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OK!

Step 1) Install MrChromebox
Step 2 (full UEFI installed) Install Linux (or Windows), Or OSX
Step 2A (Legacy boot)) Install GalliumOS

Step 3) Configure a new default browser of your choosing, and be free from Google's obsession with tracking everything you do, and owning your documents.

Google's Pixel is an exception to that. I've got a Pixel2 at work with 16G ram and is running an i7. (I run xUbuntu on it rather than ChromeOs though).

But it's also as expensive ($999 for 4 GB, $1299 for your 16GB model) as a MacBook (non-pro) ($999 with 8 GB), or a MacBook Air (which start out at $899 and TOP OUT at $1399, just $100 over the 16GB Pixel2), or heck, even the low-end Retina MacBook PRO is only $1299 (with 8 GB), ALL of which also are REAL computers, not just a glorified "thin client", that runs a REAL, Certified UNIX as its native OS (rather than a bastardized, cloud-bound, pseudo-Linux (which of course is a pseudo-UNIX)).

Why anyone would by a Pixel over a MacBook is beyond me, all brand-loyalty aside.

Chrome DOES have "mute tab" button right on the tab - I use it everyday ... Look at http://www.omgchrome.com/how-t... or just look up "enable chrome tab mute" to learn...er...what you should have researched before you wrote TFS.

You know, the summary is only four sentences long. Is your attention span too short to read the whole thing -- where in the next sentence it's mentioned it has to be enabled using the same trick you linked to?

Chrome DOES have "mute tab" button right on the tab - I use it everyday.

>> while Chrome has had audio indicators for more than a year now, it still doesn't let you easily mute tabs.

Look at http://www.omgchrome.com/how-t... or just look up "enable chrome tab mute" to learn...er...what you should have researched before you wrote TFS.

Why bother making Chromebooks, the market doesn't much seem to care for them

Chromebooks are actually doing pretty well.

I'm a huge Android fan, but there are some issues with apps on Android that don't translate too well to the laptop experience (yet):

• * While multitasking apps works great, there's no support for multiple on-screen app windows. (though some people have tried to add them.)
• * though there is mouse support, there's still a heavy reliance on the touch-based interface compared with laptop point-and-click.

That said, Android is open source. You're free to do a port yourself. Some have done so already.

Google itself has already provided detailed instructions for how to dual-boot Linux Mint on the thing on launch day. So that's one worry cleared up. Since there is Chrome for Linux, and you can do anything in Chrome on Linux that you can do in ChromeOS there's no reason not to default boot to Linux when that option gets sussed out. Should only be a few weeks, and Google will cooperate.

I'll bet Linux Mint is a wonder to behold on a 2560 x 1700 at 239 PPI display. Imagine the field photography review potential. The world of professional video editors is probably doing their best to deplete the supply. Of course Mint is a media focused distro so it's got all the goodies available.

Document edit pros can probably use the thing as it is. Google docs gives the power of live collaborative documents that can't be had as well anywhere else, and this device gives the glory of seeing it in full quality with art as it would print, from wherever you happen to be. Add a second 30" 2560×1600 with mini DisplayPort or through an adapter HDMI to an arbitrarily large bigscreen available everywhere. With 3G even, so you don't have to rely on local network.

Sales pros should be all over this too. If you can't carry your product with you because it's too large you need must have the finest portable display to show it on. For these folk price is not an issue. The best of them ask each month "what is the best today?" and then demand whatever that is - and get it. What's a few thousand dollars every few months to outfit a Sales Warrior with the sharp spears he uses to bring in millions in gross profits a year? Just asking him WHY he needs it is wasting his valuable time.

It has the finest display available of any mobile client compute device in the world. That alone commands a premium price. And it's a touchscreen! And it's smaller than a Macbook Air in every dimension. Also it's the Latest Thing all the Cool Kids have.

And then there are the lawyers, doctors, sports pros, the rich, those who want to appear to be rich, and on and on who don't care about this petty amount, to whom high cost is a plus, or will just charge their customers the cost before you even start to talk about why Joe the mechanic down the street would want one. We know why Joe wants one. Mobile HD porn. We don't have to be embarrassed by that. The Internet is for porn. Speaking of which, the devices will be highly in demand in the Internet porn industry as well - which is like most of the Internet.

Of course Mint opens up all the various remote machine management potentials and remote desktop options too. Remote into SIX 800x600 rez machines at the same time (some can be higher) without any of them overlapping on your screen on the device itself - and up to six more with an attached display for a total of TWELVE PCs on your display at the same time (probably at least one local and one VM). And room for other stuff on the screens also, without you even start counting multiple USB-attached slow-mo displays. And it has 3G. The thing's a mobile Nerd Command Center. Did I mention that it's got all of the latest Intel virtualization technologies present and enabled? It does.

Needs more storage. You can get a terabyte pen drive though. That pen drive will, by itself, cost more than this whole beautiful machine.

The Note is a phone that is also a tablet. This is a small professional notebook. Top end phones cost less than small professional notebooks. Although they exist in separate domains, I think the analogy is apt. Would you prefer a car analogy? I don't do those usually.