What? | Someday I'll have a real title

Welp, sure as hell has been a long time since I updated this. So much for routine blogging. Lets give this another shot though.

I was fortunate enough to get selected to receive a Cr-48 — Google’s test platform for Chrome OS. Of course, a quick search tells me they shipped 60k units and realtime search is just streaming reports of received machines. Well, still luckier than usual for me.

First thoughts — It’s a nice piece of hardware. Matte black exterior, no logos present. Not too heavy, but it’s slim and solid — for the most part. The entire forward half of the base is battery, so if you give it a little side-to-side twist it flexes pretty good. Doesn’t seem like it would be an issue for regular usage, but maybe a week spot if it is abused any. Typing is solid and the keys are well spaced. Opening or closing the lid from one corner is no issue, and it closes with a solid thump.

The screen does seem a little desaturated to me. I need to use it a few hours solo to see how it really is — I’m at work right now and the problem may just be from looking back and forth between this and my nicer desktop monitors.

Touchpad is sensitive, and large. Entire pad is clickable and there are no standalone buttons. Clicking was a bit awkward, but you don’t need to - tapping produces the same result.

The OS will take some time to form more detailed opinions on. It is, basically, just Chrome. If this is your daily browser, you should be pretty comfortable. When I signed in, all my extensions, bookmarks, history, etc synced with no issue. Google talk chats pop up gmail-style, but over all tabs. First missing feature I see — I can close the chat, but not minimize it out of the way. I can drag it around the bottom at least. Strike that, I just double tapped on the chat title bar and it minimized. Pretty slick.

I’ll report back after trying more apps and using the machine a few days.

I uploaded some unboxing and setup pictures to my Picasa account