Cr-48 Hardware

This is the third post in a series about Google's Chromebook and the Chrome OS, in this case the hardware and externals. I talk about the box, the appearance and the difference between the Cr-48 and other laptops, including Apple's original black MacBook which appears to have given many different design cues to the Google designers

Box

This device was produced by Google themselves for release in late 2010, and it has no branding on it at all, from Google or anyone else. About 60,000 were made and were sent to users around the world who signed up to Google’s Chrome OS pilot programme. They arrived in boxes with clever blueprint-like artwork on them with a mouse test pilot. Sadly I got second hand in a plain cardboard box.

Externals

There are no fancy colours anywhere on the device either, it is simply a matte black colour on all sides, which I like. It feels very much like a smaller, slimmer Black MacBook from the now-discontinued 2006 range with a slightly smaller screen, footprint, and thinner body.

Specs

It has a 1.66GHz Intel Atom processor and 2GB of RAM giving it netbook specs that would wow nobody. It also has a 16GB ssd for storage, which again, is far less than anyone would normally expect to see in a machine this size. This computer relies on Chrome OS to be thin and light and to require as few resources as possible from the machine to run well. The lack of storage is a clear indicator that Google expected users to be running as much as possible over an internet connection, and storing as little as possible in the machine itself. It has a single USB 2.0 port, a full-size SD Card slot, a headphone jack and a VGA port by way of connectivity and doesn’t have a CD/DVD drive. It does not even have an ethernet port, suggesting that internet connections should be made over the air. However it does come with a sim card slot for 3G access, something few laptops come equipped with, even today. As a pilot device, the Cr-48 gives very bold indication of the direction Google expected the Chromebooks to take.

Usage

When you open the laptop it automatically boots. This is a nice touch that I didn’t expect when I opened it for the first time. I had always wondered why laptops often turn back on when asleep or in hibernate mode when the lid is opened, but not from an off state. I like Google’s attempt here to save the user a bit more time before they have a computer ready to go.

The keyboard layout is almost exactly the same as the black MacBook with several exceptions. The directional arrow keys are different sizes, as are the shift, ctrl and alt keys, finally the function keys are completely different. Rather than having the F1-F12 keys, Google has different functions on those keys alone, including forward, back, refresh, brightness and volume up and down. I prefer this, as I found that having to hold the Fn button down to access brightness or volume was overly complicated, especially after having Macintosh computers which had those functions on the keys without having to use modifier keys like Fn.

The trackpad is a button-less yet clickable pad like those on Apple’s MacBook range. It allows the user to use a single finger click for the traditional left-click and a two finger click for the right-click. It also allows for two-finger scrolling like many laptops today. I find I prefer to use it with tapping rather than clicking, something that has hung around from my white MacBook days, and it works just fine for that, However I do find there are problems when scrolling with the page scrolling right down to the bottom of the page or back to the top with very little motion on my part. However, I do find that on the whole the trackpad is a decent approximation of a MacBook’s trackpad, but is unlikely to ever eclipse it as what I think of as the best trackpad on a laptop today.

I think it is one of the most beautifully understated laptops ever, and would definitely put it on par with the MacBook Air in my top two most beautiful laptop designs ever and it is something to behold with its blank, matte black sides. The Alienware M11X I have also has a similar colouring, but is much thicker, heavier, and has a completely different keyboard layout. So far I am a big fan of this machine.

First two images from: http://www.mydigitallife.info/google-cr-48-notebook-with-chrome-operating-system/
Third:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20025349-260.html

The OS and the Desktop

Here is my second post in a series about using ChromeOS and the Cr-48 Chromebook and to see whether they can replace a Windows or OS X laptop.

Chrome OS

Chrome OS is Google's attempt at a fast, lightweight, desktop operating system based around their own Chrome browser. It was started by an engineer in Google who wanted to created an OS that was run entirely from the computer’s RAM. It is meant to boot fast, turn off quickly, and require less processing and battery power than a traditional desktop operating system. It allows for "apps" and "extensions" to be installed into the browser and to be used just like an app on any other operating system. However these applications are "web apps" which often appear to the user to be links to a website which provides the app's content or service.

