Hasta La Gadget!

You won’t be seeing Google’s recently announced web-only Chromebook laptops until Samsung and Acer release versions this June. But lucky for us, we got to spend some time with some time with an early model of Samsung’s offering, the Series 5.

Frankly, we’re stoked on this thing.

As soon as we got our hands on it, we immediately felt the quality that went into making the device. With solid construction and a sturdy build, the Series 5 isn’t janky like most netbooks in the $400 price range.

At 3.3 pounds, it’s not terribly heavy — lighter than the MacBook Pro I’m currently using by under more than a pound — and it seems like I wouldn’t mind schlepping it around San Francisco during my workday. The Series 5 is also fairly thin when closed — 0.79 inches thin, to be exact. Obviously not MacBook Air-levels of thinness, but it also doesn’t cost a grand.

The Series 5 comes in two color schemes: Titan Silver or Arctic White. The color was fine, nicely offset by the Chromebook’s black innards and bottom.

Samsung claims an eight second on time, from a period of being completely powered off to the main login screen. When we tested this, it actually took only seven seconds to go from completely off to being ready for use.

Another attractive feature — unlike other netbook models that skimp on space, the Series 5 has a full-sized keyboard. That means no cramped fingers over clustered sets of letters. Typing on the Chromebook was just like using my regular laptop keyboard. And the design nerd in me noticed that the letters on the keyboard are of a different font than I’m used to. Not saying that’s positive or negative necessarily, but rather a flourish I noticed and liked.

The Series 5 eschews a multitude of buttons on top of the keyboard — no more F1 through F18 to deal with. Twelve buttons — There’s also no caps lock key, but you can map one to a set of keystrokes if you miss it enough.

The spyglass-imprinted “search” key replaces caps lock, which opens up a new tab in your Chrome browser upon pressing it. Hit it again, and the tab disappears. Cool enough feature, though I’ll admit I tried using “command-T” to pull up a tab a few times before I started to get the hang of it.

A few other perks: the SD card reader accepts multiple types of cards, including HCSD. And there’s a port which supports external monitor output, which is always nice.

As we only had a limited amount of time with the Series 5, we can’t speak to its battery life. But Samsung and Google tell us that under real-world testing, you’ll see an 8.5 hour charge.

There’s also a “guest mode” option, for if you don’t want to log in to your Gmail account. You’ll be able to surf and do everything that you would on the Chromebook if you were logged in, but all of the changes you’ve made while using it (sites you’ve visited, etc.) will be wiped clean from the device. It’s essentially using Chrome’s “Incognito” mode to keep your browsing details private. Just think: if you let your buddy borrow your Chromebook for the weekend, you’ll get it back without a browser cache full of porn sites.

Our casual browsing experience was zippy enough — pages were rendered super fast, and running YouTube videos went off without a hitch. Our own site loaded in less than six seconds.

Though we hit a few snags when we visited Tinkercad.com, a site which lets you do your own 3D rendering using a cad cam-like interface inside the browser. The site uses WebGL to accomplish this. But it didn’t do so seamlessly — trying to drag and drop different plot points inside the Tinkercad interface was sluggish and stuttering, taking seconds for changes to show up at times.

Of course, Google and Samsung had to cut a few corners somewhere. Although quite nice in its display qualities, the screen isn’t made with the tough Gorilla Glass that can withstand a beating. And the exterior of the Series 5 seems to be entirely plastic, which we weren’t thrilled with. Yet even without any metal, the Series 5 felt sturdy enough in our hands.

Bottom line: we’ve seen and touched a lot of web-only notebooks in the $400 to $800 dollar range, and none have felt as promising as the Series 5 Chromebook. If the finished products are as half as nice as this one, we’ll be excited to see them hit the shelves in June.

We never had much doubt about what Samsung would be showcasing at tonight’s finale event at Google I/O 2011, but now it’s official — the outfit’s first-ever Chrome OS ultraportable is making its debut in San Francisco, and we’ve been fortunate enough to grab a bit of hands-on time. Slated to ship to consumers, businesses and educational institutions on June 15th, the 12.1-inch Series 5 is a strikingly svelte machine, and there’s no doubt that holding a 0.79-inch rig gives us all kinds of chills. The company took a bit of time to play up its “Power Plus” battery technology, lasting up to 8.5 hours with “active use,” or 5 hours of straight video. There’s also a new hitch in the Verizon Wireless data deal — 100MB will be tossed in each month on the 3G model, but contrary to what we’d heard earlier, that ends after two years (rather than lasting for the life of the product).

