Why Google's Chrome (net) books are like French sex farces... (i.e. what I think of the Chromebook)
May 13 2011, 7:33 AM
The joke is this: The French are great, sex is great and farces are great, but French sex farces are not great. Likewise, Google is great, netbooks are great, and Chrome is great, but if you ask me, Google's Chrome-(net)-book is not great. Good, but not great. Here's why I think that. When I first saw the CR48, I was excited about it. It sounded like a great idea. But in between the CR48 and the Chromebook, I took my HP Netbook and installed Ubuntu 10 for Netbooks on it. And you know what? It works great. The install was a breeze, and it connects to WiFi effortlessly as I go from home to work to coffee shop. I can get all the features of the Chromebook, plus I have a harddrive, the ability to connect up USB drives, etc. If I want to save docs in the cloud I can use Google docs or Zoho or any number of cloud resources. Or I can save them to my disk. I am sure Chromebooks will have some features that my netbook doesn't, but I don't miss them.
Plus I got it for less than $200 Canadian (refurb), which is less than the Chromebooks will be in a few years. Essentially with a Chromebook is a lease of a laptop. I would prefer to buy myself. I tend to hang onto computers, and even if a better mobile device comes out in 2 years, I can go to that and still keep my netbook. Others will have a differing opinion, I am sure. But all the hype aside, I think this is a good idea, but not a great nor an essential one.
Plus I got it for less than $200 Canadian (refurb), which is less than the Chromebooks will be in a few years. Essentially with a Chromebook is a lease of a laptop. I would prefer to buy myself. I tend to hang onto computers, and even if a better mobile device comes out in 2 years, I can go to that and still keep my netbook. Others will have a differing opinion, I am sure. But all the hype aside, I think this is a good idea, but not a great nor an essential one.