An example of content would be the Google Drive, similar to the Dropbox and Skydrive services, it allows access to the user’s files and folders from Google’s own cloud storage from anywhere with internet access. To the Chrome OS user, it looks just like logging onto the website and going through its online file hierarchy just as it would a user logging in on their own browser, however it also allows for both ‘local’ access - where the files are downloaded to the device and ‘offline’ access, where files are saved locally and can be edited without an internet connection. Changes can then be synced back to the cloud the next time the Chromebook is connected to the internet. As someone who has used Dropbox for years, and use it as “My Documents” folder, this is something I have been doing for a long time, but it will be interesting to try to integrate this new OS into my computing work flow, after using Windows 7 and the different betas of Windows 8 on a laptop for the past year or so.

Desktop

From first impressions the OS is very pretty. Google has included a good number of beautiful wallpapers and of course you can use your own. I've stuck with one of the picturesque landscape ones, but your mileage may vary! For the version I am using, the desktop appears to be a pared down version of the Windows desktop, with the dock/ tool bar at the bottom and a small list of settings in the bottom corner including a clock, WIFI connection indicator and battery capacity indicator.

Also, just like Windows, you can get rid of the dock if you don’t want it to display unless you need it or to gain extra screen real estate for everything else. You just move your cursor down to the bottom of the screen and it will pop up.

Just like other OS with a window interface Chrome OS has the icons, this time with the icons on the right-hand side like Windows. It has the typical close window cross as well as a square icon which when you hover over it gives you several different options, to maximise, minimise and pin to the left and right. These icons can be clicked or the cursor dragged and clicked to them. I like these options being available, and it does give a good differentiation between Chrome OS, Windows and OS X.

Apps are accessible from a small icon that when pressed reveals a popup that shows a list of apps that are installed on the Chromebook. Each can then be right-clicked to give options as to how it opens and dragged to the dock just like on a Mac or PC.

Sadly these app icons appear in the order they have been installed on the device. There is no way to drag them to the pages you want like the functionality of OS X’s Launchpad app or the folders on iOS and Android. This disappoints me slightly, but I have just put my most-used apps in the dock and access them from there. I can also use the keyboard and press the “Search” button which has replaced the Caps lock key and type in the name of the app I want to open. The desktop works well enough for me, and other than that minor problem with the apps drawer, I like it.

Google’s Chromebook: A perfect secondary computer?

Cr-48 image from Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/07/google-unveils-cr-48-the-first-chrome-os-laptop/)

I bought a Cr-48 on eBay a couple weeks ago. For anyone who doesn't know what that is, and I imagine that is most of you, it is a particular model of laptop running Google's Chrome OS, something Google calls a "Chromebook". There has been an increase in the number of these devices in the past few months with the third generation machines hitting shops this side of Christmas and adverts everywhere for them. I believe they can actually serve some people as decent primary computers and most people as a very good secondary computer. However they definitely can't be expected to perform all of the functions of a fully-fledged operating system like OS X, Windows or a decent distribution of Linux. They are especially attractive in the US with their $199 price tag. They start a bit more expensive over here at £199. I was lucky enough to pick up this Cr-48 for £120 posted in good condition. It isn't as powerful as these new Chromebooks, by Samsung or Acer, but it is already turning into a great little computer for the money.

This will be a series of short posts on the device, its OS and seeing how it fairs as a secondary device to my main iMac computer. I’ll give a small background on each area of the laptop: its OS, specs and how it handles the different things I expect my laptop to be able to perform like word processing, video watching, and general usage over the days and weeks. I'll be able to compare it to the different computers I've used including my MacBook, M11X and iMac, although they are obviously vastly different machines.

Stay tuned for more updates!