobile Broadband service for 2 years, provided by Verizon Wireless.
  - cstross 15y ago
    Note that Verizon doesn't operate in Europe, and CDMA is just about unheard of over here. According to this CNET report ( http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20061896-266.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20061896-266.html ) chromebooks will be sold in several EU countries, so I assume there'll be a UMTS/HSPA model sold with contracts from various carriers. (It's fairly clear that Google are targeting the same "curated computing" approach as Apple, but via a radically different delivery vehicle -- a netbook-like notebook PC rather than a tablet with a "clean sheet" multitouch user interface. Be interesting to see how the competition shapes up over the next year.)
    - wiredfool 15y ago
      Well, changing the language to Nederlands got me a different page -- one that I can read but I can make sweedish chef like interpretations of. Looks like Dutch users can expect wireless from kpn, with a gig of transfer per (garbled) for free, and then it's 20 euros/200MB. Hell, I should have done the English/uk, They're getting internets from three, and It's 3gig transfer free for the first three months, then pay as you go after.

coffeejunk 15y ago

I'm pretty thrilled that chromebooks will be available in some european countries from launch on.

nextparadigms 15y ago

I was hoping they'd also announce some ARM based notebooks, maybe with the quad core Tegra 3.Performance should at least be similar to the current notebooks, but they would be cheaper and battery would last even more.

fragmede 15y ago
Flash on ARM still isn't there yet, unfortunately; by using x86 chips, they can use a much better version of Flash that's available now.

yanw 15y ago

$28/user/month, software + hardware (updates for both) is a good deal.

ugh 15y ago
Doesn't that depend on how often you plan to otherwise replace the device? I'm on a three year cycle, consequently $28/month don't seem like a good deal.
sterling 15y ago
Why is this a good deal? Isn't it about $1000 for this machine (let's say 3 years of use x $336/year). Tablets and netbooks are a lot less than that.
- v21 15y ago
  But from a business point of view, looking at an anticipated total cost of ownership, it might be a pretty good deal.

kenjackson 15y ago

I can't imagine anyone buying this and being happy unless they are already intimately familiar with the device ahead of time. Too many limitations, with virtually no big upside functionality or user experience (unlike the iPad that makes up for limitations with some huge upside). As I'd mentioned before I can buy an ASUS Eee PC with an AMD C30 processor for $289 and be able to use the browser of my choice, sync my iPod/iPad/iPhone, play WoW, use Skype, hook it up to my TV in the dorm, use MS Office, Visual Studio, emacs, vim, etc... It just feels like a half-baked implementation. The price point on this needs to be a LOT cheaper. Like $100 or free for a netbook, and make the money up with targeted advertising based on them being locked into Chrome. Otherwise this doesn't seem recommendable.

jonknee 15y ago
It's quite obviously not targeted at you. There are people who use computers who don't even know what Emacs or Visual Studio are. They're also the ones who have major troubles keeping their computers working. Google's working on abstracting away the IT guy. I hope it works.
- PagingCraig 15y ago
  This is true. Why I recommended my sister get a Macbook. If this were out I'd recommend either. Something simple that just works.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  And those people don't know what Google Docs are either. And when they get an Excel document where charts don't render correctly, or comments are screwed up, or pivot tables don't work against their datasource, they'll be POed. Or when all their friends are playing WoW and they realize that this device doesn't play it. Or when they want to Skype with their grandkids they realize, they can't do that. Or when they take the photo editing class and realize that the laptop doesn't run the software so they trot halfway across campus to use the lab that has the software installed. Or when they go to get all their stuff on iTunes and sync their iPhone with it and realize that they still need their old laptop. Or, or, or... You can't drop this computer on any average Joe. The subset of people I could recommend this to is crazy small -- maybe zero given the price point. Make it $0-$100 and I think we have a really interesting device. But at $300 or $20/month, that's a non-starter. And I should note that I used to be the IT guy for my family and friends. I still am, technically. But it's basically a non-issue nowadays. The only question I've gotten in the past couple of months is someone forgot how to download pictures from her camera. Speaking of which, how well does that work with Chrome (seriously asking)?

