3 ms·

At this price, why would I want this instead of iPad? (serious question) Some possible answers: keyboard, open for hacking on, not locked into App Store, cloud

At this price, why would I want this instead of iPad? (serious question) Some possible answers: keyboard, open for hacking on, not locked into App Store, cloud storage for everything, throw-away and restore on new system immediately. Anything else? Am I missing something? If not, I don't see this being a hit. Keyboard - you can buy keyboard for iPad Open for hacking on - I'd want a real computer to do hacking on. Not locked into App Store - On iPad, you can use the web just as you will on Chromebook... except on Chromebook, you don't get all the apps that have already been built. Cloud storage for everything & throw-away and restore on new system immediately - iCloud?

niels_olson 15y ago
I posted a detailed critique elsewhere but I wanted to mention here that I have left my Cr48 open and on in the kitchen for three weeks now, parked in front of a barstool. Google's CloudPrint is configured. We still walk right past the Cr48 and sit down at the 27" iMac in the living room to look up recipes on Chrome and print them to the same printer. I don't see the selling point of "the cloud" saving this product. Which makes me a little sad. Why don't we use it?
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Could you link to your critique? I'd love to read it.
  - niels_olson 15y ago
    http://wherein.posterous.com/i-review-the-cr48 http://wherein.posterous.com/i-review-the-cr48
Pewpewarrows 15y ago
The short answer: it's not directed towards you. It became blatantly obviously during Google IO that they're going after very specific markets: Education and Business private sector. No IT overhead, constant pushes of the latest security updates, and free hardware upgrades for as long as the line of products still exists with a low monthly price per machine. For the small fraction of use-cases that still need proprietary software there's virtualization. They're not going after the home sector here (they have Android phones and tablets handling that for them nicely). They're going for the throat with Microsoft's last dominance: schools and businesses. If they can start upsetting the decades-long lock-in that Microsoft has had in those giant areas, then Chromebooks have succeeded. (And before you ask, no the iPad isn't a suitable product for those areas. A proprietary cloud solution where a business doesn't control their own data is never going to fly. Also, while mobile Safari has made excellent strides, it's still not even close to a traditional browser.)
- stcredzero 15y ago
  Also, while mobile Safari has made excellent strides, it's still not even close to a traditional browser. That's not going to last very long.
  - Pewpewarrows 15y ago
    Nitro on the iPad 2 is orders of magnitude behind V8 on a netbook with most every test that I've run. Like I said, it's gotten a lot better in their latest iterations, but it's still slow as molasses with complex web apps in comparison.
- niels_olson 15y ago
  I think you're right. Having used ChromeOS at home, it's not intended for that market. But getting out from under Exchange and SMB and WinXP has gotta sound like the land of milk and honey for a lot of businesses. Is citrix up and running now? The one big sticker for the Feds will be FIPS compliance so we can use smart card authentication. And, yeah, I can see my kids' school district having the same thoughts.
scrame 15y ago
<i>At this price, why would I want this instead of iPad? (serious question)</i> I dislike apple and apple products, but I have the same question. Even netbooks can do quite a bit more than they could when ChromeOS was announced, and often for less. I really don't see the benefit in only having chrome, even if Native Client can promise more functionality in the future.
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
You don't have to choose between an iPad or Chromebook just as people didn't have to choose between an iPad or a laptop (although some did, and some will). As for your point about the iPad having a browser too, Chrome is among the elite (if not THE elite) browsers on the market; comparing it to a mobile OS browser and saying they are equivalent is not fair. Forget about Flash, the iPad cannot render javascript at near the speed that a desktop browser can, nor does it support as many of the cutting edge HTML5 features. Additionally, Chrome is updated at a much more rapid pace. The CR48 doesn't even have the same UI that it had 6 months ago, not to mention additional HTML5 support (such as Speech input, which iPad doesn't have). Lastly, Chrome syncs extremely fast. In fact, they specifically omitted a sync button in the settings page because it is designed to sync faster than you could get to the button. If a change isn't synced instantly it's considered a bug in Chrome.
dstein 15y ago
These will probably not sell well. I guess Google didn't expect the iPad to be such a big hit, and now the netbook market is already over with. If Google had more foresight ChromeOS would've been a tablet OS right from the start.

