ChromeOS netbook

[TimothyC]

I got into the beta program for google ChromeOS, and yesterday evening a UPS truck pulled up and dropped off a box containing one Cr-48 Netbook. I've charged it up, and am going to give it a spin.

First Impressions:

1. It's light. At less than 4 lbs, it's about half the weight of my old laptop.
2. It's fast for what it does, and what it does is the internet.
3. Good Screen. 1280*800 and 12 inches is a good mix.
4. Battery life is good so far. I've been on her for about an hour(ish) and I still have 90% of the battery remaining. This fits with the given average life of 8 hours use, and a week of standby
5. Boots and coming back from sleep are fast - about 15 seconds from power on to login, and two from login to usable window, with a near instant (one second) wake from sleep
6. Keyboard is good for average use, but I wouldn't want to spend days typing a research paper on it (early stages of carpal tunnel and all that).
7. I miss my Pg-Up, Pg-Down, Home, and End keys. I can simulate them with shortcuts, but it just isn't the same.
8. The multi-touch touchpad is taking some getting used to. There are no physical keys, so it acts like an Apple style pad. The single USB port is there, so I might pull out one of the old mice for desk use.

I'd be more than happy to answer any questions anyone has.

[fuzzymillipede]

I also have a Cr-48. I planned to use it to get work done at school, but the thing is unable to connect to my university's wireless network. The type of authentication used by the network is currently not supported, and Google is "working on it." So I can only use it at home, unless I connect to Verizon's 3G network.

The prices for 3G access are a joke. You get 100 MB of data a month for free, which is almost useless. I disabled all images and I was still down to 95 MB after a few minutes of browsing Amazon. The pricing is $9.99 for unlimited access for one day, or $50 a month for a max of 5 GB per month. Needless to say, I won't be using the 3G. I just hope Google allows me to connect to my school's wireless, or I am not going to be using this thing very much.

[xthetenth]

What are your general impressions of the usability of the whole thing, especially the OS? Is there anything you find annoying or that you'd like to do that you can't? Is it really easy to use for the core functionality?

I know these questions are generic as hell, but I'm relatively curious about them. Being a fan of thinkpad styling it's little surprise I find it an ubersexy machine, even though I'll mutter about some of the minimalism intruding on functionality.

[Sarevok]

Only one USB port ? So you cant attach removable storage while using a mouse ?

I also have a Cr-48. I planned to use it to get work done at school, but the thing is unable to connect to my university's wireless network. The type of authentication used by the network is currently not supported, and Google is "working on it."

What type of authentication would that be ? WEP ?

[Pu-239]

What type of authentication would that be ? WEP ?

Probably WPA Enterprise.

I'm a bit disappointed they didn't just shove an ARM CPU in there to get better battery life/lower cost, seeing that x86 compatibility is irrelevant for web applications running in straight Javascript, and there's already an ARM Flash port. As a regular x86 netbook, I don't see much of a point over Windows or a regular Linux like Ubuntu running on the same hardware.

Yes, Linux runs on ARM, and I'm disappointed there haven't been any Linux ARM netbooks. All the cheap crappy non-x86 netbooks seem to run Windows CE for some godforsaken reason,, which has even less applications than Linux. [In post-edit] Looking closer though, it seems the specs on those are too crappy to run Ubuntu. There's that Toshiba Android netbook, but Android isn't particularly suited for a non-touch interface.

[Sarevok]

Most linux versions compiled for ARM are very minimalistic OSes for tech savvy users though. I haven't seen anyone try to port a layman friendly linux to non x86 based devices.

This where Android wins out. It is easy to port to ARM devices and is very user friendly for the general public compared to embedded versions of linux.

[Pu-239]

Android *IS* an embedded Linux - the thing is a netbook is close enough to a real PC that it should be running a PC operating system.
There is an Ubuntu version for ARM, which is hardly minimalistic There unfortunately doesn't seem to be any hardware that runs it that aren't vaporware though. All the attention nowadays seems to be diverted since the middle of last year to touch-only tablets.

What doesn't make sense to me is Intel's support for Meego, given it's portability to ARM, instead of promoting Windows which is locked to x86 (Windows is actually portable, but the software that runs on it isn't

[TimothyC]

Only one USB port ? So you cant attach removable storage while using a mouse ?

No you can't, but the SD card slot is still open.

I've also started to like the trackpad more than I thought I would (after I tweaked the sensitivity).

What are your general impressions of the usability of the whole thing, especially the OS?

It's still obviously a beta version of an OS, and I would probably wait for version 2 before buying a laptop with the OS on it. It runs well if you only have a single flash window open, but does slow down when you have a lot of tabs open (on the order of 20 or so). That's really a factor of the hardware more than the OS.

Is there anything you find annoying or that you'd like to do that you can't?

Lack of a good local media player (I'd slip in an SD card of Amazon purchased MP3s if I could do better playlist control). I do miss the Insert, Delete, Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys, but I do understand why they are gone (and you can get to all of them via Ctrl and Alt key combos. I also haven't found the best IM program to use with it.

Fix IM and music playback and you fix the two largest problems that I have, and both of those will probably be fixed by third party developers

Is it really easy to use for the core functionality?

