ChromeOS on Google Cr-48 Netbook

This past week Google shipped out the second wave of their "just-testing" notebooks with Chrome OS installed on them. This is part of a pilot program to test out the Chrome OS and is not supposed to be about the hardware at all, as shown by the unbranded laptop.


I was one of the lucky ones and this past Saturday I got myself a brand new CR-48 from Google and now is the time to say it--Thank You Google!

And now for the review:
Hardware specs thanks to (Brad Caris) on Chrome OS forums:

Processor: Intel Atom Processor N455 1.66GHz 512K Cache

Chipset: Intel CG82NM10 PCH

Motherboard: Tripod Motherboard MARIO – 6050A240910 – MB – A03

Ram: Hynix 2GB DDR3 1Rx8 PC3 – 10600S Ram
Read Only Memory: ITE IT8500E Flash ROM

SSD Drive: SanDisk sdsa4dh-016G 16GB SATA SSD

Wireless Wan: Qualcomm Gobi2000 PCI Express Mini Card

3g Adapter: AzureWave 802.11 a/b/g/n PCI-E Half MiniCard

Bluetooth: Atheros AR5BBU12 Bluetooth V2.1 EDR

Software:
Chrome Browser the same as installing the latest version on Windows\Mac or Chromium on Linux.

Good things about CR-48 and Chrome OS:

• Its free! Also, really really cool!
• Very fast booting process. 7-8 seconds to turn on and about 3 minutes for first time run.
• It has built-in 3G 100MB\month on Verizon and can easily be configured to work with AT&T, T-Mobile and probably other cellular carriers in the US.
• Easy to get used to.
• Battery holds up for 8 hours of work with wifi and about a week of standby mode.
• Anything you do with this system is being saved on the cloud so you can replace the computer or reformat it at any time and no changes will be made.

• You can have multiple browsers sessions open at the same time and they all will be restored if you restart the computer.
• Quite. With no moving parts it is very easy for it to be really really (REALLY) quite.

The bad stuff no one is saying out loud:

Other then the obvious crashes that are expected from an unstable beta like Google openly say that this is, there is also the annoying lack of keys such as Backspace, End, Home, Delete and others. While some of these most of us never use, backspace and delete are two big ones and many people use both. While there are keyboard shortcuts that will replace all of those keys, and you can see all this shortcuts if you press  ctrl+alt+/. There is also the touch-pad mouse issue which I'm still not sure about. It is the hardest feature to get used to you need to use one finger for left click and two for right click or scrolling. Some possible solutions might be to hook up a USB mouse or play around with sensitivity settings.

Going back to the fact that this is an early beta with lots of crashes - the OS is still not ready to deal with the number of extensions which are needed when you only have a browser.

Things you could do with Chrome OS and Cr-48.

1. Switch to developer mode and play around with the GPS.

2. Get your SIM card to work.

3. Even install any OS you want- like Ubuntu, Win7 or even OSX and Android using Luigi created by hexxeh.

Things I've done with Chrome OS and Cr-48.

I've flipped the secret switch under the battery (covered with tape) and updated to developer mode. then I managed to get my T-Mobile SIM card to work on it.

I tried a few times to restart from scratch and delete all the data which is really easy and happens with a flip of the switch. All the settings are saved on the cloud so after the login it feels like nothing has changed.

My final thoughts on the whole program

This pilot program is extremely awesome and getting a free computer from Google is super fun BUT Google still has plenty of developing to do in order for that OS to be right for everybody. It still feels really unstable and slow when you work with many extensions on your browser (as is necessary when the browser is your whole desktop), but more then that, the whole cloud computing industry is still in early developing and not ready for everybody. The transition to move all your computer to work onto the cloud is still not easy to the non-techy user, and many regular computer users would probably still be wary of making such a big change. Google docs is not yet as high functioning or widely used as MS Office. Even relatively simple programs which are still used by a good number of people, like MS paint, did not made a full transition and Aviary is not user-friendly enough. That being said, Dropbox is a great tool that will help anyone who has decided to make the move and need file storage on the cloud.

But if you already live on the cloud and you don't use any other software other then the browser, or think you wouldn't mind a computing experience which is entirely cloud-based, then Chrome OS is being designed expressly for you.

What do you think? Have you tried CR-48? Would you buy a Chrome OS netbook when they will be released in mid 2011?

If you already made the transition to the cloud tell us about it and which apps and extensions you use.