Hasta La Gadget!

Boy, we know the Cr-48 is supposed to be a test platform and all, but even by that standard, Google’s Chrome OS laptop has had a very rough first day on the job. Ambushed by one of our kindly tipsters upon its arrival, the Cr-48 has been gutted and disassembled (mostly, the motherboard is mercifully left attached to the chassis), revealing the typical arrangement of tiny electronics, which includes Hynix memory chips and a SanDisk-branded SSD. We’re just glad to see that masking tape isn’t playing a structurally integral role in its construction. Things don’t really get much better for the slinky 48 once it gets back home to Google HQ, however, as its makers have put together an entire video composed of creative destruction methods for it. Cruel, cruel people.

Continue reading Google Cr-48 laptop torn down and destroyed in one unlucky day (video)

Google Cr-48 laptop torn down and destroyed in one unlucky day (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Dec 2010 02:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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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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There you go, folks. Google says it wants you always connected, now it’s helping you do it. 100MB of free Verizon data, each month for 24 months, will be yours as a complimentary extra when buying a Chrome OS netbook. $9.99 will give you unlimited access for a single day and there are no contracts to fiddle with. Obviously, and sadly, this is a US-only hookup. If nothing else, this announcement provides some neat context to the joint net neutrality policy that Google and Verizon dished out back in August.

Google partners with Verizon for free 3G data allowance with every Chrome OS netbook originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s just a Chrome OS sorta day, isn’t it? To catch you up here, we told you earlier that Google is planning to announce its own Chrome OS netbook this coming Tuesday, and well, now we’re peering at a supposed picture of that very machine’s keyboard. We don’t know all that much about the rest of the netbook — we’ve heard from multiple sources that it’s powered by an Intel Atom processor — but the image above was taken from an Inventec (as in, the ODM making the netbook) presentation. We’ll call a spade a spade here and say it looks like your average chiclet keyboard, but there are obviously some interesting differences. Over on the left side of the panel you’ll see a “search” key subbing for a Caps Lock key, and up above, the function row has forward / back keys as well as Window, full screen, and “configuration” keys.

Wait, but couldn’t this be any old netbook keyboard? Sure it could, we’ve got an exclusive photo of Acer’s Chrome netbook (that “ZGA” model) which happens to have the same exact keyboard layout. You can check out the picture of that one after the break, and you’ll see it looks extremely similar to this shot. We should also mention that the tipster that sent the above photo in claims the Google-branded Chrome OS netbook will be announced next Tuesday, but won’t be on sale until December 14. Looks like it’s going to be a very interesting Tuesday morning!

Continue reading This is the Google Chrome OS netbook keyboard

This is the Google Chrome OS netbook keyboard originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 19:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The headline pretty much reveals the brunt of it, but indeed, it looks like next week Google is going to start talking about how its Chrome operating system is coming along. Multiple sources have told us that Google will be holding some sort of event on Tuesday, December 7th — we’re not sure if it’ll be a live event, a webcast, or something else entirely — and that the shindig will see the launch of that Google-branded Chrome OS netbook we’ve been hearing about. Again, we’ve heard that the Atom-powered laptop isn’t going to be a mass market device — there will only be around 65,000 units available to Google’s closest “friends and family” — and that the Cloud-based OS is still very much in a beta, non-consumer-friendly state. It’s a bit odd that we still haven’t received an invite to this planned event since it’s purportedly days away, not to mention it conflicts with the All Things D: Dive Into Mobile Event, but at the time of publishing this post we had yet to hear back from Google’s PR team with an official comment.

Of course, this all lines up with TechCrunch‘s report that Google will be launching its Chrome Web / App Store very soon, as well as yesterday’s launch of Chrome 8, which supports those aforementioned Chrome apps. (Companies like TweetDeck have already started demoing their browser apps.) Don’t forget that those apps are going to be a large part of the OS, so it would make sense for Google to talk about ’em in tandem. The pieces sure do seem to be fitting together quite well, and while we still have lots of unanswered questions, we’re feeling confident that we’ll be getting some official answers on all this Chrome-ness very soon.

Update: AllThingsD has also heard a similar December 7th launch date of the Chrome Web Store. The evidence seems to be mounting here…

Update 2: Well, there you have it, Google just sent out invites for its December 7th Chrome event! We will be there!

Image note: As we said last time, that picture above is just our own mockup of what a Chromebook may look like. We even added a Chrome key!

Sources: Google-branded Chrome OS netbook to launch on December 7th originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 15:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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