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Hands-On With Google's Cr-48
adeelarshad82 writes "While Google has made it clear that Cr-48 is nothing more than a test prototype, it was interesting to see the machine Google used to demonstrate Chrome OS. Out of the box, the Cr-48 conjures images of the Black Apple MacBook, from the plain, rubberized chassis to what looks like the same chiclet-style keyboard. The 12-inch notebook weighs about 3.8lbs and comes with a clickpad which recognizes one finger as a left click, while a two-finger tap triggers a right-click function. The laptop obviously contains a hard drive for storing backup data, but the capacity is unknown. The notebook comes with a lone USB port on the right side, which has limited functionaly. For now, thumb drives, hard drives, cameras, printers and other USB peripherals do not work with Cr-48. Google is working on getting its Chrome OS to recognize storage drives, but it's a work in progress. Once Chrome OS does recognize storage drives, users can probably install other OSes on Cr-48 for fun. Video playback seems to struggle with Hulu videos, while YouTube clips were okay. The device operates at a 1,280x800 resolution, which means the Cr-48 can theoretically support 720p video playback, but the videos were capped at 480p."
Engadget posted photos a Cr-48 teardown if you'd like a look at its guts. An article at InfoWorld suggests Google needs to work on the cloud offerings underpinning the device.
Unknown capacity? I checked the about:system logs, although I have a hard time reading them, it seems to indicate sda1 is 16gb in size. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
Also I think I was able to get 720p; I'm not sure. But it's easy to check, I'm sure you can try lowering your desktop res and seeing if YouTube caps the resolution. But I doube it.
The storage was the biggest mind-bending moment for getting going with the CR-48. I unwrapped it, wondered "how much storage does it have" and then a moment later realized that my thinking had become very un-dude. It doesn't matter how much storage it has!
Here:
The trackpad is absolutely infuriating. It’s as if Google attempted to create a similar trackpad to the Macbook Pro but just got it all wrong. There is two-finger scrolling (good) but no acceleration. Tap-to-click is frustrating and I disabled it immediately. There is no three-finger swipe-to-go-back gesture (which I miss a lot). Performing text selection is absolutely insane. It seems like any combination of having two fingers on the mouse pad simultaneously throws the laptop into “scroll” mode. It’s so bad that it makes me not want to write things on the laptop until it is fixed. As mentioned before there appears to be physical way of doing a right click – but I can’t find a single place in the UI where right-clicking has an effect.
I found this almost exact issue with the cheap netbook trackpads. Too bad Google didn't put a bit more effort into their prototype there.
The keyboard is easily the best part of the Cr-48 hardware. Replacing Capslock with a “New Tab” button is truly inspired. I’ve found myself already starting to rely upon it very heavily. The keyboard feels good to type on and the large Ctrl + Alt keys make for easy key combinations (important when using screen).
Sounds great.
Right now my ideal laptop would be: Take a 13 Macbook Pro, replace the HD with an SSD, replace the DVD drive with more battery, add 3G. I would use that laptop until the end of time.
This is pretty much my setup (external battery unfortunately, and USB 3G card).
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I've read case studies about product life cycles... watching something go from cutting edge, proprietary and lucrative to being a virtual commodity with low (normal?) profit margins. yet it is weird living through this with the PC. I remember my first PC around '79... very expensive and not able to do much. Today, PCs are way overpowered for what 99% of the population needs. New features are not driving much in the way of additional sales.
Google looks to make the "PC" experience consistent for everyone with much less fussing and fewer options. While I rebel against this myself, I must admit that for most folks, Google's offering seems to make a lot of sense.... most people just want to get on the net, send an email and check out facebook. Google offers this without having to configure anything.
So yeah, we have moved from the wild frontier to the "just another product" category. In some ways I will miss it... in others I think it is overdue. And no, Google isn't the first offering like this.... however it is the first from a company with enough financial, technical and social connections to make it work.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
...and here's why:
While the Cr-48's big event recently could be seen worldwide over the internet infrastructure that Google itself supports, testing of this device was only limited to those residing in the US!
This was unfair to those outside the United States. Making things even worse was the fact that at registration, one only came to this realization after being asked about what the U.S. State of residence is. This would be after asking for all other information!
Google should have allowed those without a U.S. shipping address to be billed for any expenses if they really wanted to be part of the testing regime. Heck...Google has "Google Checkout", right?
I was not happy at all. Google being a worldwide company would have benefited a lot from worldwide input.
How am I wrong?
Too many places I've been where you want a laptop or video viewer, but don't have cloud access.
Best Slashdot Co
While Google has made it clear that Cr-48 is nothing more than a test prototype...
I'm waiting for the final version, which I presume will be called the C-64. I hope my old "Little Computer People" disk is still viable...