deleted 15y ago

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aj700 15y ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzNn3YKbvR4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzNn3YKbvR4 This is as good an overview of the software as I need. Looks good.

tokenadult 15y ago

"* Obviously, you're going to need a wireless network, be willing to use it subject to the provider's terms and conditions, and be ready to put up with its real life limitations including, for example, its speed and availability. When you do not have network access, functionality that depends on it will not be available." http://www.google.com/chromebook/#features http://www.google.com/chromebook/#features That's some very important information to put in a footnote at the bottom of the webpage. I'll have to check network availability in my most common locations before deciding whether or not this is useful for me or one of my children.

euroclydon 15y ago
It's a little snarky sounding for corporate speak; kinda like someone at Google rolling their eyes at you.
- jhamburger 15y ago
  When writing emails at work I often find myself starting sentences with 'Obviously,' and then taking it out later. I find it very rarely necessary.
- Daniel14 15y ago
  Well, since the whole point of the Chromebook is having (only) the web, needing internet connection might really have seemed obvious to some Google employee. I don't find it condescending.
jonknee 15y ago
That was the footnote for the "Always connected" header...
amouat 15y ago
It's a web browser - how did you expect to use it?
RainFlutter 15y ago
To me it sounds incredibly petulant and defensive, especially considering that it basically contradicts the "always connected" header which it's footnoting. ~Always connected! ~PS OBVIOUSLY this computer will not ACTUALLY be always connected in the REAL WORLD, what were you expecting Really weird of them.

ebiester 15y ago

Perhaps someone with a CR-48 can enlighten me... how does one get their photos from their camera to the cloud on one of these?

stanleydrew 15y ago
They went into a bit of detail during the keynote. It's worth checking out a video if you can find one. It's towards the end, in the last 20 minutes. Anyway, the gist is, a web application (say, Picasa, or Facebook) can register as a file handler for certain kinds of file types (say images) and then handle the upload from the client. A little contextual menu comes up when you plug in a sd card or whatever that asks you which (if any) file handler you'd like to deal with the files.
guywithabike 15y ago
In the keynote, the demo showed them putting an SD card in the machine and using a file manager to manually select and upload the files to Picasa.
aj700 15y ago
with https://picasaweb.google.com/home https://picasaweb.google.com/home as demo'd here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzNn3YKbvR4&feature=player_detailpage#t=60s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzNn3YKbvR4&feature=playe...

r00fus 15y ago

Something that's not confidence inspiring from the site: "Get everything you need directly from Google, including support - online, email and phone." Contrast with the current CEO's views on support http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/mf_larrypage/3/ http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/mf_larrypage/3/ "...Denise Griffin, the person in charge of Google’s small customer-support team, asked Page for a larger staff. Instead, he told her that the whole idea of customer support was ridiculous. ..." If Google is truly going to support these devices, they're going to need a paradigm shift from Page's pre-existing "support doesn't scale" attitude... and bring their A-game.

blhack 15y ago

Am I missing something here? It's ~$400 for a laptop, then $28/mo to use it? What are you getting from this that I'm not already getting for free from google? Or is it $28/mo and the hardware is free...?

jahmed 15y ago
You can buy one for $400ish. For Google Apps for Business you can get them for $28 per user per month, this includes the hardware and periodic hardware refreshes.

jasongullickson 15y ago

It's like the litl plus 3G but minus the clever industrial design (and two years later) http://litl.com http://litl.com

icandoitbetter 15y ago

So is there an initial fee apart from the $20/28 per month?

guywithabike 15y ago

How well would the interactive music video they demoed work on these?

aj700 15y ago

One big point about this, esp if it takes off. It answers a big question: How do you get J. Random User to use Linux? Don't call it Linux. Don't make it look like Linux. And Chrome for Windows synced over to an identical looking ChromeOS means he's escaped Microsoft lockin without even knowing it.

