I bet ChromeOS is just not optimized for ARM. The original CR48 got incredible battery life (more than 10 hours), as did the Series 5 (the first for-sale Chrome

I bet ChromeOS is just not optimized for ARM. The original CR48 got incredible battery life (more than 10 hours), as did the Series 5 (the first for-sale Chromebook). Both of those used Atom processors. Since the majority of Chrome use is on the desktop with x86 computers, my guess is that this is the reason.