Chromebook: The Nissan LEAF of computers

I'm totally getting one of these:
http://www.google.com/chromebook/

8 sec bootup. No viruses. No backups. It improves over time.

Great computer as I'm tired of backing up and pulling my hair out when my hard drive crashes. It'll definatley be a 2nd computer for a while...like the LEAF and it's the future...like the LEAF.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVqe8ieqz10

Rather have a macbook air with solid state drive. And how much does the slow network connection cost plus all the security and non-local storage issues. I really like my macbook air and I'm not sharing my data with anyone. Fine for browsing the web.

To each their own I guess. You'd never have to worry about backups or losing all your data if it gets stolen.

Google also now has level 2 security (a password and a randomly generated code) that you can enable for even more security.

After losing 3 months of photos due to a HD crash... everythings being backed up to the cloud for me anyways.

cdub said:

After losing 3 months of photos due to a HD crash... everythings being backed up to the cloud for me anyways.

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I go with sort of the best-of-both. I have everything backed up in the cloud, but also on laptops (so I can use it without having network). My core documents directory is synched between all my machines via Dropbox, my main machine is backed up both locally onto an external drive /and/ remotely to Backblaze. In addition, the core documents directory is also kept as an encrypted disk image that gets copied to my colocated servers.

If all my machines, my external drive, my colocated servers, Dropbox and Backblaze all die, I figure my data loss is the least of my concerns; I should probably be more worried about finding food, shelter and ammunition to survive the nuclear winter.

Norton 360 does everything for me, including total backup.

if you're really worried about losing your files to a crash, get an external drive to back them up as well and then find another spot for your most important files, that way you have backups to the backup

toms1964 said:

if you're really worried about losing your files to a crash, get an external drive to back them up as well and then find another spot for your most important files, that way you have backups to the backup

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Oh I do have a backup computer. I'm not as worried about that anymore - I'm using Time Machine on the mac. It's still a pain. There's something cool about the almost Zen minimalism about those things though.

I use Gmail and Google docs almost exclusively as it is right now. It wouldn't be too much of a leap.

Packet said:

I go with sort of the best-of-both. I have everything backed up in the cloud, but also on laptops (so I can use it without having network). My core documents directory is synched between all my machines via Dropbox, my main machine is backed up both locally onto an external drive /and/ remotely to Backblaze. In addition, the core documents directory is also kept as an encrypted disk image that gets copied to my colocated servers.

If all my machines, my external drive, my colocated servers, Dropbox and Backblaze all die, I figure my data loss is the least of my concerns; I should probably be more worried about finding food, shelter and ammunition to survive the nuclear winter.

Click to expand...

We had a poster up on the wall of the computer lab in college (crap, I just realized how long ago that was.... geez I'm old) that said "Blessed are the pessimists, for they are the ones who have backups."

I take a similar route to Packet. Dropbox so most files across all three computers are synced (plus stored on their "cloud"). Synology network backup drive with nightly backups. Every couple months I put a fully backup copy on a USB drive and hand it to my brother to store in his fire-safe.

Like Packet says, if there's something that managed to lose all my data, most likely I'll be dead as well and not caring too much anymore!

Yes but the average user doesn't do all of that. This notebook could be perfect for those people.

I'm just sick of dealing with it too, frankly. And I have a Mac which is infinitely better than a PC (in terms of backups and upgrades and maintenance)

Interesting idea. However, the internet is not as fast or reliable as my Mac. I suppose a lot of the stuff I keep and manage on my computer could be moved to the web, but as fast as Chrome OS may be, there's still that cable that brings me the internet. Maybe if you have a dedicated fiber-optic cable direct from your ISP to your house... but there are still times when the net is down.

They are not saying what the computers will cost yet. The ones with built-in 3G will include 100 MB per month of date from Verizon. I have no idea how fast I'd use that up. Of course, at home there's my own internet connection. Verizon charges $20 for 1 GB data allowance. So 100 MB is basically $2 worth of data you get included in the price of the computer.

Might be most useful for people who are always on the go or traveling. But for travel I take my iTouch. It weighs a few ounces and I can check my email and get weather reports anywhere there's Wi-Fi. And I can play games on it even when I don't have an internet connection. This Chrome computer is dead without an internet connection.

Again, an interesting idea, and I'll bet it's successful. But it's not for me.

daniel said:

The ones with built-in 3G will include 100 MB per month of date from Verizon.

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That's the key.
For the extremely rare home internet down situations, you have a low cost or free alternative built right into your computer!

mywaracfirfoyff said:

daniel said:

The ones with built-in 3G will include 100 MB per month of date from Verizon.

Click to expand...

That's the key.
For the extremely rare home internet down situations, you have a low cost or free alternative built right into your computer!

Click to expand...

But at home I want a full-on computer, like my Mac, not an internet-only browsing machine. It's people who compute away from home a lot who might really benefit from the Chrome computer. But for them, 100 MB/month probably will not scratch the surface of their usage.