niels_olson 15y ago

I posted a detailed critique elsewhere but I wanted to mention here that I have left my Cr48 open and on in the kitchen for three weeks now, parked in front of a barstool. Google's CloudPrint is configured. We still walk right past the Cr48 and sit down at the 27" iMac in the living room to look up recipes on Chrome and print them to the same printer. I don't see the selling point of "the cloud" saving this product. Which makes me a little sad. Why don't we use it?

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Could you link to your critique? I'd love to read it.
- niels_olson 15y ago
  http://wherein.posterous.com/i-review-the-cr48 http://wherein.posterous.com/i-review-the-cr48

Pewpewarrows 15y ago

The short answer: it's not directed towards you. It became blatantly obviously during Google IO that they're going after very specific markets: Education and Business private sector. No IT overhead, constant pushes of the latest security updates, and free hardware upgrades for as long as the line of products still exists with a low monthly price per machine. For the small fraction of use-cases that still need proprietary software there's virtualization. They're not going after the home sector here (they have Android phones and tablets handling that for them nicely). They're going for the throat with Microsoft's last dominance: schools and businesses. If they can start upsetting the decades-long lock-in that Microsoft has had in those giant areas, then Chromebooks have succeeded. (And before you ask, no the iPad isn't a suitable product for those areas. A proprietary cloud solution where a business doesn't control their own data is never going to fly. Also, while mobile Safari has made excellent strides, it's still not even close to a traditional browser.)

stcredzero 15y ago
Also, while mobile Safari has made excellent strides, it's still not even close to a traditional browser. That's not going to last very long.
- Pewpewarrows 15y ago
  Nitro on the iPad 2 is orders of magnitude behind V8 on a netbook with most every test that I've run. Like I said, it's gotten a lot better in their latest iterations, but it's still slow as molasses with complex web apps in comparison.
niels_olson 15y ago
I think you're right. Having used ChromeOS at home, it's not intended for that market. But getting out from under Exchange and SMB and WinXP has gotta sound like the land of milk and honey for a lot of businesses. Is citrix up and running now? The one big sticker for the Feds will be FIPS compliance so we can use smart card authentication. And, yeah, I can see my kids' school district having the same thoughts.

scrame 15y ago

<i>At this price, why would I want this instead of iPad? (serious question)</i> I dislike apple and apple products, but I have the same question. Even netbooks can do quite a bit more than they could when ChromeOS was announced, and often for less. I really don't see the benefit in only having chrome, even if Native Client can promise more functionality in the future.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

You don't have to choose between an iPad or Chromebook just as people didn't have to choose between an iPad or a laptop (although some did, and some will). As for your point about the iPad having a browser too, Chrome is among the elite (if not THE elite) browsers on the market; comparing it to a mobile OS browser and saying they are equivalent is not fair. Forget about Flash, the iPad cannot render javascript at near the speed that a desktop browser can, nor does it support as many of the cutting edge HTML5 features. Additionally, Chrome is updated at a much more rapid pace. The CR48 doesn't even have the same UI that it had 6 months ago, not to mention additional HTML5 support (such as Speech input, which iPad doesn't have). Lastly, Chrome syncs extremely fast. In fact, they specifically omitted a sync button in the settings page because it is designed to sync faster than you could get to the button. If a change isn't synced instantly it's considered a bug in Chrome.

dstein 15y ago

These will probably not sell well. I guess Google didn't expect the iPad to be such a big hit, and now the netbook market is already over with. If Google had more foresight ChromeOS would've been a tablet OS right from the start.