cryptoz 15y ago
> Don't call it Linux. That happened a long time ago. Google is already activating 400,000 Linux computers every single day for people all around the world. They call it Android.
- aj700 15y ago
  Yes. I meant get them to use it on a desktop computer. A computer that goes in your pocket is not, to my generation, "a computer", it's "a mobile device". If it's not a fullsize or laptop x86 machine (or sparc or whatever, not ARM) it's not "a computer".
  - cryptoz 15y ago
    So my dual core 10" Android tablet isn't a computer? The one with two cameras, one able to film 720p video, incredible 3D graphics abilities, video editing software preinstalled, voice-activated search and email dictation, crazy awesome Google Earth experience? The one that I can use my hands to paint pictures, watch live TV broadcasts (video out to big screens!), point at the sky and see what planets and stars I'm looking at, watch YouTube videos, record barometer data, write code and listen to music? You, sir, are living in the past. (Sure, the tablets aren't shipping in the hundreds of thousands per day. But they will be soon)
    - aj700 15y ago
      Your tablet is a computer. But it's not what I call "a computer" with quotes. I'm not living in the past. I was just born long ago in it. The commonly accepted meaning of words and phrases will change during your life too. My mother would probably call your tablet "an ipad" because she understands the equivalence even less and would use a genericized trademark.

ansy 15y ago

The Chromebook has a lot of parallels with the electric car. For a lot of people it is a real improvement for the normal routine, but there are a few use cases outside that routine for which it just won't work. ChromeOS has a lot of potential in institutional settings (much like the electric car) where corner cases don't exist or there can be a small handful of special purpose machines for those cases. IT costs for most organizations would plummet and manageability would go up significantly. I can't imagine how much money and software is used to lock down and secure Windows machines and back up data nine different ways. And subsequently how much is spent recovering or mitigating the loss / theft of sensitive data.

runjake 15y ago

- browses web? check. - runs the latest fad games, like Angry Birds (and more soon thanks to WebGL)? check. - can connect digital camera and upload photos? check. - can browse facebook, twitter, youtube, gmail, hotmail, etc? check - can play flash games & netflix, hulu, & other crap? check. This will satisfy the needs of all my immediate non-techy family members. And I won't get the monthly calls about malware anymore.

ippisl 15y ago
So why don't you just install something like deepfreeze(or it's competitors) and be done with the support calls ? Deepfreeze basically starts before the os and returns the computer to a frozen state you defined. it's used in libraries and internet cafes and schools , and seem to work pretty well. This way you get: no support calls + better experience to family(apps, better privacy, known interface) + less risk and more control on the solutions you offer.
cookiecaper 15y ago
Can this put music on an MP3 player? Just how is the real filesystem abstracted away in Chrome OS? If you buy music from Amazon MP3, can you run their downloader? (If you buy music from iTunes, I am pretty sure you are SOL already. ;) ) There's a lot of uses that still require a real, local desktop, and I think once you give this to all of your non-techy family members you'll start to run into them. I don't understand why those complaining about maintaining Windows don't just put on Ubuntu. LibreOffice is certainly more familiar to Office users and more compatible with existing Office documents than Google Docs. If you haven't considered Ubuntu yet, why do you consider Chrome OS? It's not very hard to teach even the least technically literate person that they just need to click the big multi-colored circle to get to the internet, so it seems weird that abstracting that one step away makes everyone go wild about giving their mom a Chromebook.
- spiffworks 15y ago
  It's all the other nonsense that comes along with managing a typical PC that's the problem. System update every so often, upgrade the system every six months, driver problem with graphics, an endless stream of support requests. On the Windows side, its even worse. I shudder every time I see my Mom's Windows install after a gap of a few months - only half the screen is visible in Firefox because of all the malicious toolbars that got installed in the meantime. An iPad would actually be perfect, but its not as affordable(at least for some models). I'm getting the Acer model for my parents when this comes out.

pjy04 15y ago

It's called getting an SSD...

jgv 15y ago

I think there's a bug at http://www.google.com/chromebook/#support http://www.google.com/chromebook/#support When I click on "Guided Tour" and then try to watch the video, the lightbox closes. Seems like its registering the mouseclick as a click outside the lightbox. I'm using the most recent version of Chrome 11. Anyone else?

pw 15y ago

"3G-enabled Chromebooks connect to the web using blazing-fast mobile data networks" Eh, "blazing-fast" might overselling things a bit.

