Slashdot Mirror
Samsung Chromebook Series 5 Review
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Neil McAllister takes an in-depth look at the Samsung Chromebook Series 5 3G and finds the device comparatively lackluster. 'The Chromebook is lightweight and inexpensive, and it offers a full-featured Web browsing experience. But its low-end hardware, lack of versatility, and primitive support for commonplace computing tasks such as printing, file management, networking, and media playback make it a poor choice for everyday use, particularly in a business setting,' McAllister writes. 'All in all, the Samsung Series 5 is an average-quality netbook with a large screen and a higher-than-average price tag, while Chrome OS itself feels more like a proof-of-concept project whose time has not yet come.'"
No shit
I've had my Samsung Chromebook for about a week now and I absolutely love it. It brings an immediacy to the 'net that I have never experienced with any other computer. True, it's not good at the "heavy lifting" you often need to perform with a "real" computer, but compared to the utterly pitiful web experience you get with an iPad, it can't be beat.
Howard Roark, Architect
I believe in a Man's right to exist for his own sake.
Remember when thin clients were all the rage, guys? Remember Bill Joy telling us the network is the computer? It was true!
Well, kinda...
As it turns out, internet access isn't ubiquitous, at least not yet. In the age of 4G smartphones and tablets we'd like to think it's ubiquitous, but you really only notice that it's not when you have a system like a Chrome OS laptop that literally does not function at all without a network connection.
Even if it were available all the time (airplanes, underground, in the wilderness) it's still not fast enough. And even if it were fast enough, presently we have to deal with usage caps.
Chrome OS is an idea way too far ahead of its time. Right now there's no reason to ditch native software that works perfectly well.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
The issue with this "Chromebook", from my perspective, is that it manages to be as or more expensive(and no better in terms of battery life or weight/build quality) than an equivalent netbook/cheapie laptop.
If I can save money by buying something else and just running Chrome in full screen on Ubuntu or something, or don't get it.
I find Google's experiment conceptually interesting, and its continued evolution will be something to see; but in its present state(while I wouldn't turn a free one down) it doesn't seem to be worth any premium over whatever netbook is winning the knife-fight-in-a-telephone booth on price/performance today, just running a web browser most of the time.
Chrome OS laptop that literally does not function at all without a network connection.
According to many sources, handily compiled in the Chrome Wikipedia page, you can edit docs, view pics, and playback media offline.
I have no idea why people keep repeating the 'does not work at all without teh internets' meme
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
The issue with this "Chromebook", from my perspective, is that it manages to be as or more expensive(and no better in terms of battery life or weight/build quality) than an equivalent netbook/cheapie laptop.
I personally think the Chromebook along with the Google Online Cloudstuff has its niche already and stands a real chance at becoming the prime choice for household computing.
The first Chromebook from Samsung weighs 1.4 Kg and is roughly 2cm thick, if not thinner. It fits squarely into the MacBook Air carry-around pattern, whilst costing a fifth.
For those who do 95% of their stuff online and know so little about computers they couldn't find a directory on an Thumbdrive - even with OS X Finder in 'stupid-mode', let alone know where to plug it in and how to unmount it before removal (99.999% of all users), the chromebook is a viable every-day computer.
If has the form, size and weight factor of a sleek MacBook Air, costs a fraction of that, has above 8 hours of uptime on battery, has zero hassles with installation and setup, needs no worrying or even knowing about such things as backup, software installation, sane security awareness and data-migrate-ability. All you need to know is how to log into something on the web, which most people do know nowadays.
For those who know what they're doing it's nearly trivially easy to hack a bash CLI onto it, with all the goodies you want.
Optical media aside - which we all agree will become full-scale obsolete any time soon - this would actually be a replacement I'd get my spouse if her iBook G4 breaks. She mostly surfs, does email and sometimes writes a letter. Nothing you can't do with the Google stuff. DVDs are the aforementioned exception to that, but as I see it Netflix, Lovefilm et al are standing ready to solve that even for the very latest of adopters.
And let's face it: I - and I gather most of you too - would take a Linux+Web based Google lockin over an Apple or MS lockin any time. No?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca