Well.. I came home today and saw I had a package from UPS waiting for me.. What was it? Well much to my disbelief the brand new CR-48 Chrome OS Laptop from Google!!! Pics and review coming soon 
Just got a CR-48
- Thread starter Jerzyiroc
- Start date
Nice! I'll be watching for your pics 
btw I'm going to move this over to Other Gadgets & Cross Platform, since that's a more appropriate a place for this thread
btw I'm going to move this over to Other Gadgets & Cross Platform, since that's a more appropriate a place for this thread
Well here goes y review after 1 full day of use..
Design and feel
Gorgeous, slick and sexy. Those are the first three words I can think of to describe the CR-48. While many have compared it to a certain Macbook, after seeing the CR-48 next to one I can say it's CR-48 no contest. There's something almost sinister about the way it looks. There's no labels, icons, stickers, logos or anything anywhere on the entire laptop. Tie that along with the slick and thin matte finish you truly have a sick looking device. The official weight is a little over 3 pounds, I believe 3.6 to be exact. It's far from heavy. Walking around with it in one hand is easy and effortless. Some have said that for it's size it could have been a little lighter, but personally I don't agree. I think the weight is good. It's very light but also doesn't feel cheap. Actually, nothing feels cheap about this laptop. The hinge moves without the slightest sound or wiggle. They keyboard feels great when pressed as well as the trackpad. The overall fit and finish is great too. No gaps, weird lines or anything going on. The CR-48 truly feels like a solid high end laptop. Instead of giving actual specs as far as the thickness and all that other stuff, I figured I'd show you instead to give you a better idea..
The screen is as thin as a pencil. The screen is a hair thicker.
Overall, it's just a tad thicker than a box of cigarettes (yuk lol).
The battery is almost as wide and about half the length of the laptop. However, it's extremely thin. Roughly in between the thickness of a pencil and a sharpie.
On the left is a VGA port, on the right is a SD card slot, headphone jack, USB port and the power port.
Screen, keyboard and trackapd
Screen size is 12.1 inches and looks pretty good. It's no LED HD screen by any means, but it's still a quality screen. Brightness level can be adjusted by two keys on the top or set to automatic in the settings. Since the battery life has been absolutely superb so far I have no problem keeping it on the high side. The keys are perfectly spaced out just like the Sony laptops as well as the Macbooks. One of the first things you'll notice about he keyboard is the lack of actual keys. Gone are all of the function keys, the insert, delete, home, end, page up and page down, as well as a few others. What you will see is a search key (think the search button on Android), back, forward, reload, full screen and next windows keys. All which are perfect for a web based OS. I will like to note that you can change the search key function to caps lock in the settings. It's very simple but very effective. One thing you have to learn are all the key shortcuts. But they make that very easy by adding a virtual keyboard which you can easily bring up by pressing ctl+alt+/ When the virtual keyboard is open, you can press and hold the ctl or alt key and you'll then see all the shortcuts highlighted in each repective key. See below for an example. It's definitely something that'll take some time for people to learn, but if you already know the Chrome shortcuts, then you're already ahead of the game. I love the trackpad. The whole trackpad is basically a button. There's no left or right click stuff going on like a traditional laptop. To access the traditional right click pop up, just tap the pad with two fingers. Want to scroll? Just rest one finger on the pad and with another finger slowly move up or down. It's awesome. The only complaint I have about the trackpad is when your finger hovers over the pad as you type you'll notice you start to type in a random spot. It's pretty annoying, but not the only laptop that does this.
Everything else
Forget how awesome it looks, the real interest of this netbook is obviously the OS. After 4 days of using the CR-48, I love it. Now just to make clear, the OS is literally just the Chrome web browser. There's no desktop, no homescreen, nothing. Just a a web browser. TO enjoy this netbook you have to understand that this is a NETBOOK, not a traditional laptop. It was said best by a tech site that I can't remember right now, it's the best netbook I've ever used, but also the most limited laptop I've ever used. The reality this is NOT for someone looking for a traditional laptop. If you're looking for a traditional laptop, or expecting this to be anything like it, you're going to be extremely disappointed.. Unless, you can change your focus like I did. I was in the market for a laptop myself. As a matter of fact I've been drooling over the Dell Duo for a couple of weeks now. The more I use the CR-48 the less I want the Duo though. The reason is because at the end of the day, I'll spend more time online than doing anything else if I had a laptop. Granted, the Dell Duo is nothing short of awesomeness with all the features it has. But now that I have the CR-48 I'm not sure if I can justify buying a near $600 laptop. For someone that doesn't have a laptop, the choice can be hard. I have no idea how expensive these Chrome OS laptops will eventually be. Personally I think that's what's going to make or break this OS. I couldn't see myself paying $500 for a laptop with this OS. While it is awesome, it's too basic to seriously charge that much. This is meant to replace Windows and Linux based netbooks, not full on laptops. There would be no way to justify paying $500 for a laptop that literally can't do anything a regular laptop can do. It's meant to replace netbooks, so it must be priced at the price mark of netbooks. If they can get the price point right, then I can see Chrome OS netbooks blowing Windows/Linux based netbooks out of the water.
As far as the OS itself, it's great. I finally put some time in the "Web Store". The Web Store is filled with extensions and web based apps. While some aren't so great, there are a lot that has seriously made my experience much better and has even made it feel more of a complete OS. Probably my only big complaint is the lack of USB and SD driver support. Even though it comes with a SD card slot, it's nonfunctional right now. Also there are only a limited amount of devices the USB even recognizes so far. The good thing Google has been great at updates and there's talk of an update within the next week or so to enable the SD card support as well as expand the USB driver support. This is very much a BETA OS, but as I stated before, I can definitely see Chrome OS netbooks completely take over the netbook market.
The battery life is ridiculous. As in ridiculously good. I'm getting about 12-14 hours of use on a single charge which is much higher than the 8hours it's rated at. Granted, I"m not doing much flash with the exception of when I did a video broadcast, but that's still extremely good. Speaking of flash, it's a bit buggy. It's no unwatchable but there are definitely moments where it may be. I'm not sure if it's a hardware or software issue, but I'm leaning heavily on it being a software issue. Simply because there are moments where it works flawlessly but other times where it's laggy as all hell. It's too inconsistent to be a hardware issue. Also the video broadcasting I did is massively heavy on the system and it worked perfectly fine. So I guess I'll just have to see. There's so much more to talk about it but I'm already all over the place with this review. My overall review, it's awesome. The CR-48 itself is hands down the nicest looking laptop I've ever seen. It's got a cool mysterious look to it (I've been asked about 4 times in public wtf it is). As far as the OS, it's definitely a BETA OS. But once the kinks are worked out, there is no doubt in my mind that this can blow up and be an extremely popular OS much like Android has blown up.
Design and feel
Gorgeous, slick and sexy. Those are the first three words I can think of to describe the CR-48. While many have compared it to a certain Macbook, after seeing the CR-48 next to one I can say it's CR-48 no contest. There's something almost sinister about the way it looks. There's no labels, icons, stickers, logos or anything anywhere on the entire laptop. Tie that along with the slick and thin matte finish you truly have a sick looking device. The official weight is a little over 3 pounds, I believe 3.6 to be exact. It's far from heavy. Walking around with it in one hand is easy and effortless. Some have said that for it's size it could have been a little lighter, but personally I don't agree. I think the weight is good. It's very light but also doesn't feel cheap. Actually, nothing feels cheap about this laptop. The hinge moves without the slightest sound or wiggle. They keyboard feels great when pressed as well as the trackpad. The overall fit and finish is great too. No gaps, weird lines or anything going on. The CR-48 truly feels like a solid high end laptop. Instead of giving actual specs as far as the thickness and all that other stuff, I figured I'd show you instead to give you a better idea..
The screen is as thin as a pencil. The screen is a hair thicker.
Overall, it's just a tad thicker than a box of cigarettes (yuk lol).
The battery is almost as wide and about half the length of the laptop. However, it's extremely thin. Roughly in between the thickness of a pencil and a sharpie.
On the left is a VGA port, on the right is a SD card slot, headphone jack, USB port and the power port.
