Google CR-48

Google's chrome OS powered laptop

Design and Features 

The new chrome powered laptop is here but you would be forgiven for thinking its the old black macbook. The prototype has a bitter sweet effect, but still has a way to come before it is ready for release. 

The CR-48 has a rubber like texture this along with a VGA port, a side grill for the fan and only one USB port doesn't bode well for the overall design of the product. 

The track pad while looking very similar to those found of the Apple macbook range its not! Tech-crunch described the the trackpad as "maybe the worst excuse for a piece of technology that anyone has created in the past five years"With problems with double clicking, two finger scrolling and simply clicking. 

On the whole it is not the best looking laptop with a dated and almost cheap look to it. 

Tech Specs 

The CR-48 is running an intel Atom with a speed of about 1.66GHz and 2gb of RAM. Despite reasonable specs it is still very slow. Compared with the MacBookAir which has similar specs the CR-48 has serious speed problems. Google really needs to work with their OEM partners to get this lag sorted out before these Chrome notebooks start shipping.

Chrome OS

The real genius is in the operating system. Chrome OS is in fact, just a little bit more than chrome. Its so simple and thats whats good about it. The reality is that 95% of what people do on the computer these days is done through the web browser. Another 3-4% can probably be done through the web browser. The final 1-2% can be left to a desktop computer. Thats the thing, the CR-48 is not going to replace anyones desktop anytime soon so why try to do it? Chrome OS could (and I stress could) be a very reliable and effective on the go computing solution. But its not quite there yet. 

Everything else

Connectivity is good with Google teaming up with Verizon to set up 3g coverage.

Price, while google has not released an official price if they want it to compete with similar Windows devices then something under US$500 should fit. 

Final thoughts

In conclusion the CR-48 has the potential to be great... But its not there yet, the speed, trackpad and design are just a few of the features that Google needs to fix before they fully release the CR-48. 

Pictures