Why on Earth do people care about this thing? You've got a big community that used to be mostly Open-Source advocates, and you can't even install software on this darn netbook. The *only* benefit to the average consumer is its low cost.
Right now we've got a bunch of idiots figuring out what tasks they'll use this for instead of their laptop or their netbook. The answer is none. If you are fortunate to own either of those devices, they'll do everything that this stupid thing will do *and* all of the stuff that they normally do. There is no reason at all for you to want a CR-48, aside from feeling cool that you got to be part of a Google beta program.
it's flash. Youtube was serving up H.264 (or possibly WebM).
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
doesntgetit.jpg
Well, I am glad I got in my request for one days before this story got posted here. Hopefully that will improve my chances.
Anyway, simple fact is, a lot of things have moved, or will be moving into "the cloud" - especially with the popularity of AndroidOS based phones. I for one never ever ever want to go back to managing and maintaining contacts on a damn cell phone again. Much rather be able to add them "to the cloud" and edit/change them from my PC/phone/whatever from "the cloud" - and replace my phone with another Android based phone (hey, my G1 is definitely up for retirement) and need do nothing but log in. Same goes for a variety of other Google Services.
Whether this laptop is great, sucks, whatever; true cloud computing (ie: forget Microsoft's lame commercials - they understand cloud computing as much as they did/do object oriented programming... inotherwords, not at all)... true cloud computing is going to become a lot more prevalent in this day and age. Jumping on that bandwagon early as it grows is a good thing. If Google doesn't get this right on the first time out, I am sure they will work on improving it.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Today, PCs are way overpowered for what 99% of the population needs. New features are not driving much in the way of additional sales.
Perhaps, "needs" but not what they want. Take for instance what most people like to play their music with: iTunes. On a PC it is a memory hog, is laggy and needs a lot of power to run correctly. Sure, most people don't "need" iTunes, Foobar2000 does a great job organizing music on Windows, VLC is great at playing music/videos, etc. but most people are familiar with and want to use iTunes. And what about video playback? And forget about gaming without a dedicated video card, etc.
Plus, prices are still stagnant. Despite that generic Leveno netbooks have been out without a spec boost or anything for a year or two now, I don't see any real drop in prices. Bottom-end computers aren't getting any cheaper, despite them essentially doing less and less every year. I'd have no problem buying the Cr-48 if it cost less than a normal netbook (or heck, a bottom-end laptop!) if I'm going to be able to do less with it, the price needs to reflect it. I don't want to pay $300 for a netbook anymore, and if it is only in the "cloud" the price should be around $150 or so.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
NO CAPS LOCK KEY.
Isn't this the second nail in the coffin for this thing recently?
I DON'T KNOW, I NEVER USE MY CAPS LOCK KEY. WHAT'S IT FOR?
Seriously though, except for programming/development, or for those who LOVE SHOUTING IN EVERY POST/MSG/ETC BECAUSE THEY DON'T KNOW BETTER (or those who still program in the original MS-DOS BASIC), I don't see it as a big problem.
Heck, even for programmers (I often type those special "certain things" in ALL CAPS), I still find it easier to simply hold down the shift key (which is actually how I did the capitalized section above). Maybe it's all a matter of the keyboard, but I find on my Model M, it's very easy to hold shift with my pinky and type with the remaining fingers relatively normal.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
The 12-inch notebook weighs about 3.8lbs and comes with a clickpad which recognizes one finger as a left click, while a two-finger tap triggers a right-click function.
I have only one finger, you insensitive clod!
For most practical things, the "cloud" is worthless as a primary storage device. Yes the "cloud" can be useful for backing up data off-site as you noted with contacts with Android. There are some big drawbacks to the "cloud" though.
A) Lack of access. There are many places where it is impossible to get any internet connection (or at least anything that you aren't paying out of the ass for), travel is the number one reason I use my laptop on the go. If I'm on a bus that doesn't have wi-fi on it, I have no internet. Yes, you can buy things through cell phone companies that let you use the internet, but they are expensive and now they are even eliminating unlimited data, giving you a tiny amount of usable data at a high price at low speeds.
B) It is more expensive. For the price of two months of cell phone data service, you can get a decent 500 GB - 1 TB HDD. Yes, I know that hard drives fail, but assuming that they don't fail within 2 months of use, you are essentially saving money by storing your things locally and only using the "cloud" for backups on your home internet connection.
C) It isn't secure. The "cloud" is only as secure as your trust for the person or company that has your data. It shouldn't surprise you that the companies who push the "cloud" as a revolution are the same people who make money off of mining your personal data? Sites like Google and Facebook. Now, I'm not saying that either of those sites is 100% untrustworthy, but still, their main source of income is through selling data to advertisers and selling ads. Not to mention that break-ins and the lack of data integrity is possible, not to mention the legal implications as governments have been known to plant evidence, add that plus a willing company and you have potential jail time for doing nothing wrong.
