Fortune Magazine Names the New Samsung Chromebook Best Device of 2012
money.cnn.com
money.cnn.com
In the absence of a print version, increment the 2.html by 5 (2, 7, 12, 17, 22.html) to reach each review independently.
There are 25 things on there, including five 'best devices'. I guess the headline wouldn't be as interesting if it made this clear.
Its major downfall is performance on Flash-heavy sites (or even JS-heavy sites, such as The Verge), but honestly I don't think that's the device's fault as much as it's the desktop web's. It took developers a while to learn to optimize their sites for less-powerful tablets and phones, and hopefully they'll bring some of those lessons to the desktop for lower-powered devices like this.
Plus, I think a lot of people just don't understand that the device has more than just web access. Chrome apps give it potential for powerful offline capabilities. This article has a good overview: http://www.zdnet.com/yes-you-can-use-the-new-chromebook-offl...
(the only thing I don't like is that all of the Chromebooks have been a bit ugly. I know that you're dealing with cheap plastic, but I actually thought my slate CR-48 looked nicer than the fat Samsung & Acer Chromebooks!)
It seems like the worse of both worlds when compared against a tablet and a thin laptop...
The battery life is 6 hours. What makes that poor?
The keyboard on the new Samsung Chromebook is fantastic; basically a clone of a MacBook Air keyboard. The touchpad also works really well. (Though I do miss three finger or tap-and-a-half dragging. On the Chromebook you have to click-and-hold the touchpad to drag.)
Sure you can get a netbook and run Chrome, but I have one of those and never use it. The screen flickers, the keyboard is mediocre, and the touchpad sucks. And it's from a good company too.
Its "window on the Web" is the Chrome browser and it never needs upgrades?
It's a far cry from "you have 7 critical updates that require your attention", or "your computer will automatically shut down in 3 minutes to update unless you click this button that extends this by another hour".
Or if we're talking about Adobe: "looks like there's another 0-day massive security hole, Flash player needs you to drop everything, shut off everything with a web frame so we can fix this".
Or to balance it out a bit Apple-style: "your browser, Safari, needs an update. We will inexplicably need you to stop whatever you're doing and reboot to update your browser"
So yeah, "never needs upgrades" isn't technically correct, but it's pretty close to it.
I love my 11-inch MacBook Air a lot more, which means, ironically, I leave it at home because I couldn't bear to have it damaged or lost. Also, I have the Air hooked up to speakers in my bedroom so it's more of a pain to just grab it and go.
Additionally my MacBook Air is typically upstairs and I keep the Chromebook downstairs, so if I just want to check my email or HN, I don't have to run up and down the stairs to find where I left the computer.