Screen, keyboard and trackapd
Screen size is 12.1 inches and looks pretty good. It's no LED HD screen by any means, but it's still a quality screen. Brightness level can be adjusted by two keys on the top or set to automatic in the settings. Since the battery life has been absolutely superb so far I have no problem keeping it on the high side. The keys are perfectly spaced out just like the Sony laptops as well as the Macbooks. One of the first things you'll notice about he keyboard is the lack of actual keys. Gone are all of the function keys, the insert, delete, home, end, page up and page down, as well as a few others. What you will see is a search key (think the search button on Android), back, forward, reload, full screen and next windows keys. All which are perfect for a web based OS. I will like to note that you can change the search key function to caps lock in the settings. It's very simple but very effective. One thing you have to learn are all the key shortcuts. But they make that very easy by adding a virtual keyboard which you can easily bring up by pressing ctl+alt+/ When the virtual keyboard is open, you can press and hold the ctl or alt key and you'll then see all the shortcuts highlighted in each repective key. See below for an example. It's definitely something that'll take some time for people to learn, but if you already know the Chrome shortcuts, then you're already ahead of the game. I love the trackpad. The whole trackpad is basically a button. There's no left or right click stuff going on like a traditional laptop. To access the traditional right click pop up, just tap the pad with two fingers. Want to scroll? Just rest one finger on the pad and with another finger slowly move up or down. It's awesome. The only complaint I have about the trackpad is when your finger hovers over the pad as you type you'll notice you start to type in a random spot. It's pretty annoying, but not the only laptop that does this.
Everything else
Forget how awesome it looks, the real interest of this netbook is obviously the OS. After 4 days of using the CR-48, I love it. Now just to make clear, the OS is literally just the Chrome web browser. There's no desktop, no homescreen, nothing. Just a a web browser. TO enjoy this netbook you have to understand that this is a NETBOOK, not a traditional laptop. It was said best by a tech site that I can't remember right now, it's the best netbook I've ever used, but also the most limited laptop I've ever used. The reality this is NOT for someone looking for a traditional laptop. If you're looking for a traditional laptop, or expecting this to be anything like it, you're going to be extremely disappointed.. Unless, you can change your focus like I did. I was in the market for a laptop myself. As a matter of fact I've been drooling over the Dell Duo for a couple of weeks now. The more I use the CR-48 the less I want the Duo though. The reason is because at the end of the day, I'll spend more time online than doing anything else if I had a laptop. Granted, the Dell Duo is nothing short of awesomeness with all the features it has. But now that I have the CR-48 I'm not sure if I can justify buying a near $600 laptop. For someone that doesn't have a laptop, the choice can be hard. I have no idea how expensive these Chrome OS laptops will eventually be. Personally I think that's what's going to make or break this OS. I couldn't see myself paying $500 for a laptop with this OS. While it is awesome, it's too basic to seriously charge that much. This is meant to replace Windows and Linux based netbooks, not full on laptops. There would be no way to justify paying $500 for a laptop that literally can't do anything a regular laptop can do. It's meant to replace netbooks, so it must be priced at the price mark of netbooks. If they can get the price point right, then I can see Chrome OS netbooks blowing Windows/Linux based netbooks out of the water.
As far as the OS itself, it's great. I finally put some time in the "Web Store". The Web Store is filled with extensions and web based apps. While some aren't so great, there are a lot that has seriously made my experience much better and has even made it feel more of a complete OS. Probably my only big complaint is the lack of USB and SD driver support. Even though it comes with a SD card slot, it's nonfunctional right now. Also there are only a limited amount of devices the USB even recognizes so far. The good thing Google has been great at updates and there's talk of an update within the next week or so to enable the SD card support as well as expand the USB driver support. This is very much a BETA OS, but as I stated before, I can definitely see Chrome OS netbooks completely take over the netbook market.
The battery life is ridiculous. As in ridiculously good. I'm getting about 12-14 hours of use on a single charge which is much higher than the 8hours it's rated at. Granted, I"m not doing much flash with the exception of when I did a video broadcast, but that's still extremely good. Speaking of flash, it's a bit buggy. It's no unwatchable but there are definitely moments where it may be. I'm not sure if it's a hardware or software issue, but I'm leaning heavily on it being a software issue. Simply because there are moments where it works flawlessly but other times where it's laggy as all hell. It's too inconsistent to be a hardware issue. Also the video broadcasting I did is massively heavy on the system and it worked perfectly fine. So I guess I'll just have to see. There's so much more to talk about it but I'm already all over the place with this review. My overall review, it's awesome. The CR-48 itself is hands down the nicest looking laptop I've ever seen. It's got a cool mysterious look to it (I've been asked about 4 times in public wtf it is). As far as the OS, it's definitely a BETA OS. But once the kinks are worked out, there is no doubt in my mind that this can blow up and be an extremely popular OS much like Android has blown up.
