Cr-48 First Impressions
To my delight and surprise, I found that I was lucky enough to get one of the Chrome OS Cr-48 beta tester laptops this morning. So far it is pretty easy to setup and use, and what I’ve seen seems pretty inline with the initial reviews.
- the laptop is light, unadorned, and fairly stylish - but does not feel flimsy or cheap
- the keyboard is responsive
- the trackpad is not always responsive, and can be a bit clumsy
- the setup process is streamlined and easy to follow
- you need a working Wi-Fi connection for the initial setup
The Wi-Fi almost stymied me early; the public Wi-Fi connection at work requires that you pass through a policy acceptance page (like many free wireless services at coffee shops, or hotels), and this wasn’t available at the login screen. However, logging in as a guest, I was able to pass through the page and then log in as myself. I assume that’s a fairly rare situation, but one I might file a bug on.
I have only two things that I consider genuinely negative so far, but my overall feeling is very favorable. The trackpad is as flaky as others have complained, with the multi-touch (especially right-clicking) behaving erratically. There’s also no good remote desktop option, which means that to do any work from home, I’ll need to use a different computer.
Other than that, the browser has been very fast, start up is a breeze, and the ‘applications’ perform very well. The ability to ‘pin’ tabs is particularly useful in this context, since the browser is the whole of your experience. The settings area is laid out well, and the getting started tutorial takes you through almost everything you need to know to get the most out of the system. I’m looking forward to giving this a thorough workout.