D) Internet connections aren't uniform. Sure, in a big city or an affluent suburb fast, free, wi-fi is prevalent, with enough money you can buy a nearly lag-free 4G modem and use 4G for surfing the web and accessing the "cloud", but lets say you go to visit your obscure relatives for a family reunion in Middleofnowhere, Iowa. Suddenly, your 4G isn't going to work there, you might not get any service at all, and the house you are staying at has no internet beyond dial-up.
Yes, eventually the "cloud" might change the world. But right now, you'd be foolish to buy into this Chrome OS hype.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
2GB RAM and a 16GB SSD with an Atom processor... Multitouch trackpad.. If I got sent one I'd wipe ChromeOS for Ubuntu 11.04 within 24 hours.
Why isn't it a silvery metallic color?
What are you talking about?
1. USB devices for the most part don't work on this. Why would you need another port?
2. Most reviewers are unhappy about it regardless of point 1.
3. This isn't final hardware. How many ports it has doesn't mean anything in the long run.
Iirc, earlier chromeos builds had storage devices show up as "tab" on the bottom of the screen. Much in the same way that they have IM sessions show up right now. I wonder if this proved to cumbersome for users once the devices started containing large numbers of files and directories.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
That is what I thought.
Are you retarded?
Out of the box, the Cr-48 conjures images of the Black Apple MacBook, from the plain, rubberized chassis to what looks like the same chiclet-style keyboard. The 12-inch notebook weighs about 3.8lbs and comes with a clickpad which recognizes one finger as a left click, while a two-finger tap triggers a right-click function.
From what I've seen, the design of this prototype is quite nice and does conjure thoughts of other elegant notebook designs such as the MacBook or ThinkPad. However, by the time this thing reaches production it will be marred by horrible beveled designs in cheap plastic, substandard parts, and a plethora of ugly stickers announcing the system internals. I understand that the need to cut costs means that not every notebook can be visually pleasing to the eye, but is there such a need to make them ass ugly?
WHAT'S IT FOR?
I still find it easier to simply hold down the shift key (which is actually how I did the capitalized section above).
LOL... some other message boards have been littered with I CAN"T LIVE WITHOUT CAPS LOCK comments, where that tell-tale " exposes their LIES.
Anyway, kudos for managing to get the quote key correct... somehow... (we'll just have to assume you weren't cheating and really using the CAPS LOCK ;-)
chromium 48 has a half life of 21.6 hours. so this laptop won't last very long
give google time to do 4 version revisions, to chromium 52. that version is a stable isotope, i mean operating system
wait, what?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And more to the point, it's been pointed out already that they haven't removed the caps lock functionality, just a key dedicated to it. You can still go into CAPS LOCK mode by double taping the shift key or if you are really really adverse to change, go into the settings and change the key back to being caps lock.
Lotsa time using the same keyboard series helps. Makes it seem natural to shift/unshift.
I do a lot of REXX coding (and formerly some C++) and follow IBM's naming conventions for their C++ functions when creating REXX functions (such as VioWrtTTY), so, I've gotten very used to switching shift state pretty quickly and with minimal errors.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
And more to the point, it's been pointed out already that they haven't removed the caps lock functionality, just a key dedicated to it. You can still go into CAPS LOCK mode by double taping the shift key or if you are really really adverse to change, go into the settings and change the key back to being caps lock.
Yeah, I guess lately posting FUD is more fun here on slashdot though. I'm getting used to it. Hope you do too. :-)
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
I mean, isn't that the accepted leetspeak spelling for "crap"?
If you buy a chromeos device you might as well chop off your penis.
Instead, how about when I buy a ChromeOS device, I chop off your penis, since you seem to have a thing for such oddities.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Yes, it's secure. It reloads the original OS if it detects a change. It only lets a limited selection of apps to run.
It stores everything on servers, so I have to connect to the net to access my data. (Anyone remember the SideKick fiasco?)
Meaning, that much of the time I won't have access because I'm down in the basement of some old building on the edge of town, etc, etc, lather, rinse, wish it had a dialup as it'd be more useful than this dreck.
If I want freedom and mobility like that, I can just handcuff myself to a steel post.
Running Knoppix off a CD in a real netbook would be a dream compared to this, and secure as well.
If I were the Big Brother from the old Apple commercial and wanted to control my minions utterly, this would be my wet dream.
(It'd be useful for some corporate situations where usefulness should be limited to a small set of operations. I assume it has a way to put an allowed site list or some such, but maybe not even that.)
