Chrome OS - Google CR-48 Notebook

The Good: Chrome OS is a light operating system that boots very quickly, has high security, and gives quick and easy access to all of the Google sites and tools that Google account users use on a regular basis. The whole internet is accessible.

The Bad: People expecting a full operating system experience may be a little disappointed.

Rating:

• Overall Experience: 10
• Features: 8
• User-Friendliness: 8
• Style: 10
• Quality: 10
• Value: n/a
• Total: 9.2

To see how I rate each category please click Rating Breakdown

In the Box:

Google CR-48 Notebook

AC Power Adapter

Quick Start Instruction Card

See the full review after the photos:

Special Notes: First and foremost, this review will be judging Chrome OS, with minor comments about the actual notebook, since it is designed merely as test hardware. The real story is Chrome OS. Also, the review is in regards to how well Chrome OS fulfills its intended purpose. It is designed as a secondary computer. Not a main machine. I make that point because currently the idea of Chrome OS is not intended to replace a normal home computer, but to be a companion to it. To learn more about the purpose of Chrome OS please see the Chrome OS website. As a partial disclosure, Google provided me with the laptop to be a pre-release tester, so I did not pay for the hardware or software, however I am not a Google employee or affiliate with Google in any way.

Overview: Chrome OS is a new operating system designed for people who do most of their computing online. It is designed to be fast and secure. My Google CR-48 laptop boots to the sign-in screen in about 14 seconds, and from there, it's about 12 seconds to have the computer completely loaded. This is much faster than any Windows machine on the market. The CR-48 also has an air card with Verizon data service, so it can connect to the internet almost anywhere. Because of the connected nature of the operating system, Chrome OS is nearly useless without an internet connection.

Getting set up with the Chrome OS is a simple process for people with Google accounts. You simply sign in with your account credentials. If you have the Chrome browser on another machine with browser sync, it automatically pulls in your saved settings. When I logged in the first time I had all my bookmarks and extensions within seconds of logging on. That is one of the major points of the Chrome OS. Your data is stored online, in the cloud. If you lose your machine, or have problems with it, you will not lose data. Also, if you sign into a new machine all your data and settings are readily available. This is a huge bonus for someone like me who is concerned about data retention in case of hardware failure. Chrome OS is designed so that you won't save any data on the local hard drive, so a hard drive crash would not compromise the data.

Overall Experience: Using Chrome OS has been a pleasant experience. My wife and I used to turn our desktop on every day without fail, but with the laptop around we skip days frequently. It's just so easy to use Chrome OS to do most of what we do on the computer. Right now, the CR-48/Chrome OS is not set up for file transfers from a memory card or USB drive. I've read that it will be available in the future. That has been the biggest downside so far. I can't upload pictures to my Picasa account yet, so although I planned to do this whole review on the new laptop, I have to rely on my desktop to get the pictures to Picasa before I can use them.

I have really enjoyed using Chrome OS. It runs fast, and has many small details that make the experience better. One example is that the monitor automatically dims or brightens depending on the amount of light in the room. Although the keyboard shortcuts took a little time to figure out, they are intuitive overall, and I can do everything I need to quickly.

Features: Features are an interesting concept to talk about for software. Chrome OS uses apps and extensions to improve the user experience. This would be the best evaluation of features in my opinion. In that case the OS has a lot of features. Apps offer functionality that was previously found in software packages for Windows (or Apple, Linux, etc...) machines. Right now the selection of apps is relatively light, hence a slightly lower score, but as with all app sites, the selection grows continuously. There are games, photo/video editors, utilities, and other types of apps. I use the extensions more. There are a wide variety. I use extensions to check my gmail and google voice accounts, as a calculator, and to perform browser functions such as relocating images from the default left of the screen to the center. Chrome OS has a lot of features built in, and the feature set grows daily.

People who don't currently use Google products may consider the features lacking. Most of the apps and extensions center around Google products. On the other hand, if someone isn't a user of Google products, Chrome OS may not be for them.

User-Friendliness: This is a bit of a mixed bag. For me, Chrome OS is very user friendly, and should be for most people. There are not a lot of tweaks, which makes it easy to use, but less customizable for users of more advanced features. I would like a few more options such as automatically launching certain apps (for example Google Talk) on every startup, but that is not available. People who expect a computer to act like their current computer will be faced with a little bit of a learning curve since their daily tasks will have to migrate from the common software suites (like Microsoft Office) to online tools like Google Docs or Office Live. As I've used both of those online suites, it has not been a difficult adjustment for me, but I could see it being difficult for others.

Style: Like features, style becomes a vague concept with software. I love the style of the CR-48 laptop, but that may be irrelevant to the actual laptops released by other manufacturers. As far as Chrome OS, the style after login, is identical to the Chrome internet browser, but with battery life and wireless internet signal indicators. There are thousands of themes to add a color scheme and skins to the look of the OS. Overall the style of the OS is simple and functional, and appeals to my tastes.

Quality: Probably the best way to discuss quality of Chrome OS is in terms of security and stability. I haven't had long to monitor the security, but according to Google, the OS is immune to all or at least most current security threats since it will not allow files to execute on the hard drive. As far as stability I have not had a major crash, and because of the way Chrome handles processes, when I've had a minor process (like shockwave) crash, it is contained within just one tab, and is quickly corrected by loading a new tab. Even so, I can only recall one tab crashing in the couple of weeks I've used the CR-48.

Value: I've omitted value from the score for this post for two reasons. First of all, I didn't buy the laptop (nor can it be purchased). Second, pricing for Chrome OS and the corresponding laptops is unknown since they are not ready for release.

Final Thoughts: For living room or mobile computing Chrome OS does a great job, even in its current beta form. As more options are made available, like file transfers from memory cards and USB drives, the operating system will become an even more useful daily tool that could replace most of the functions done on normal laptops and desktops. Since beginning use of Chrome OS I have had very few reasons to sit at my desktop to do my normal computer activities.