Ask HN: Chrome OS Notebook | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Chrome OS Notebook

5 pointshokiewater9 comments

I am thinking of picking up one of the new Samsung Series 5 ChromeOS notebooks instead of a tablet.I wanted to get a few opinions from the HN community before converting over.

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I actually did this. I was using an iPad for blogging on the go but got sick of the virtual keyboard and cursor placement hijinks. The Chromebook's build quality is pretty darn nice. Good keyboard and screen, battery lasts forever, built-in 3G Verizon connection -- and I have not had any track pad problems that some complain about. You can always wait 6 months and get something better but today's Chromebook is pretty sweet hardware-wise.

Then there's the OS. The one huge failing in my mind is the lack of offline capability. No Internet = useless brick. That is supposedly coming this summer.

But what software/activities are you planning to use? I can give more detailed thoughts. It's great for light writing, blogging, web browsing etc. Easy to post photos via the SD card slot though less great for photo editing.

I'm curious if you have run into out-of-memory errors? It has happened to me 2-3 times and I don't think I stressed it that much.

I've been using a Chromebook (Samsung) for the past few days. I keep it next to the iPads in the living room and have been experimenting to see which one I go to the most for basic browsing tasks. I don't have a strong opinion either way as of yet. I got a few out-of-memory errors on <10 tabs. This surprised me as I usually work with 30-40 tabs open.

In your case, it seems to be an either-or trade-off. I'd recommend an iPad 2 ... great games and apps, decent web browsing experience, pretty good for note-taking. I was worried about the on-screen keyboard myself. However, the larger screen real-estate makes the keyboard very usable (at least for me).

Right now the Chromebooks seem good, but as they are the first version out of beta I think they can still do a lot better. I think that the 500$ price tag is really too much for the relatively cheap hardware that is in those Chromebooks. The only good thing really is the battery life, but I'm not sure if this is because the battery costs a lot and is excellent or because the OS is really optimized for this. I am certain that if you wait 6 months or a year before purchasing a Chromebook you will have a LOT more for your money.

Couple of good places to discuss Chrome OS and Chromebooks here: http://www.chromeosforums.net/ http://www.thechromebookforum.com/

It would really depend on what you want to use it for. (My experience is with the CR-48, so I can't speak to the commercial iterations of the ChromeOS notebooks.) I throw the CR-48 in my bag when I'm headed to the lake or on a trip and just need simple email/web access. Its also become great in the kitchen for recipes, in the living room for adding to my Netflix instant queue, and on the boat dock for looking up random stuff (always something that needs to be fixed, examined or researched on a boat dock).

In summary, its a very useful tool, but absolutely not a replacement for my MBP or T400.

Considering a used iPad can be bought for about the same as a Chromebook, I can't think of a single reason why you would choose a Chromebook.

I would wait for Chromebooks to be based on the quad core 1.5 Ghz Tegra 3. They will probably have better battery life and be cheaper. We might see one or two of them by the end of the year. Nvidia said they have 5 PC manufacturers and 5 phone manufacturers as customers for Tegra 3. I'm sure most of the designs wins are for Android tablets and notebooks, but I think a couple of them might be for Chrome OS.

I cannot understand why anyone would you buy a Chromebook instead of something like a Lenovo Thinkpad Edge. At their current price, Chromebooks seem like a really bad idea to me. They are more expensive and less capable than low end laptops and, unlike tablets, offer no new benefits.

Can someone please tell me if I'm mistaken?

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