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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.
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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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.
How dare google not offer free things to everyone in the world!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when doing any sort of LIMITED testing, you generally want to have some constraints on the testing conditions, correct? Wouldn't geographic location seem to be a reasonable constraint then? Or are you one of those people whose first instinct when testing something is to throw as many random variables into the mix all at once?
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!
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.
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.
Do they actually want to use iTunes? Or do they use it because it plays nice with their iPod, lets them buy music, and isn't horrifyingly complex? Would they maybe be happier if they could just use an iPod independently? If they could buy their music right on the iPod and never have to touch a computer for their music?
It's been my experience that most people don't really want to use a computer at all... What they want to do is play music, or write a letter, or check their email, or whatever. They've got some task they want to accomplish. Some goal in mind. And right now those tasks typically involve a computer.
But if you had a simple hardware appliance, like the iPod, that enabled them to do their task without ever touching a general-purpose computer? Most of them would be thrilled.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Why isn't it a silvery metallic color?
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?
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.
I like the cloud for contacts and calendar, too. But, I dont' want to give Google any more info on me than they already have.... so I am running a Zimbra server that lets me push stuff to my phone. Giving Google full control over all my info, documents, and apps, does not sound like a good time to me.
And why can't you use your own cloud servers? I'm only a half decent programmer, but I know how to use both dedicated/our own cloud servers AND link what data I need/want to through Google's services for where there's overlap (like contacts, maps, docs, picasa, etc). It's very very easy. All the APIs are in place. Anyone with just a little programming skill can do it.
Heck, you can even run your own versions of Google's services to "disconnect" from them yet still run the same services solely for you and/or your customers.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!