Google Cr-48 Chrome laptop preview (update: in-depth impressions!)

Well, would you look at what showed up on our frigid doorstep this morning? That’s right, we are now the proud owners of Google’s first Chrome OS laptop — the Cr-48. Obviously, we ripped open the box and got right to handling the 12.1-inch, Atom-powered laptop. So, what does the thing feel like? How’s that keyboard? And more importantly, how’s Chrome OS looking? Stand by for our impressions, which we’ll be adding in depth over the day. First impression: this thing is different.

Mega update: We blew this thing out! There’s that video we already showed you, along with a way deeper dive into the hardware and the OS. It’s all after the break, and you’d be a fool to miss it.

Continue reading Google Cr-48 Chrome laptop preview (update: in-depth impressions!)

Google Cr-48 Chrome laptop preview (update: in-depth impressions!) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 19:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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First Look: Google’s Netbook Has Its Head in the Cloud

Google’s Cr-48 netbook is a promising but incomplete step toward a life lived fully on the internet.

It’s not a consumer laptop, it’s a test machine designed to showcase how Chrome OS netbooks will work. As a result, you can’t buy one, but you can sign up to get in line for Google’s pilot program.

Here are our first impressions after a few hours using the machine. A full review will follow.

The all-black Cr-48 looks like a stealth fighter. It has rubberized black surfaces, no logos anywhere and has minimal accoutrements: a built-in camera, one USB port, one video-out port, a headphone jack and a power supply. Dual-band Wi-Fi and a world-mode 3G radio are built in, as are a microphone and speakers. It has a 12.1-inch screen and a full-sized keyboard. At 3 pounds 10 ounces, it weighs more than I expected it to.

We’re still digging up specs about the guts, but some impressions: It’s pretty zippy, but not that zippy. We know there’s an Intel Pine Trail processor inside. It’s certainly as fast and responsive as you’d expect from a netbook, but it’s not nearly as fast as a MacBook Air or a reasonably equipped, sub-$1,000 laptop. While scrolling web pages, playing some web-based games and watching videos from YouTube and the Onion, I noticed some jerkiness and skipping.

Flash Player is pre-installed (and presumably sandboxed) but watching Flash videos is a bit of a sucky experience, especially in full-screen mode. But everything at least works as advertised, and it’s still totally usable.

The keyboard is full-sized, but it has some quirks. Much has been made of the Cr-48’s lack of a Caps Lock key, but it’s totally fine by us since the caps lock key is now a Search key. Press it and a new browser tab opens with the cursor in the URL/search bar, or the “omnibox” as Chrome terms it. Just start typing and you get instant search results from Google (the default engine, though Yahoo and Bing are also options).

If you miss the Caps Lock key, it can be remapped by clicking on the wrench icon in the top right. That’s where all the system settings live. You can also re-map the Alt and Ctrl keys (helpful if you’re a Mactard like me) and you can set the keyboard to swap between Dvorak and normal-person mode.

Also gone are the function keys. They’ve been replaced by browser controls (including a dedicated “refresh” button that will doubtless get a lot of use) and your standard brightness and volume controls. The trackpad is a little bigger than a credit card, and it’s the tap-to-click variety without a button. You use two fingers to right-click. Finally — and I’ve never seen this before — the letter keys are all lowercase.

It’s important to note that almost nothing is stored on this laptop. Chrome OS is just a very thin system OS with Chrome browser running on top. The desktop is gone, all you see is the browser. You log in with your Google account when you first turn it on, and it syncs up all of your settings, bookmarks and personal data through the cloud.

When I first started it up, it had a few problems connecting to the “Get Started” pages on Google’s servers. Also, we tried to connect to the Chrome Web Store and got a security alert for a certificate violation. Oops. But after logging out and logging back in as a different user, everything went smoothly.

It’s remarkably easy to log in and get started. You feed it your Google credentials and within seconds, you’re looking at a Chrome browser window. You’ve been here a million times before, and you know exactly what to do. Most of the familiar browser keyboard shortcuts are there. Ctrl-T and Ctrl-W open and close tabs. Ctrl-N launches a new workspace, and you can swap between work spaces using the key formerly known as F5.

