I had been thinking about getting a new laptop. My HP is a great laptop, lots of power, space and with that comes heat, weight and bloat. The Chromebook by Samsung really appealed to me because it is simple, small, boots super fast, and it's just what I use 99% of the time on my computer - Chrome.  There is no desktop, no hard drive, no dvd/cd drive.  It is a small "netbook" that is fast and has super long battery life. 8 hours is the time I expect to get out of it, we'll see.

Here are some pics that I shot with my camera, loaded with the card reader on the Chromebook and uploaded to Picasa.  I Picasa's Picnik to edit and crop them.  I figured that if I was going to do a review on this thing, I better use the machine to do the review. It is challenging because it's not conventional. You have to use the web as your resource. But, it is possible.



What I like best:

*Speed. The thing boots in 8 seconds. Login takes 2 seconds. You are in the browser in 10 from a complete cold boot.  (But rarely will I need to cold boot the thing. Most of the time I'll shut the lid and then open it. If you have password disabled on shutting the lid (suspend), it will be back into Chrome in 2 seconds. Perfect machine for doing information gathering. Say you are watching tv and want to know who the actor is on this show. IMDB in 2 seconds? Sweet.

* Hardware. The screen is brilliant. I literally LOVE a bright screen and I had to turn it down 1/2 way because it was too bright!  Really. It is also a matte finish and not glossy. Supposedly this would make it better for viewing outdoors. Have not tested that yet. But the fact that the screen can put out a brightness that rivals the sun would help!

*Keyboard. It is a great little thing.  My hands are just small enough for it. But, if you are a bigger man, you might not enjoy it as much. It's full sized, but feels real light and responsive. I am used to using the keyboard a lot. So usually I hit the arrow keys or page up, page down keys But on this Chromebook there are no page up and page down keys. (You can select Alt-Arrow Key up/down to page up or down. Actually there are shortcut keys galore, check them out here.) There is also no delete key. That's the power button (So I guess it would delete what you are working on! Be careful there). There also isn't a caps lock key. It is defaulted as a search key that will open a new tab for searching Google. And if you hit that by mistake, quickly tapping it a second time closes the tab. I won't miss the Caps Lock, but you can always remap it in settings. I like the search key a lot. It opens a new tab, so basically it also is a shortcut to your Google Apps.

*Laptop casing itself is plastic, but it feels high quality and light. It is 3.3 lbs, but because of it's book like shape, it's really easy to carry with one hand. I know most people won't understand this, but with MS, this is a big advantage to me. Some days my HP laptop feels like it weighs 100 lbs. This is easily the smallest mobile computer I have ever used.

*The extra large touch-pad is sweet. Very big. It is responsive. The gestures are a nice touch. You can use two finger scrolling on the websites, which I have to get used to.  You also push one finger in and move a second finger to drag-drop or move a scroll bar. It is interesting and feels funny at first, but I immediately got the hang of it.

*The HD camera is very nice. Much better than the one on my HP laptop.  Actually that one quit working a year ago.  :(  So that's a big upgrade for me. Google Chat uses the webcam with no problem.  But, you can't use Skype with it yet, because Skype requires you to download a program and the Chromebook has no hard drive. But Google is working on a web based version of Skype and Microsoft just committed to using more web driven apps and they bought Skype. So the future will be brighter in this webcam instance, as it will for most applications. Web based apps are emerging and they are only going to get better and better.

*The power cord is small and doesn't have a massive brick like some laptops. That will be nice for travel.

*Also there is a dongle to connect to a projector (something I might need for school if I ever decided to use this to teach, although it is doubtful that I would).

*The card reader worked great. And so did the usb when I connected a mouse to it. The usb connection on the right side seems perfectly located for a mouse.

*Overall.  This is a simple machine. For a little more $ I could have purchased a laptop to replace my HP with Windows 7 and all the bells and whistles. But, I would still have had two of the problems that have been really bugging me lately - heat, battery, start up time.

For a little more money, I could have bought the new Galaxy Tab 10.1.  I do think those tablets are incredible machines and I would have had a ball with it, I'm sure. But, I do tablet like things on my cell phone already. I enjoy using a laptop for 90% of what I do on a technology device. I like to read websites, watch video clips. listen to music (Google Music Beta is great on this!), and I don't think the tablets are ready yet for that. Plus you have the heat and battery problem again. They suck the life out of batteries.  My projection on the tablet front is that they are going to be CHEAP in the next 18 months. Plus, their capacity for storage will only get better. I want to wait for at least "Ice Cream Sandwhich" before buying a new android device (and that will probably be a faster and better phone).

[btw - I am NOT an Apple iGuy. Just don't like the devices and how Apple operates. I understand the iPhone and iPad are amazing machines. They just aren't for me. Steve Jobs just announced all this iCloud news, I've been doing that with Google and Android for over a year now. Welcome to the party.]

As I am writing this review I find it odd that I had to chose to auto-correct and include the word "Chromebook" in my spell check! (Although that is probably Blogger that needs updated, but isn't that owned by Google?)

Obviously I am betting that this Chrome OS is going to improve over time. I can see them adding more and more functionality. But, it is limited for a reason. You are giving up a hard drive and optical drive to be able to have speed and quickness. It is just a different sort of device, but it delivers the web. In my opinion that's what most devices are trying to get to. Whether it is reading a website, watching a video, or using a web app of some kind it is the internet.  The Chrome OS will adapt and be updated to improve this experience while maintaining speed and security.

So this is my first day with the Chromebook.  As things change and I experience it to a greater extent, I'll update my review. For today I am completely satisfied with my purchase and very, very happy with the Google Chromebook.

Day 2 Notes: I have noticed that while using Facebook I do not have to hit a link at the bottom of the page to load new items. They just keep loading forever. I like that a lot!
Also, while checking out the newest Vlogbrother's video, I noticed that with Chrome OS, I'm given a list of "Reaction Tags" at the bottom of the video. You can see a picture in my Picasa Album slideshow below. Wonder how many other neat little things like that are hidden in here?

Love it so far. Here are a few videos that explain the Chromebook further:






A couple of independent reviews that i thought were thorough and fair (there is a good amount of PC industry bias against this machine, it is non-conventional after all):


Full Engadget Review and has a nice video on the page to explain the author's viewpoint on the Chromebook: https://www.engadget.com/2011/06/10/samsung-chromebook-series-5-review/

Great link here: 100 Great Chrome Tips for Google Chrome

David Duez
- sent from my Droid. Excuse the brevity.

David Duez
- sent from my Droid. Excuse the brevity.

David Duez
- sent from my Droid. Excuse the brevity.