ZeroGravitas 15y ago
I wonder if they'll offer an Opera Turbo style proxy to compress sites with SPDY and WebP etc. for Chromebook users?

Jun8 15y ago

I am frustrated by the fact that I have to buy it in a hardware-packaged form, why can't I just download Chrome OS to an older laptop to experiment (like I do with Linux distros)? I guess at this stage the OS is flimsy enough that they need to control all aspects of hardware. Also, the support & distribution thing from Google doesn't work, we have already seen it with G1. Why do they want to repeat the mistake?

abronte 15y ago
Chrome OS is open source http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os A quick search in google you can find tutorials on how to run it on your own hardware.
- Jun8 15y ago
  Not so easy! Currently most people use a build by Hexxeh, which is a slightly tweaked version of Chrome. Installation is nowhere as easy as, say, Ubuntu. I don't understand why I need to use builds from third parties rather than directly from Google?

arihant 15y ago

Interesting. But with the functionality mentioned above, as a student I would rather buy an iPad with hook-in keyboard. If this device is available in similar form factor, I might consider. Just a thought. I'd still buy one of these. I think the cost of the device should be low, most people in 2011 will buy these as an add-on gadget rather than one-sto-shop. I don't know of many add-on gadgets being massively popular while costing more than $250. I don't think this is a PC, this is an internet window. What google probably chose wrong was the netbook form factor. It's an internet window which looks like a PC, specially the one that Steve Jobs trashed at iPad launch.

mbertrand 15y ago

I'd be interested to see if we'll see similar models emerge from other manufacturers biz in the near future. Is an interesting concept and with a feature set and price point that will appeal to the masses.

headShrinker 15y ago

Manufactures: Samsung or Acer? No thanks. Reliance on current shit telecom network? No thanks.

aj700 15y ago

http://www.thechromesource.com/google-io-chrome-keynote-liveblog/ http://www.thechromesource.com/google-io-chrome-keynote-live...

zoba 15y ago

Does anyone know if a monthly subscription is required to have one of these? I've already got laptops that work and I'm not interested in paying a monthly fee for something that doesn't do everything I want it to, when I wont even be using it 100% of the time. In fact, I hate monthly fees on just about everything.

ellyagg 15y ago

So, you can get a full featured eeepc for the same price as a chromebook, but google expects people to pay just as must because (I guess?) it's so simple to use and doesn't have viruses? I don't think that's how normal people buy things. People don't want simple for simple's sake. They want good design. People do want features. They do want power. They will not choose a less powerful solution because of vague imputed simplicity. As far as I can tell, the only simplicity benefits a chromebook has to offer is by providing strictly less features. The ipad, although superficially similar to a chromebook in some senses, is a completely different product. Its design, both software and hardware, is utterly and completely unlike chromebook. You won't get far extrapolating ipad's success to chromebook. Microsoft would not be able to sell a version of Word without print capabilities, even though it would be slightly simpler. No one would buy it obviously. I think a lot of technically oriented people have the wrong idea about what constitutes a valuable trade-off between simplicity and power in a product. Like I mentioned, people want well-designed. Chromebook is an uncanny valley netbook, and it will be a disappointment. Unless I'm wrong. :) PS - Another thing technically literate folks overestimate due to tribulations of the past is the extent to which viruses continue to be a nuisance.