From the time you press the Power button, it takes about 15 seconds to get to the “desktop.” All your Chrome bookmarks appear at the top of the screen, and you can start searching and browsing right away. Some biggies — Gmail, Google Talk, Google Maps, YouTube — come pre-installed. There are also two pre-installed games, Poppit and Entanglement. When I say “installed,” I basically mean there are shortcuts displayed in a grid on the default Chrome New Tab screen. Click on a candy-flavored icon and a web page launches in that tab.

As a cloud-dependent netbook, the Cr-48 does not fare so well without a net connection. I disconnected from the office Wi-Fi and, after about a 30-second pause, I was able to keep using some apps in offline mode.

However, Google Docs doesn’t have offline mode, so you can’t edit documents without a connection. (Google Docs’ offline mode is being reworked and will be back in early 2011, says Google, and presumably this won’t be an issue by the time Chrome OS laptops are generally available.) When I switched tabs to write a few e-mails, I found that Gmail was unresponsive, too. Instead, I played a few games of Entanglement and read a news story I had previously loaded. When I reconnected, everything turned back on in a few seconds and my Gmail inbox refreshed.

I also kicked on the 3G radio. One click connects you to Verizon’s network and brings you to a screen where you can easily configure your machine. Every Chrome OS laptop will come with free Verizon data service providing 100 MB of data per month for two years.

Back on Wi-Fi, I visited the store and installed some Chrome apps, including The New York Times, The Onion, and Tweetdeck. All of these are basically just web pages, but they’re specially tailored for Chrome users. For example, when you browse the NYT app, you don’t see the Times website. You get a customized layout that looks and feels more like an iPad app than a traditional website. It doesn’t have iPad-like smoothness, but it is tablet-esque in design.

When using apps, there are some cases when the machine definitely feels underpowered. Most websites and things like Gmail and Google Docs work with no problems and very little latency. But the Times app isn’t so smooth. The Onion’s app, which puts a big video player front and center, lags. Tweetdeck, which is a mix of Flash and HTML5, is clunky.

But this is, after all, a test machine. The Atom processor inside will probably need a boost before Chrome OS hardware hits the shelves. Otherwise, people who would be excited about a fast, web-connected portable powerhouse will be dismayed by the relative lack of muscle.

However, anyone who needs something stable, simple and fully synced that’s instantly familiar out of the box will be delighted.

See Also:

Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com


Gadget Lab Podcast: Google Chrome OS, Nexus S, Android Gingerbread

          

Google dominates this week’s Gadget Lab podcast with a new computer operating system, a smartphone, an Android upgrade and big sales number for the Android-powered Galaxy Tab.

The search giant on Tuesday shared details on Chrome OS, its browser-based OS that runs web apps. Gadget Lab just got its hands on a test unit of the Cr-48, a pilot notebook running Chrome OS, and we’ll post impressions soon.

Monday launched the Nexus S smartphone, made in collaboration with Samsung. It’s basically the sequel to the failed Nexus One. It comes with a 4-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen, a 1-GHz Hummingbird processor, 16 GB of storage and a battery rated for 6.7 hours of talk time.

Alongside introducing the Nexus S, Google announced its latest upgrade for the Android OS codenamed “Gingerbread.” It’s an incremental upgrade that improves copy-and-paste and cleans up the UI, among other changes we summarized in an earlier post.

In more Android-related news, Samsung recently reported it sold 1 million Galaxy Tab tablets. That’s quite impressive, and it shows that Google and other manufacturers aren’t too far behind Apple in the new tablet market after all.

We wrap up the show with a quick look at the Boxee, a $200 set-top box that plays web-streamed video. Dylan wasn’t a fan of it.

Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast on iTunes, or if you don’t want to be distracted by our unholy on-camera talent, check out the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds

Or listen to the audio here:

Gadget Lab audio podcast No. 96

http://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/gadgetlabaudio/GadgetLabAudio0096.mp3


Using Google’s Chrome OS Laptop of the Future [Video]

The Chrome Cr-48 netbook might just be a reference design—as in, most folks won’t ever be able to use it—but it is what Google thinks a Chrome laptop should be. And it has some pretty nice touches. Updated. More »

Google Cr-48 Chrome laptop preview

Well, would you look at what showed up on our frigid doorstep this morning? That’s right, we are now the proud owners of Google’s first Chrome OS laptop — the Cr-48. Obviously, we ripped open the box and got right to handling the 12.1-inch, Atom-powered laptop. So, what does the thing feel like? How’s that keyboard? And more importantly, how’s Chrome OS looking? Stand by for our impressions, which we’ll be adding in depth over the day. First impression: this thing is different. Here are some quick bullet points, one of our favorite formats for presenting data in a list:

Hardware

  • The entire body is made of a soft, beautiful matte black. It feels very Droid-like, just a little less rubberized.
  • Overall, it looks a lot like a black MacBook, including a magnetic latch with a split spot for getting your finger in and lifting the lid, a very similar keyboard, and a similar hinge design.
  • There’s on of those large Envy-style clickpads. It has great multitouch scroll, and great general mousing feel (better than most Windows laptops), but it also has some of that Envy trouble of disliking a finger floating on the lower part of the pad. Basically, you have to click or mouse, you can’t be doing both at once.
  • The matte screen overwhelms us with gratitude. Thank you, Google. Thank you.
  • There’s ultra-wide ctrl and alt buttons on the left side, thanks to the lack of a Windows Key.

Software

  • It starts up instantly, and it’s actually really hard to tell if we’ve put it into standby or not because there are no drive noises, and we haven’t hit upon any fan noise yet either.
  • We’re having trouble installing Photoshop.
  • Our apps haven’t synced over from our desktop’s copy of Chrome, which must be a still-forthcoming feature.
  • You need an internet connection for the very first setup and login, but you can login to an existing user while the device is offline, and access anything that’s cached or HTML5-stored on the device — like some of those new Chrome Web Apps.
  • While wake from standby takes less than a second, a cold boot takes around 15 seconds to get to the login screen, and another 6 or 7 seconds to login after you’ve entered your password.
  • The remainder of our impressions will be about Poppit!.
  • Flash is really bad, both with general applications and particularly with video. Adobe hasn’t built Flash acceleration yet for Linux, and there’s not a hardware acceleration chip, either. Hulu is like a slideshow, YouTube works, but not great.

The most important thing to remember is that this product is in no way designed for the mass market, and it’s up to Samsung, Acer, and other forthcoming third parties to actually build the hardware we’ll end up buying in the long run. Still, there seems to be a lot here that laptop manufacturers of all sorts could take note of, and generic-ified or not, the Cr-48 is pretty striking.Developing…

Google Cr-48 Chrome laptop preview originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Cr-48 Chrome OS laptop now shipping to the lucky few

The Earthlings here at Engadget HQ are still patiently awaiting their own Cr-48s, but it looks as if those who were quick on the trigger have just received a Chrome OS laptop to cuddle with. If you’ll recall, Google opened up a Chrome OS Pilot Program Tuesday, and for those who registered early (and got awfully lucky), they’re being treated to a Cr-48 on their doorsteps. One gracious tipster has already sent over a trio of unboxing shots (while another provided the video after the break), and we’ll be sure to give the low-down (you know — video, impressions, etc.) once our own arrives. Anytime now, FedEx…

[Thanks, Dan and Michael]

Continue reading Google Cr-48 Chrome OS laptop now shipping to the lucky few

Google Cr-48 Chrome OS laptop now shipping to the lucky few originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 10:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Cloud Print is ready to spool in beta, if you have a Windows PC handy

Google Cloud Print is ready to spool in beta, if you have a Windows PC handy

Google blew the lid off of Chrome OS yesterday in a big way, and one of its key features is now ready to roll. Cloud Print was unveiled back in April, a method to enable Google mobile devices to print via nebulous networking, and it’s now here — with some caveats. The biggest being that right now the only host for a non Cloud Print-compatible printer (basically all but this one) is a Windows PC running Chrome 9.0.597.1 or greater. Set up the service through there and the browser will host your good ‘ol printer to your Chrome OS device. Don’t have a Chrome OS device? You will. Eventually more printers will support this natively, eliminating the middleman, and we’re sure printing support will be coming to Android down the road too. When? In due time, fair reader. In due time.

