Anyone tried a Chromebook yet?

Im afraid i'm fresh out of hpc's @ the moment... (just got rid of a bunch of dusty stuff recently) i could however compare it to a dell mini 9 netbook, a nexus 7, a 3ds, a toshiba 15.6 inch or a 4.3inch evo v 4g android phone.

I dig the keyboard it's a nicely spaced chick-let type, i have big hands and tend to fat-finger keys more often than not, but it hasn't been a problem with this one....

I would say its about the size of any 11-14 inch ultra/notebook keyboard slightly varied by key types as it doesn't have certain keys a windows one would have.

The mouse pad is nice & responsive, the left and right click is actually built into the pad its self which is neat, (the left and right bottom half of the pad actually clicks down like mouse buttons) but not so easy to press & mess you up, just right.

With the screen type & the form factor, and operation, (build quality & hardware is a big part, or one of those cheap Chinese net books would of done it for me) I honestly have brought back to my Jupiter hpc days but with the modern convinces.

Edited by thcrw739 2013-02-27 10:40 PM

It sounds nice enough...as long as you have a wifi connection. From what I've read on them, they tend to be pretty limited without one. I guess the Acer brand is nothing more than a laptop with the Chromebook OS on it...but people have been turning them into dual-boot machines, Chrome and Linux. I could see where that would be kind of handy as there are a ton of Linux applications that could be used offline.

The price isn't bad either, and I'd love the fast boot. That is one thing that I dearly appreciate. I hate waiting for a machine to boot. Long battery life...seems it has the best of HPCs really...except that it isn't CE

Read some reviews on amazon, it's the number 1 on amazon where i purchased (tax free and prime shipping for me) http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-Laptop-Computers/zgbs/electronics/565108/ref=zg_bs_nav_e_2_541966

They have some Linux types for this, Some derivative of ubuntu & arch linux arm, still in early stages but work reasonably well from what I've seen.

Again offline i really havent tried, but i hear it is not bad for basic's, and getting better.

https://plus.google.com/photos/112747347914425739056/albums/5850129309036470977?authkey=COqFtr2Mm7DMTQ try these out, some pics and 2 videos i did

Nice! so have they built in any other than the browser?

Well basically anything done online or offline is done with in the a browser window.

Even local setting besides a small window similar to windows 7 & 8 notifications area down bottom at the left hand side for basics like wifi & brightness, etc... is all done with in a browser window, so to answer your question honestly, No pretty much just a browser that has everything.

you can enter address, then commands with in a browser window to access things like you would regular Linux command lines from what i understand.

Then you have the dev area/boot loader/restore which you would access by certain keys at boot.

That's what I thought. Does it have a USB/flash slot?

Yes it has 2 usb ports one version 2.0 and one version 3.0 , and one hdmi slot ....all usb ports. hdmi out, and power port is in the back (which is another thing i love) one sd card slot on the left side along with a 3.5mm Headphone/mic jack , nothing on the right side.


webcam, built in mic, & ambient light sensor array up top in the usual spot.

Now that sounds cool and I want one... But then again it's still a tough sell against a similarly priced x86 netbook, especially to general public consumer...

If only it had a more mainstream tablet OS like Android or Windows RT... You have to pay double the price for one of those tablets with keyboard dock, not to mention the added weight

Anyway thanks so much for all that information and reviving my old thread. I have my 7-inch Android tablet just like you did before, and it's working fine as my web browser, which the Chrome OS device seems most useful for.

BTW I also have a 3DS XL (replaced my old 3DS) but I find myself playing on the Android tablet for short burst casual games; the 3DS is only great when I have more time to play.

I'm interested in Google's new Chromebook Pixel. That thing looks like a Macbook Pro and a SAMSUNG Chromebook's cross. I wonder what company's behind making it? Sony? SAMSUNG?

http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/chromebook-pixel/

Edited by stingraze 2013-03-01 1:54 PM

I actually think Google designed & manufactured the pixel from what i can find, but i could be wrong.

However as cool it is ....I would never even pay that much for any computer even if it was made out bars of gold bullion.

Well i wouldn't have wanted it if it was a regular old net book, battery life would stink, take longer to boot and read/write to/from drive, & it would weigh more no matter what OS was on it.

as i said before you can throw a popular linux distro on it, & im sure someone will do android at some point.

I'm not the typical consumer, & i consider it a niche device with in a group of similar niche devices.

Yeah i just could not get use to gaming control sticks/swift movements on a touch screen & your right all the perpetuals to make it comfortable don't make sense for what it's suppose to be., so that's why i got the 3ds xl for bedside gaming (thought it would be a better over all choice than the vita).

"Google did not disclose who its hardware partners are, but the company did say that the device is being assembled in Taiwan."
http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/21/google-announces-1299-chromebook-pixel-with-2560x1700-32-12-85-touchscreen-core-i5-cpu-1tb-of-google-drive-storage-optional-lte/

So maybe ASUS? looks kinda similar to their Ultrabooks.

I would pay that much, but for a Vaio Duo 11 or a Ultrabook with at least 256GB of SSD. Not a mere 32GB of storage device...