Before boarding the Virgin America airlines from San Francisco to Chicago, I was in for a surprise. There was a promotion offer of Chrome notebooks with free wi-fi access onboard the aircraft.
At the boarding gate, one had to enter their registration info, show their id and the credit card details. Now if something is free, why does one need the credit card details? I had the same question. The deal here is that on arriving at the Chicago airport, one must turn in the notebook to the chrome staff else your credit card will be charged. As simple as that.
With a 12.1 inch screen, the chromebook looks like an ordinary notebook. The differentiating factors are:
Pros:
1. Log into the PC, the first interface you come across is not the windows icon but the chrome browser.
2. There is a SD card slot
3. Nice keyboard
4. Taunt the battery gods (mentioned on the instruction kit :)) 8.5 hours of battery standby time. My flight was 6 hours duration but as I am writing this article only 30% of the battery has been utilized.
5. Slim and Lightweight
6. Instant on. This feature was really awesome. I browsed and then closed the lid. I opened the lid and voila the browser was there in front of me.
Cons:
1. If you're looking for the familiar operating system like Windows etc.. you will be in for a shock. Please remember its just Chrome o/s :)
2. Although the keyboard is nice, it has only the bare bones feature. For example there are no function keys and the usual separate keypad for numbers.
3. As this is a cloud based notebook, your data can't be stored on a hard drive. Remember its built only for the web.
4. The only drawback which I observed was while watching YouTube videos the pictures freezed. The most probable reason as the chrome staff explained was due to the limited bandwidth available during the flight.
The Samsung website punchline for the Google Chrome Samsung notebook states "Born for the Web". I agree :)
(Image courtesy: http://cdn.unixmen.com/images/stories/linuxlogos/google-chrome-logo.jpg)
(References: http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/chromebook?cid=ppc_CRO_goo_C-Brand_Chrome_Generic_chrome+notebook)
2 comments:
is it good for web designers?
I dont agree with the battery part... even my lenovo thinkpad has battery life of 8 hours.. usually runs for 7 hours..
Hari,
The chromebook is only for browsing the web. There are no other applications.
As for the battery part good for you if your lenovo thinkpad battery lasts for 8 hours because as far as I know not many notebooks can boast of that.
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