This week at Google’s I/O developer conference, the company announced the general availability of two Chrome OS Laptops. Both Best Buy and Amazon will be selling the devices made by Acer and Samsung.
When Google announced the OS, all they had to demonstrate the truest form of Chrome OS on was their CR-48 reference prototype, which was never intended for sale. It was attractively minimal, but didn’t pack much of a punch when it came to its guts. Acer and Samsung have stepped in to solve this problem.
The Samsung “Chrome Book” will have a 12.1 inch display and have integrated WiFi and Verizon 3G and will be priced at $429. The Acer device will only be $349 but will be WiFi only and have an 11.6 inch screen. Both devices tout long battery life and are optimized for accessing content out of the cloud.
In my opinion, this is an important evolutionary step for the device market, for both consumers and corporate workers. Almost every part of technology has transformed to be web optimized. To quote my colleague, Sandra Palumbo, “we access what we want, when we want” because we’re always connected.
One might argue that the tablet addresses the cloud era – and it does – but tablets are largely display optimized devices. That is they’re great for presentations, for watching movies, playing games, but the lack of keyboard makes it a poor input device. For that we still need to rely on laptops, running Windows that were built for an era of portability and not mobility with an optimized user experience.
Samsung’s Chromebook have a 12-inch screen with a battery that lasts 8.5 hours. The Wi-Fi model will cost $US429 and the 3G model will cost $US499. According to Samsung reps, it is 0.79 inches thick, has a 16:10 SuperBright display (that’s 36 per cent brighter than standard displays) and a full-sized keyboard. Plus it has all the usual crap, like an SD card reader, webcam, stereo speakers and two USB ports.
Our research is focused around the thesis that the companies that find a way to provide a high quality, connected user experience will be the long term winners in this era of pervasive connectivity. With that understanding, Chrome OS gives Google a legitimate shot at taking some corporate share from Microsoft.
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