Google Cloud Print is ready to spool in beta, if you have a Windows PC handy originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What You Need to Know About Google Chrome OS

Google is aiming to put the “net” in netbook with Chrome OS, a lightweight operating system that focuses on web apps and online storage.

Due for release in mid-2011, the first batch of Chrome OS netbooks will come with Intel processors and Verizon data plans. They’ll download apps through a Google app store hosted on the web. Google detailed plans of Chrome OS in a press event Tuesday.

“We finally have a viable third choice for an operating system on the desktop,” said Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO.

Chrome OS is Google’s vision of the future of computers: always-connected devices that ditch the traditional hard drive and instead rely on web-coded applications and “cloud” storage. It’s yet another area where Google goes head-to-head with its biggest rival, Apple, who recently introduced a flash-based MacBook Air and a Mac App Store for downloading apps.

Here’s a quick summary of what you need to know about Chrome OS.

Hardware players

Google has partnered with Samsung and Acer, whose Chrome OS laptops will go on sale in mid-2011. More manufacturers will follow.

Netbook specifications

Though exact specifications for future devices are unknown, Google is handing out an unbranded pilot device running Chrome OS called the Cr-48.

The Cr-48 features a 12.1-inch screen, an Intel Atom processor, a flash memory drive, Wi-Fi, a “world-mode” 3G chip that works with international cellular networks and a built-in “jailbreaking” mode so you can hack it.

Pricing

Official price tags for Chrome OS netbooks have not been revealed, but Google’s Schmidt has claimed they will be priced between $300 to $400.

Data plans

The 3G plan for Chrome OS netbooks is nothing like a cellphone’s. When you buy a Chrome OS netbook, Verizon will give you 100 MB of free 3G data per month for two years. There are no overage fees.

If you regularly need more than 100 MB, there are a few long-term plans starting at $10 a month for additional data.

And if you need more data only occasionally, you can buy a day pass to get unlimited 3G access for one day. The price for the day pass has not yet been disclosed.

Keep in mind that if you’re mostly using a Chrome OS netbook at home, you can just connect to your Wi-Fi network for free.


Google’s big week: Nexus S, Honeycomb tablets, Chrome OS laptops, and eBooks to boot

We gotta hand it to Google: if its goal was to own the technology news cycle for 48 hours, mission accomplished. The Mountain View-based company spent the first two days this week laying out pretty much every big announcement it possibly could: a new flagship phone coming next week (the Nexus S), a new Android build (2.3 Gingerbread), a preview of the next Android build (Honeycomb) on a never-before-seen Motorola tablet, the debut of its cloud-based laptop platform (Chrome OS) with hardware, and a giant plunge into the growing e-book market — and that isn’t everything. We’ve done our best to condense all the days’ highlights into something easier to digest, so read on for a recap on all things Google!

Continue reading Google’s big week: Nexus S, Honeycomb tablets, Chrome OS laptops, and eBooks to boot

Google’s big week: Nexus S, Honeycomb tablets, Chrome OS laptops, and eBooks to boot originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Inventec ships 60,000 Chrome OS netbooks to Google, says let the testing begin!

Chrome OS, or “Chrome without any OS getting in its way” as we like to call it around these parts, finally got its first bit of dedicated hardware yesterday in the Cr-48 testing device. This not-for-sale, unbranded laptop will be distributed to developers and curious onlookers via the Chrome OS Pilot Program, which we already warned you will have a limited number of machines available. Now we can be a little more precise about that limitation with official word from Inventec placing current shipments to Google at a total of around 60,000. That’s not to say that it’ll be the final tally of Cr-48s, if anything this just means there’s decently rich availability for the starting cohort of recipients, but we know you like numbers so thought we might as well share that one with you.

Inventec ships 60,000 Chrome OS netbooks to Google, says let the testing begin! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Dec 2010 06:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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