deleted 15y ago
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haberman 15y ago
Features: - boots in 8 seconds - updates itself without bothering you - battery that lasts all day - backups taken care of (all data is in the cloud) - built-in 3G with 100MB/month included - doesn't get viruses
- ellyagg 15y ago
  Right, so not very compelling. - Boots in 8 seconds: Why power off your laptop? I don't nor anyone I know. - Updates itself without bothering you: Low value. - Battery lasts all day: This is strong, if verified. - Backups taken care of: Implications are mixed at best. - Built-in 3G: This is probably stronger than some will give credit. - Doesn't get viruses: As I suggested above, low value. I was aware of these, of course. Still don't think it overcomes massive loss of power and features.

wslh 15y ago

I prefer a TV :-(

conradboyle 15y ago

"In the near future, you’ll also be able to run traditional software remotely on our Chrome notebook. Companies like Citrix are developing solutions that will be available in the Web Store, and we are developing a free service called Chromoting that will enable Chrome notebook users to remotely access their existing PCs and Macs." I wonder what the timeline is on this, and if it will be frustratingly slow vs. a netbook.

DTrejo 15y ago

direct link to app: http://chrome.angrybirds.com/ http://chrome.angrybirds.com/

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

83457 15y ago

I wonder if an OnLive client is on the way. That would provide a lot of gaming options that will not be available through browsers for years.

defroost 15y ago

Just what we need: Google involved in more aspects of our lives. No thank you. Nothing against Google per se, but letting any huge corporate conglomerate control the majority of your data seems foolish. I use OS X as it has the perfect mix of Unixy goodness where superb OSS developer tools run great, graphics tools like Photoshop, and VMWare for Linux. Honestly, it is such a good platform, I cannot for the life of me think of a use-case for Chromebook. I'm actually a bit shocked that many HN users seem to be touting this thing as something revolutionary and/or desirable.

bergie 15y ago

I find it interesting that most comments here mirror the classic Slashdot iPod review: No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame. I think this isn't targeted at the classic computer market, the one that Steve Jobs said is like like trucks. instead, it is an attempt at building a computer market that is closer to general appliances, like TVs or cell phones. Quite similar to iPad's approach, but with more focus on productivity and the web. Whether it works will depend a lot on marketing, and also on us hackers creating the compelling web ecosystem. I already mostly live just in the browser and many do the same, so maybe the world is ready for this. We'll see

bbest86 15y ago
While I think there's a market here, I wonder if the Chromebook will feel enough like a separate appliance to make inroads. The iPad feels like something different - a Chromebook just feels like a laptop. To me the marketing feels too much like a laptop that can only access the web than something completely different that is compelling to the average consumer.
ellyagg 15y ago
I don't think so. I think people are well aware of what these trade-offs hope to accomplish, but don't feel it'll pan out with the consumer market. Just because someone radically rebalances features in a device doesn't mean it's going to be a winner. We'll see. Part of the difference is that with ipod, apple had no other incentive for its design than to make consumers happy and thus get money. That isn't even close to the case here. Google has strategic objectives, and it hopes to promote those aims with chromebook. Google has a ton of bias distorting its vision as to what will excite users.

hajrice 15y ago

If only you could code on it...

sterling 15y ago

My first reaction to this was: creepy. The sales pitch is creepy - telling us in the best newspeak that less is more. The sales language is creepy, describing how much more "secure" a machine is because it only browses the web. The sales video has the smell of a lecture, with a message that hints at Big Brother. The layout of the product page is even creepy, with all kinds of colors and icon styles. Google doesn't want to add value to anything here. They want control, and they are playing catch up with the iPad. This is the textbook way to run business, and it will fail.

kmod 15y ago

Based on my experiences with the CR-48 (which I used extensively for a few months), I have to suggest that you not get one of these laptops. Basically, ChromeOS is great, but using Atom processors is simply unacceptable for the tasks that they advertise. The only thing the CR-48 can do well is viewing static content -- and I mean truly static! Scrolling around on an otherwise-static web page is far to dynamic for it to handle. Want to play flash? Yeah right. These new models have dual-core atoms, which will help, but mostly it's just the awful single-core performance that gets you. Even tying emails in gmail was an extremely painful experience; often the characters on the screen would lag significantly behind my tying, and it would take forever to load the different pages. I don't think anyone is arguing that you can use these things for "real work". I'm going to argue that if you care about your time, you can't even use these things for any of the other stuff they advertise. Unless the new processors are significantly better, I'd say get something else.

