Google Chrome Cr-48 Notebook Piolt Program

I signed up for the Chrome OS Pilot program a couple of months ago and was blessed with receiving a Cr-48 notebook from Google. Google has this idea that computing is moving to the cloud (online hosts) and that most of what typical users do is online anyways. Think about how much you use youtube, facebook, web based email clients, online docs, online file storage, online banking, etc. The benefits are things like always having your data and apps saved online so that each time you log on to any Google Chrome OS machine your experience is exactly the same. Chrome OS is basically a Chrome browser on steroids. If you are familiar with the Chrome browser you would do just find on Chrome OS. You get the same themes, tabbed browsing, and apps from the Google App store. What you will not find on the Cr-48 is a local file browser (or at least one that is more powerful than the downloads menu) any or any local computing like a cache of your Gmail.

Over all I am really pleased with the hard ware. If is finished in a matte black rubberized finish, includes a MAC like touch pad, and a built in webcam. What i find odd is the SD card port that I can not access without using a web based photo app like Picasa web.

The full specs include:

Intel Atom Processor N455 1.66Ghz 512K Cacke

Tripod Motherboard MARIO

Hynix 2GB DDR3 PC3 RAM

ITE IT8500 Flash ROM

SanDisk sdsa4dh-016 16GB SATA SSD

Qualcomm GObi2000 PCI Express Mini Card

AsureWave 802.11 a/b/g/n/ PCI-E Half Mini Card

Atheros AR5BBU12 Bluetooth V 2.1 EDR (it is listed as hardware, but no software support has been found

So far using the notebook as an "always with me browser" has worked fine for what it is for. If users expect to use this for ONLINE ONLY Activities then this may be a success. My worry is that since it is a "laptop" people will expect it to perform like a standard laptop running Windows/OS X/Linux it will fail. Google has put a lot of effort into making this work out like the Google Cloud Print which allows you to print to your network printer from anywhere including the Chrome OS.

I would like to see some type of local dashboard that you log into before starting the Chrome browser which can give you basic local access to files, cached email, and shortcuts to apps (local or online). Also I would expect to see a real file browser, it does not have to be super complicated, just copy, paste, move, etc. would be needed. Configuration is also not something that is easily done...if at all. I do enjoy what they are getting at and I can see the purpose, but I am left feeling trapped inside of my browser, heh I keep trying to minimize it for Pete's sake. I hope that Google uses this Beta program well and makes some of the changes that its users are surely coming up with. I am not against cloud computing, I just do not want to be trapped in it.

BTW: This post was written on the Cr-48.

EDIT: I attempted to watch Netflix videos. Currently Netflix is not supported on Chrome OS however the Netflix website says the following:

Watching instantly on your computer

Dear Chrome Pilot user,

Streaming is not currently supported on your device. We're working with Google to ensure that Chrome Notebook users can instantly watch TV shows and movies from Netflix. More details will be announced in the coming months.

Note that your current Internet browser is fully compatible with adding titles to the Instant Queue for later watching on compatible devices.

Complete System Requirements

To watch instantly, you'll need a computer that meets the following minimum requirements:

• Windows
  • Windows XP with Service Pack 2, Vista or Windows 7
  • Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher; or Firefox 3 or higher; or Chrome 7 or higher
  • 1.2 GHz processor
  • 512 MB RAM
• Mac
  • An Intel-based Mac with OS 10.4.11 or later
  • Safari 3 or higher; or Firefox 3 or higher
  • 1 GB RAM