The hardware feels tremendous — stiff, solid and well appointed, much like Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 Limited Edition. It outclasses the other sub-$450 netbooks we’ve seen in both style and rigidity, and while we’ll always have a special place in our heart for the CR-48, it’s pretty clear that this particular unit was in the oven for some while. We’ve hoping to spend some serious time with this guy in the middle of next month, but for now, here’s what we can tell you — the 1280 x 800 display is both crisp and sharp, with shockingly great viewing angles for a machine of this price. The keyboard’s far from cramped, and if you’ve had your doubts on the 12.1-inch form factor, we’re guessing one touch of this would have those running for cover. Oh, and the trackpad? One of the best we’ve felt in the PC universe, and one that we hope crops up elsewhere in the near future. It’s right about on par with the one found on the CR-48 (post update), which is also stellar compared to most netbooks.

Obviously, we aren’t here long enough to test the ultra-longevous battery (said to be good for over 1,000 cycles — perfect for education and business users who are apt to adopt it), but we’ll be sure to do our best once we settle down with a production unit. We’re told that it’ll be available in Titan Silver or Arctic White, provide a chiclet style keyboard, a multi-gesture trackpad (which supports two-finger scrolling) and “instant” wake from sleep.

Update: More impressions and video are after the break, and a head-to-head with a current-gen 11-inch MacBook Air is below!

Continue reading Samsung Series 5 Chrome OS laptop hands-on at Google I/O (update: video!)

Samsung Series 5 Chrome OS laptop hands-on at Google I/O (update: video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 May 2011 21:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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‘Tis amazing what a partnership with Google can do. Unless you’re a frequent patron of Home Depot, there’s a slim chance you’d ever heard of Lighting Science prior to this week’s opening I/O keynote. Now, said company is leading the Android @ Home charge, and based on what we learned yesterday at its booth, we’re feeling better than ever about home automation’s chances in the mainstream market. Company representatives noted that this Google-led mesh networking solution — which beams out commands on the 900MHz frequency band — is the first HA solution that’s truly designed to be ultra-low-cost and easy to implement. Compared to Z-Wave and Zigbee, there’s far less technical expertise needed to start automating things in your home, and there’s no need to take out a second mortgage to open your garage door with your handset. Oh, and there’s zero chance anything fails due to congestion on the 2.4GHz band.

We pressed the company on pricing details, and it stated that the wirelessly enabled light shown above would be priced “at parity” with the non-wireless counterpart available today. At last check, that puts a single bulb at around $30. In order to make these kinds of devices compatible with existing Android phones and tablets, a couple of WiFi-to-900MHz adapters will be available. From Lighting Science alone, you’ll soon see a light switch, security lamp and a regular wall wart on sale to handle the transfers. In other words, you can pick up a dirt-cheap plug, toss it in your guest room, and immediately give your Nexus One the ability to dictate Android @ Home products. Not too shabby, but what does this mean for the broader industry?

Continue reading Lighting Science demos Android @ Home bulbs, promises dead-simple home automation (hands-on)

Lighting Science demos Android @ Home bulbs, promises dead-simple home automation (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 May 2011 06:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Fossil Meta Watch wrists-on at Google I/O (video)

Fossil Meta Watch wrists-on at Google I/O (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 May 2011 20:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon Cloud Player has been laying low following its scuffle with Sony Music, but that hasn’t kept the company’s developers from rolling a crucial new feature out — support for Apple’s iOS devices, which it didn’t have on day one. Despite running in the Safari browser window, we’ve confirmed that songs will indeed play. If you’ve got a device handy, give it a try yourself; otherwise, we’ll update with impressions a little later this evening.

Update: Great news — we ran the Cloud Player on an original iPad and iPhone 3GS without a hitch. In fact, there was very little (if any) lag or time delay when buffering a new song, and were able to refresh playlists and other information quickly. The interface of the Cloud Player is almost the same as — if not identical to — the page that loads up on your computer browser.

Even better, the Cloud Player works flawlessly with the multitasking controls in iOS; the usual forward/pause/volume options are all usable as you play Angry Birds. Sadly, there is just one bump in the road that keeps the process from being perfectly smooth: mobile Safari prohibits you from doing drag-and-drops, which adds a couple extra steps to the process of adding songs to your playlists. Take a look below for some screenshots of the Cloud Player in action.

Sean Hollister contributed to this post.

Amazon Cloud Player streams tunes to iOS, following silent upgrade (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 May 2011 22:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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