Last edited:
Kevin OQuinn
AC Team Emeritus
- May 17, 2010
- 9,267
- 496
- 0
lol this thing is awesome dude... It's VERY fast. Haven't had any issues at all with lag or anything. Everything seems so damn easy. It's hard to compare this to my computer with Ubuntu. My computer does have a faster processor, and probably more memory, but the CR48 is still faster than my desktop. But considering that Chrome OS is literally just a browser with some extra features instead of a complete OS, I also expect it to be faster. But ya, definitely fast and responsive. OO. And the battery life is great so far. It came with 50% charge. I've been using is nonstop for 5 hours and I'm at 32% O_O I just threw the charger on it now. It's rated at 8 hours of use and 8 days on standby. But I think that 8 hours of use is a bit on the conservative side.
Hey did google send you an e-mail prior to receiving it in the mail? How long did it take google to send it to you between the moment you applied online to receiving it? Did you opt as an "Individual"? Thanks!
I never got an email from Google. Here's the weird thing.. I never applied for anything. I honestly wasn't even interested in a Google Chrome laptop lol. As a matter of fact, on Tuesday when this CR48 was announced, I read a brief article about it on Engadget and that's it. I'm totally sold on it now, but before I got it I wasn't interested in it. I have NO idea why or how this thing ended up at my house but I'm not complaining lol...
Thanks man. Tomorrow I want to give a more in depth review. I"m seriously loving this thing. I'll post some more pics up too of some of the features. I'm learning more and more as I use it. Anyone else here get one?
Winning a free laptop would make anyone excited haha. Do you use a gmail account as a primary e-mail account? You might have automatically opted into it by having one.
Do you have to register with VZW for a data plan? Or is it only optional? I want to register, but don't need/want the data plan. (Nor do I want 3G data on it, I'm perfectly fine with Wi-Fi)
I got my Cr-48 yesterday. While it is a great machine, Adobe and Google have some work to do when it comes to Flash. Having a single Flash process open slows down the entire machine, making it nearly unusable. For example, with Pandora open in one tab I could barely scroll through Engadget yesterday.
That being said, it's a great netbook. Just a heads up for you owners: you don't need to alt-click for a right click menu. Simply click down on the trackpad with two fingers. Likewise, for a middle mouse button click, use three fingers. Very useful for opening up a link in a new tab.
That being said, it's a great netbook. Just a heads up for you owners: you don't need to alt-click for a right click menu. Simply click down on the trackpad with two fingers. Likewise, for a middle mouse button click, use three fingers. Very useful for opening up a link in a new tab.
@Jerzyiroc and @drwatz0n
Everybody has been moaning about a lack of keyboard shortcuts because of the lack of the F keys.
I'm assuming the OS supports a new keyboard shortcut system? Is there a replacement for Ctrl + Tab, Alt + F4, that kind of thing?
Thanks
Chris
Everybody has been moaning about a lack of keyboard shortcuts because of the lack of the F keys.
I'm assuming the OS supports a new keyboard shortcut system? Is there a replacement for Ctrl + Tab, Alt + F4, that kind of thing?
Thanks
Chris
I signed up on Tuesday's launch, but have not heard or received anything. Are you able to tell the SSD size on this device?
I got mine yesterday, too! I was totally floored to come home and see it sitting on the porch. Poor guy was freezing cold, though...
I DID submit my name for consideration to receive one, as an individual, VERY quickly during the announcement on Tuesday, so it may have been done just by order of submission. Weird thing is, they didn't send out any e-mails or anything, it just showed up on my doorstep yesterday. (Which, let's do the math, is two days after the announcement. They must have overnighted these things, yikes!)
As for why Jerzy got one without registering... who knows? Could it be that it's Android Central's press review unit, and he got it because he's an "AC Adviser?"
I DID submit my name for consideration to receive one, as an individual, VERY quickly during the announcement on Tuesday, so it may have been done just by order of submission. Weird thing is, they didn't send out any e-mails or anything, it just showed up on my doorstep yesterday. (Which, let's do the math, is two days after the announcement. They must have overnighted these things, yikes!)
As for why Jerzy got one without registering... who knows? Could it be that it's Android Central's press review unit, and he got it because he's an "AC Adviser?"
The keyboard features a row of Chrome OS-specific function keys. The OS allows for multiple browsing windows (standard or incognito), and you can alt-tab through them. You can also control-tab through the tabs open in the current window.
@diverbelow As for the SSD, I'm not sure. I can't pull up any sort of system specs setting or whatnot.
@diverbelow As for the SSD, I'm not sure. I can't pull up any sort of system specs setting or whatnot.
Man do I want one. I just signed up for the program, really hope they send me one. Anyone know how many they are sending out?
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