SourceCode: Riding the Chromebook Cloud Part 1

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Ever since Google came out with the CR48 Chrome-browser powered notebook, trying out a cloud connected OS had become something of an obsession for me. The idea that all your data was secure (or not) in the cloud regardless of what hardware you are using is not only revolutionary but clearly the future of computing itself. Well we finally managed to get a Google Chromebook  (Samsung Series 5) and here are our initial impressions.

Chrome is powerful as a web browser and it is also fast. On our daily driver MacBook Air and our ThinkPad X61, Chrome is the de facto browser although with Lion on OS X, Safari's performance has been slightly better and faster. 

All the Google Chromebook (made by Samsung) runs is Chrome and everything you do on it happens within the browser. The benefits are incredible boot-up and shut-down speed and less failure due to fewer moving parts/ The current state of your work is always saved in the cloud (i.e. you never have to save your Google Docs document) and apps appear as tabs. Here are our first impressions so far.

• The hardware of the Samsung Series S is well-designed, chiclet keyboard is a pleasure to type on but we miss the function keys.
• The notebook is solidly built, nice black matte (smudge free) accents and a striking white top case. it does feel subbstantial as a 3.3 lbs notebook.
• 16GB onboard memory is upgradeable by SD Card but RAM remains fixed at 2GB
• Caps lock is replaced by a search button and can be confusing
• Samsung did not scrimpt on the LED display they used here, stunning and bright even at 20% brightness
• The SIM card slot can be enabled to work with Rogers, Telus or Bell SIM cards
• A Google Docs outage yesterday proved that we are not yet fully ready for a purely cloud computing setup. I was working on umerous documents that were trapped in the ether for hours! There has to be a better way to enable offline saving and updates.
• We're impressed with many cloud apps that have replaced desktop apps such as Pixlr Editor (image editing, like Photoshop Elements), Zoho Writer (word processor) and TV (Finds Internet streams)
• Blogging on the Chromebook works fine as long as image editing and manipulation aren't necessary. It can be done but requires a lot work.

•  Rdio's App works perfectly and has been an impressive music player.
• Chrome can't play .AVI or DiVX but it seems to be able to play .mp4 video.
• We haven't figured out printing yet

Stay tuned for more as we actually use the Chromebook as our main computer for one week to see how it fares.