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.

Comments

Re:I found John Resig's review to be interesting

[RobertM1968]

Hmmm... I know you in particular weren't really complaining, but numerous of these reviews are. And I can't figure out why...

(1) it's a prototype

(2) it should be the lowest common denominator - not the highest. Best way to test and tweak things. It's why I know what I download/install/test on my T-Mo G1 (or on an ADP1) will work very well on other hardware.

(3) They (Google) paid for 60,000 of these (in money or other considerations) - did you really expect TEST PROTOTYPE versions to be uber-high end?

(4) A lot of the complaints seem to be about unfinished or untweaked stuff... to that, I have to say "DUH!!!!" - that is, after all, the purpose of this testing. To see what needs to be improved. To see what needs to be replaced/re-written. To allow testing while Google finishes off other parts of the software for these types of devices.

I dunno... that's my opinion on this. Yours may vary. :-)