Google Chrome OS Latop Cr-48 Review

When Google announced their pilot program for their Cr-48 Chrome OS pilot program I was excited to get involved. However when I filled out the online application my hopes were not high to be one of the 60,000 chosen to participate and receive the free laptop and test out Google's new cloud computing platform. Much to my surprise, a week later I was the proud owner of a new laptop courtesy of Google!

Hardware
On first look the Cr-48 looks reminiscent of a black macbook, although smaller and with less inputs/outputs. It has a chiclet style keyboard, and a ClickPad style trackpad. The whole body of the laptop is covered with a soft touch rubberized coating similar to the back of my Droid 2 which is really nice and doesn't attract fingerprints quite as bad as a glossy coating, although my greasy fingertips do show up on the back much more easily than on my previous Lenovo G555.

As you can see the trackpad is one big button, you can click anywhere on it. In order to right click, you click with two fingers, and to scroll you can slide two fingers across the trackpad. It takes a little getting used to, but once you get the handle of it, it works pretty nicely. 

There are a couple anomalies with the keyboard, mainly the lack of function keys (ie. f1, f2, etc) and the replacement of the caps lock key for a search key, which opens a new tab and places your cursor in the omni bar. There is a setting within the OS that allows you to change it back to a capslock key, but so far I haven't had any need to use this feature. Overall I like the look and feel of the keyboard, it is big enough for comfortable typing and the keys all seem to be in the right place.

In terms of inputs/outputs, the Cr-48 is minimal to say the least. on the left side there is a lone VGA output, and on the right there is the power input, a single USB port, a headphone jack, and SD card reader. There is a webcam located at the top of the screen and a tiny hole for a microphone to the left of it.
 

It comes with a 58.4Wh battery that is surprisingly thin and lies flush with the bottom of the laptop, no unsightly bulges here. As you can see the battery's name is Mario.

Although Google has not officially published the technical specs of the Cr-48, Brad Caris of the ChromeOSsite forum, took apart his laptop and posted the following specs.

"Intel Atom Processor N455 1.66GHz 512K Cache

Tripod Motherboard MARIO – 6050A240910 – MB – A03

Hynix 2GB DDR3 1Rx8 PC3 – 10600S Ram

Intel CG82NM10 PCH

ITE IT8500E Flash ROM

SanDisk sdsa4dh-016G 16GB SATA SSD

Qualcomm Gobi2000 PCI Express Mini Card

AzureWave 802.11 a/b/g/n PCI-E Half MiniCard

Atheros AR5BBU12 Bluetooth V2.1 EDR"

These specs are similar to most 10.1 inch netbooks out there and aren't really anything too exciting, except for the inclusion of the 16GB solid state hard drive, which is noticable in everyday use as I well discuss later on.

Software review coming in the near future....