Apparently the chromium-osmium alloy is pretty hard (thought I'm not sure about the exact applications) so that would be a nice name for a stable version.
A) Caching
B) Wifi
C) Encryption
D) Who cares? You've got everything you're likely to need stored on your device already.
Don't think of it as "my stuff lives in the cloud", think of it as "my stuff is synced with the cloud". With some local storage for caching, you only need a net connection occasionally for syncing & updating. That way, you only connect to the net when & how you want to (wifi, tethered 3G, whatever).
Some people are fine with cheap, thin clients needing more frequent net access, but all it takes to reduce that dependency is a few more local GBs and a decent syncing algorithm. I can still access my contacts, web albums etc on my phone even when I don't have any service. All the convenience of universal cloud access, and you can still carry most of it with you anywhere.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Not sure how this can be viewed as anything other than a beta for a tablet OS which happens to have a keyboard. I seriously doubt that Google is suddenly entering the hardware market for anything other than a vehicle to deliver beta software prior to HW manufacturers coming up to speed. This is the same approach taken with the Nexus One but with a bigger screen running Chrome instead of Android. I can see that the upcoming tablets are expected to run some version of Android, but Google must see the need for an alternative OS on tablets, hence Chrome. And, since the unit seems extremely basic, it was an inexpensive way to get a portable unit into testers' hands without enlisting Motorola or HTC. So, I wouldn't focus any serious consideration on the hardware itself...the OS and its reliance on connectivity to the 'cloud' is the issue.
>>the Cr-48 conjures images of the Black Apple MacBook
Because we all know Apple invented and are the only producers of black bricky laptops, nevermind Thinkpads, no, beca^h^h^h^h^h Hi I'm a thinkpad I care a lot about appearance but I dunno how to be cool so I copied Apple and now I'm cool yay!.//sarcasm
Getting kinda tired of all the rewriting of the history and the mental onanism of preaching that Apple invented $anything_and_everything_computer.
My experiences trying to turn off Google Instant, the fade-in effects and the hidden redirection links on the search page have turned me against Google. I certainly wouldn't want to use a device where they controlled the OS.
It might be just me, but I know a load of "non-techie" people that use their computer for the internet and writing the occasional document and that's it. A large number of these people have had their windows box infected by some kind of malware where they had absolutely no idea how it had happened and they are now what I can only describe as afraid to explore what they can do with their computers.
If Google does this right and makes this product easy to use then I think people will jump on the idea of a system where they don't need to worry about viruses, spyware etc. I'd certainly be happy to recommend them to someone and will be pushing my mum to get one as soon as they are available (as long as the pricing is right).
wHAT I REMEMBER FROM THE PAST, IS THIS ANNOYING FEATURE OF THE TRS-80 (TRASH 80) DEVICE, WHERE THE CAPITAL LETTER WERE THE ONLY OPTION. tHE ONLY WAY TO READ BBS TEXT WAS TO HAVE THE BACKGROUND REVERSED ON EVERY LOWERCASE LETTER, AND IT WAS SIMILAR TO THIS POST. wHICH I AM SURE YOU WILL AGREE IS ANNOYING AS HELL. oH, AND THE THE 300 BAUD MODEM WAS KILLER, WITH A CASSETE TAPE FOR A HARD DRIVE AND A CARTRIDGE PORT. Caps Lock Keys are about as obsolete as the scroll lock (I use that for my KVM switch) and the pause/break button. Sure, they *can* be useful, but for how many of us? Only the geeks. I'm sure we geeks can program a key combo to hold down the shift button.
OT, but has to be said: the pcmag image slideshow functionality is pretty painful. more images at http://www.google.com/chromeos/pilot-program-cr48.html
The CR-48 has solid state storage, not a hard drive. 2GB apparently.
Ok I can give up on CAP LOCK (make it toggle when both shifts are pressed simultaneously or whatever other clever way) but please! PLEASE do not take my SCROLL LOCK, PrtSc/SysReq and Pause/Break keys!
People for years were complaining about how useless the Caps Lock key is (I think John Dvorak was one of them). Now they are complaining its removed. Can't make anyone happy I guess.
Posting from a Cr-48 right now. One question I have is how Google will get feedback from me. I suppose the machine will send back information to the mothership ever now and then. It's interesting experience using the machine right now. There are things that you expect to use on a regular linux laptop that is not available, like software. The experience is more like using an iPad, but without the apps. The apps are just html5 websites, I think. I would like to have a VNC app which would let me do some remote applications. We've seen many different types of "internet appliances", but this may be the best one yet. I have a whole bunch of internet appliances in my garage, including the 3com audrey and a FrontPath ProGear. (yes, I have no life) I can see Google giving these things out like razor handles.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.