ElliotH 15y ago
Atom processor in my year old netbook handles scrolling and gmail easily, and flash tolerably. Is there not a chance that these things have improved?
peregrine 15y ago
That's really strange because I've had the opposite experience. I use ssh for most of my work. I can play hulu videos in 280p, I can view almost all pages and content slowdown free. The cavet being I cannot run hundreds of tabs, I usually keep it around 5, and when I'm on a flashy website it slows everything down. Its getting better almost everyday though and now I can almost watch hulu videos in 480p.

run4yourlives 15y ago

I'm not really seeing how this wins in the "computer as appliance" market when the competition is the iPad, the Playbook and all the other imitators... Am I missing something here? Why wouldn't you just purchase an iPad?

dunSHATmyself 15y ago
Because it's not an iPad?
- run4yourlives 15y ago
  Well, I wouldn't be betting my shares on that particular marketing point.
tjmc 15y ago
Very good question. The Chromebook hardware is completely uninspiring. They just look like cheap corporate laptops. Not surprising given that Google are basically embracing the Microsoft model of leaving the hardware to the usual suspects.
jeffgreco 15y ago
A new iPad costs (quite a bit) more?

alinspired 15y ago

is there a dedicated screen for always on advertisement yet ? :) And seriously I'd need at least ssh and rdp clients on this to even consider it

slowpoison 15y ago

I see a lot of criticisms here but it was apparent in the presentation today that Google is targeting this mainly towards business, organizations and schools. Their selling point is elimination (or significant reduction) of the maintenance and support that the IT infrastructure requires.

dmazin 15y ago

As an owner as one of the CR-48 test units, let me just tell you that I can get on the internet quicker on my three-year-old MacBook than this thing. The MacBook is connected to WiFi by the time I'm logged in from sleep. Not so with the CR-48. However, the 100 free megabytes of 3G per month is nice. I've used about 400kb total since December.

danbmil99 15y ago

been beta testing this thing for a few months (at least something very similar). There are issues. And no webGL

becomevocal 15y ago

I see enormous potential here for SaaS startups dealing with businesses to ease 1) initial hardware costs for a computer with a competent browser, and 2) support issues from hardware / software fragmentation. You can now give businesses an option that doesn't light the checkbook on fire while supporting all the bleeding edge web technologies we all wish were more widely supported. Sounds pretty awesome to me.

pippy 15y ago

With Google competing with Microsoft for the Lower to mid range market, Microsoft will have corporate competition on a large sector of their traditionally cornered market. It's going to be an amazing next 10 years for the desktop and web technologies. Late 90's/early 2000's progress was impeded by the Microsoft monopoly. Even better Chromium listening to what Developers want, the web will move forward at a staggering pace. Combined with the realization of interface importance, mind blowing UI hardware improvements are already happening. I'm usually cynical, but this really may usher in the golden age of computing.

kloncks 15y ago

Google is such an interesting company. Compare this page with an Apple page trying to sell a product: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/ http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/ or http://www.apple.com/ipod http://www.apple.com/ipod There's absolutely no comparison. My non-technical friends (heck, even me) are just absolutely more receptive towards that second page. For all of Google's resources as a gargantuan company...can't they just find some small dash of good design somewhere? (Not bashing Chrome OS. Looks absolutely wonderful. This is just what I thought when I visited the page...and HN sometimes is for nitpicking :)

spot 15y ago
This is the page you should be comparing to: http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/chromebook http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/chromebook

larrywright 15y ago

If this thing could run Emacs, I might be tempted to get one.