Samsung Chromebook…. Clouded by Google!!!

Google just got done with Google I/O 2011, a summit that is all things Google. During the week Google decided to bombard its followers and the world with wave after wave of new announcements on all fronts. Major areas included new online services, android and it’s supporting hardware and new developments in along the lines of its Chrome OS!!! Yes, not only merely a browser now, Google has decided to bring the chrome browser experience into a full blown OS for PCs.

Google has been heavily invested into the trend of cloud computing where the idea is that your world will exist online and not locally. The idea is that any and everything that you may want to do be it looking at pictures, watching movies, listening to songs or maintaining your office work, online services should help you achieve that feat with no need for locally housed software or data. To sum it all up, your digital world will now exist in this online cloud of information.

After Google realized that the Chrome Browser was well received with its light footprint and fast performance, they reached out further to incorporate all these capabilities into an Operating system appropriately named Chrome OS. This OS is based on the idea of the same minimalistic approach and the light footprint. Basically, with this OS, not a lot is happening locally, the OS is highly dependent on the cloud we just mentioned. Data, Applications and most other stuff is stored remotely on Google servers. And to house this new OS, you obviously need some new hardware, so the two together can form a great combination of light weight agility and performance. Hence, with respect to the already strong partnership with Samsung in terms of Galaxy S and Android, and in light of the new Chrome OS, Google announced the brand new Samsung Series 5 Chromebook!!!

With a name like Chromebook, you can already tell what the new notebook is all about. This machine is based on Google's Chrome OS providing a very unique experience. There are a number of factors that differentiate it from all the other notebooks in the market. First time out of the box, the machine is up and running in less than 3 Minutes!!! And if you’re one of the active users of chrome, all your stuff will be automatically there through chrome sync… How instant turn-on is that? In addition, when you boot up, you boot right into the chrome browser and it takes just a quick eight (8) seconds every time you boot up your Chromebook. Yes 8 second startup time!!!

The Chromebook comes with an Intel Atom Dual Core 1.66Ghz processor, so you can judge that the quick startup times are note due to extremely powerful hardware on board; the speed is remarkable because there is nothing stored locally on the Chromebook and all your data is backed up to the cloud. You can access a number of applications and games through the Chrome Web Store much like the so increasingly popular Android Marketplace. Google has also enabled a number of its applications that can be accessed offline too on the Chromebook like Gmail, Google calendar and Google Docs.

Another outstanding feature of this Chromebook is that the battery can last up to 8.5 Hours. Yes 8.5 hours!!! So you won’t need to carry your chargers with you all the time. The Samsung Chromebook is designed for always-on and always-connected computing experience with seamless connectivity 24/7. Also Google claims that the Chromebook will only get better and faster with time. Google stated that Just like with its updates on chrome browsers, Google will keep updating the chrome OS automatically every few weeks.

The Chromebook comes with a HD webcam and noise cancelling microphone to provide great video and call quality for online interactions. With a 12.1 inch display, this is a very thin and easy to carry around machine. Samsung even gives you a color choice between white and dark silver. The Chromebook houses two USB 2.0 ports, a 4-in-1 memory card slot, mini-VGA port, full-sized Chrome keyboard and an oversize fully clickable multi-touch pad with 2GB RAM. The pricing of the Chromebook is near to that of the basic iPad and some pretty capable Netbooks with more capability and flexibility. One limitation of this new machine could be the fact that the browser is limited to Chrome and the experience revolves around Chrome apps only as no real software is running on it.

The Chromebook on paper and in theory sounds like a sure shot winner. With fast boot-up times, everything automatically backed up on online servers and the versatility and support of the Big G, but reality might be a little bit different. Speculations have already been made by many experts that the Chromebook is destined for failure. The idea that consumers use their netbooks and laptops for much more than just online activities, demonstrates the categories in which the Chromebook is severely lacking. Considering the Pakistani consumer, a laptop or a netbook is often the only PC that one owns and unlike many more developed markets, constant wifi and unhindered internet access are luxuries not yet extended to the Pakistani masses in general. Taking this into account and pitting it up against the idea behind the development of the Chromebook raises serious doubts about the desirability of the Chromebook in Pakistan. Our serious advice is to wait and see how thing develop in the Pakistani region before getting too excited about the Chromebook. But as far as the western markets are concerned, Im sure Google must have thought about it extensively before making this move, how it pans out… only time will tell.