Very easy to use. It sandboxes everything, and makes

I know these questions are generic as hell, but I'm relatively curious about them. Being a fan of thinkpad styling it's little surprise I find it an ubersexy machine, even though I'll mutter about some of the minimalism intruding on functionality.

The device itself really gets our of your way to do what you want.

The matte finish on the screen and the device itself really help with that.

I did mention the keyboard issues before, but short of adding another column of keys, there isn't a good fix. If I was to change the hardware I'd backlight the keyboard.

All in all I'd say it does what 40% of the people online do 99% of the time, with those numbers going up as it matures. It's never going to replace my desktop as my primary machine, but it is an excellent secondary machine.

[xthetenth]

Awesome, thanks. As a dedicated user of tree style tabs I'd probably find 20 a bit constraining. How is the internet usage on the apps? I think they'd be pretty svelte, but I'm not sure, and 100 MB is really tiny, so every bit hurts.

About ARM in netbook type things, I could've sworn I saw something a while back from lenovo with a snapdragon in it, but I can't find it so it's probably a concept machine or something. Strange, I seem to remember it sounding pretty cool all in all.

[Crazy_Vasey]

No you can't, but the SD card slot is still open.

Can't you plug a USB hub into the single slot and hang your other bits and bobs off that? It's what I used to do with my old laptop to get around itsinadequate number of USB ports.

[TimothyC]

Awesome, thanks. As a dedicated user of tree style tabs I'd probably find 20 a bit constraining. How is the internet usage on the apps? I think they'd be pretty svelte, but I'm not sure, and 100 MB is really tiny, so every bit hurts.

I haven't used the 3G yet, so I really don't know what the data usage is going to end up like. It's something I am going to be looking at going forward.

No you can't, but the SD card slot is still open.

Can't you plug a USB hub into the single slot and hang your other bits and bobs off that? It's what I used to do with my old laptop to get around itsinadequate number of USB ports.

I haven't tried that yet. It's on the list of things to try, but I've had it for only about 48 hours at this point.

[Jawawithagun]

Awesome, thanks. As a dedicated user of tree style tabs I'd probably find 20 a bit constraining. How is the internet usage on the apps? I think they'd be pretty svelte, but I'm not sure, and 100 MB is really tiny, so every bit hurts.

Considering that all apps come out of the cloud and the browser is the only actual local piece of software I'd guess heavy.

[xthetenth]

Awesome, thanks. As a dedicated user of tree style tabs I'd probably find 20 a bit constraining. How is the internet usage on the apps? I think they'd be pretty svelte, but I'm not sure, and 100 MB is really tiny, so every bit hurts.

Considering that all apps come out of the cloud and the browser is the only actual local piece of software I'd guess heavy.

That's my main worry. If your documents are on the cloud, each time you load them on 100 MB starts looking expensive. Does anyone know whether that 100 MB is for both down and up, by the way? If it's being used for documents on the cloud, they'll probably be roughly equal. I'm relatively unfamiliar with metered internet, I guess I'm lucky.

[TimothyC]

That's my main worry. If your documents are on the cloud, each time you load them on 100 MB starts looking expensive. Does anyone know whether that 100 MB is for both down and up, by the way? If it's being used for documents on the cloud, they'll probably be roughly equal. I'm relatively unfamiliar with metered internet, I guess I'm lucky.

The documents are stored both places (this is the beauty of HTML5 local storage) so you don't need to move them, and if you are not online you can still edit things to your hearts content, but the edits will not be available on other machines until you connect. It is also important to remember that you can connect via wifi, which is what I have done so far.

And example for me is that I have an event coming up where I'll want to get online but I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to get on wifi for said event, so I'll probably just pay the $10 and get unlimited for that 24 hours.


As a side note: Meebo is the best IM solution I have yet to find. It's fast easy to set up, and lets me join AIM chats. I still have to use mibbit for IRC, but that is small potatoes.

[xthetenth]

The documents are stored both places (this is the beauty of HTML5 local storage) so you don't need to move them, and if you are not online you can still edit things to your hearts content, but the edits will not be available on other machines until you connect. It is also important to remember that you can connect via wifi, which is what I have done so far.

That is nice, I was thinking that it was based on google docs for document work so it'd sync pretty much constantly, which might get a bit worrying for me since I do have pretty decent call for 3G. My usage model for it would involve taking it on quite a few bus trips when I go to away games for my hockey team, so 3G would be very good if doing work didn't drain it too quickly. Ten bucks starts looking pretty steep when it's one or more times every two weeks.

[TimothyC]

That is nice, I was thinking that it was based on google docs for document work so it'd sync pretty much constantly, which might get a bit worrying for me since I do have pretty decent call for 3G. My usage model for it would involve taking it on quite a few bus trips when I go to away games for my hockey team, so 3G would be very good if doing work didn't drain it too quickly. Ten bucks starts looking pretty steep when it's one or more times every two weeks.

There are monthly per gig plans that start at $20 for a gig, or 3 gigs for $35, or 5 gigs for $50. Not clue if that is going to be the final pricing when they start shipping production machines later this year.