And I wonder how 3G cell data speed compares to cable internet speed. They make a big deal about the fact that their computer boots in 8 seconds, compared to 45 seconds for a conventional computer. But I boot my computer once every month or so. I'd rather wait 45 seconds once a month and have the faster speed of programs that reside on my HD rather than having to wait for web applications, many of which will be ad supported.

Hmmm sounds interesting if it was upgradeable to 4 G. It would be just about what I am doing now on my home computer.

I already use android gmail and chrome already so not a huge change.

Price would be the key and I willdefinitely not pay $800 for a motorola zoom and wont for that either.

$500 I would do

I think its 399 or 450 depending on options.

I have a xoom ... the wifi version. Good for reading. I don't get this tablet thing. Typing this is a pain in the&*%.

Going to get a chromebook too...

But the chromebook is getting panned in the press just like the Leaf... and just like the Leaf I think it's because the lightbulb hasn't gone off.

cdub said:

... But the chromebook is getting panned in the press just like the Leaf... and just like the Leaf I think it's because the lightbulb hasn't gone off.

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The Leaf is, IMHO, a step up for transportation, using a radically-different energy source than conventional cars. The Chromebook looks to me like a stripped-down computer. I'm not even sure the computer is much different from a regular laptop, other than probably not having an HD or optical drive. It's the OS that's innovative, but what it's doing is stripping away a lot of stuff that the inventors consider superfluous. For some people that may be so. But I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that you'll pay for the faster bootup time in slower operation time, as every command and screen refresh has to go through the internet. If you are constantly turning your computer on and off, and moving around a lot, and most of your computer use is email and other web access, the Chromebook may fill that niche well. But for a home computer it will be a big step down.

If the only thing you need while traveling is email and the occasional weather report, a smart phone or iTouch is lighter and easier to carry. For home use a desktop computer does more stuff. I think there's a niche for the Chromebook, but only a niche. EVs are a niche today because battery technology is in its infancy, but when gasoline is $25 a gallon and a $1,000 battery pack gets you 400 miles of range, EVs will be mainstream. I cannot see a computer that is 100% dependent on the web ever being mainstream. No matter how fast connections get, programs residing on and running directly on the computer will always be faster, and new programs will always grow to make use of that speed, leaving net-based applications always in the niche of portable computing.

JMHO.

I'm sure a lot of people will buy it because it seems cool, and a few will actually find it more useful than a regular laptop or netbook. If they get the weight under a pound, I might even be interested. I'd accept the 2/3 of a pound over my iTouch in return for a full-size screen and keyboard.

daniel said:

But I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that you'll pay for the faster bootup time in slower operation time, as every command and screen refresh has to go through the internet..

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I'm not sure this is true. Alot of the apps are cached locally and have you every used the Chrome browser? (which is basically what Chrome OS is) ... it is FAST! And Google automatically updates it every 6 weeks or so and it gets even FASTER!

No BIOS to load. 8 second cold boot. No bloatware slowing you down. No virus checkers to run. Backs up automatically. Over time the computer gets faster, not slower. Unlike the iPad or Xoom you can share the device and have multiple users with their own settings...

Just downloaded Chrome 11. I'll give it a try for a while. It does seem faster. But with Safari and Firefox, I can open a link in a new tab by holding the option key while I click on the link. In Chrome it seems I must right-click the link and select "Open in new tab." Also, some web sites will open external links in a new window automatically. Seems Chrome always opens them in a tab. I can break a tab away into a new window, but this is one more step, and I don't like it. These are just first impressions after 15 minutes of playing around with it.

In Chrome "Apple + click" seems to do that.

One feature that I love with Chrome is that if you accidentally (or purposely) close your window and it had many many tabs on it... simply create a new tab and in the bottom left should be a "restore 12 closed tabs" button. Awesome.

I actually prefer it defaulting to a new tab rather than a new window. But to each their own.

U can select a link to open in new window or tab on click in options

cdub said:

In Chrome "Apple + click" seems to do that.

Click to expand...

Odd. Yes, it seems to be doing that now. It was not doing it when I first tried.

Sometimes I open a lot of tabs. E.g. when there are several threads in the thread index I want to read, I'll open them all one after another in tabs, and then read them each in turn. But sometimes one of them has something I want to keep separate, and then I want to open it in a separate window. That's often the case with an external link. So, for example, PriusChat opens external links in a new window, but Option+click opens a link in a new tab. I like the easy one-step choice of whether to open a link in a new tab or a new window. Both Firefox and Safari make it easy to do that.

Okay, I think I've figured it out: Option opens in a new tab; Shift opens in a new window. That's good. Either I was confusing myself, or it wasn't doing that in the first site I tried it on. (Some of this is site-specific, which makes it that much harder to learn a new browser.)