Cr-48 Highlights / Lowlights After 3 Days In Europe

The thing most surprising to me about MG Siegler's early impressions of the Cr-48 Chrome Notebook is how favorably he rates the Chrome OS chances of success in spite of his extreme dislike for certain aspects of this new computing system.

The trackpad on the Cr-48 catches most of MG's wrath, being labeled by him as,

"...the worst excuse for a piece of technology that anyone has created in the past five years...It's an abomination..."

One can clearly hear his frustration when he presents his version of the operating instructions for said trackpad.

"...To get it to work, you essentially have to lift two fingers about a foot in the air, then bring them down in a perfectly straight line at a rapid speed while making sure that they both hit the pad at the exact same time. Okay, I may be exaggerating a bit there, but it's really bad..."

However, after venting his frustrations with the hardware, MG starts talking about what he considers the good points of the Chrome Notebook:

"in many ways, the Cr-48 reminds me a lot of the G1, the first Android phone Google shipped...They were both clearly step one of a platform that would quickly evolve...I still have a G1. Looking at it now compared to the newer Android phones is pretty humorous. The platform has clearly come a long way. And that gives me a lot of hope for Chrome notebooks as well...Chrome OS was revealed to be little more than Chrome...But that simplicity is the OS's strength. It removes several layers of junk that most people these days never use on a computer...roughly 95 percent of what I do on a computer these days is in the web browser. Of the other 5 percent, 4 percent of it could probably be done in the browser too...Even in its current beta state, Chrome OS has definitely been a perfectly adequate travel companion these past three days...And if Chrome's (the browser) evolution is any indication, it's going to get better very quickly..."

With the caveats that a.) Chrome OS hardware needs to be improved enough for sale to consumers to provide speed and smoothness roughly equivalent to the MacBook Air, and b.) Google needs to ensure a price point that's low enough to compete with both Mac and with Windows netbooks, MG ends up giving Chrome OS a fighting chance of financial success, saying,

"...if they can bring them in with better hardware than the Cr-48 for something like $300, I thnk they're going to sell a ton of them...by next holiday season..."

This TechCrunch post seemed a balanced review; let's hope the author is correct. While I know the Chrome OS isn't for everyone, it seems like a large percentage of Facebook users and other casual computer users would do just fine with a Chrome Notebook...

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