(+) Hands On with the Google Chromebook

The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.

The delivery truck rolled into the driveway early this morning, exactly as promised. The driver left a medium-sized box with no label or brand name on it, other than the address label. Of course, I knew it was the Chromebook laptop computer I have been waiting for. As I wrote earlier at http://goo.gl/Io3M8:

Chromebooks are low-powered (and cheap) laptop computers built and optimized for the web, where you already spend most of your computing time. With a ChromeBook, you get a faster, simpler and a more secure computing experience without all the headaches of ordinary computers.

Chromebooks also might be called "cloud computers." They have very low-powered processors, very little memory, and tiny disk drives. That doesn't sound very attractive until you realize they are designed to always be connected to the Internet. A Chromebook boots up in eight seconds or less. That's fast! As the Chromebook boots up, it quickly connects to your favorite wireless network so you're on the web right from the start.

Of course, the purchase price of $350 to $500 is also very appealing for a computer with infinite storage capacity and hundreds of applications available.

I have now used the Chromebook for a few hours and have some initial impressions. I am pleased with it, although I cannot say that everything is perfect. In fact, I am going on a trip to California tomorrow morning and am not sure which laptop I will take with me: the Chromebook or my older MacBook Air. Maybe I will violate my "pack lightly" philosophy and take both of them while I test the new computer.

Chromebooks manufactured by Samsung and Acer will soon be available in the U.S. with an expected ship date of June 15. That’s next week! Soon another manufacturer, Kogan, will release a Chromebook called the “Agora” in Australia, and other manufacturers are expected to release Chromebooks by the end of the year. I was fortunate to be able to obtain a Samsung Chromebook "pre-shipment" a week earlier than the announced release date.

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