Saturday, December 18, 2010

Got My Cr-48 at UPS Last Night: Let the Instability Begin!

In case you're puzzled about my title, Cr-48 is named for a particularly unstable Chromium isotope (Chromium is also the open source project behind Chrome/Chrome OS).

Here are my initial thoughts:





  1. Speed - Overall, feels pretty slow, at the moment. I did the jail break maneuver, and I’m unsure if I’m actually on the dev channel, as the OS status still says “0.9.128.12 . . . beta.”  At the end of the day, this is still like 4-6 months, pre-release.
  2. CPU noise - I’m actually surprised at how loud it can run. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure it's substantially quieter than my dual core HP Pavilion Dv-7t 2000.
  3. Touch pad - I think I really just prefer the traditional side region scrolling area.  I also feel like I have to bludgeon the touch pad to get the new Apple-style push-click (I really prefer tapping).  Finally, I had some issues with accidentally brushing my touch pad, while typing.  I think that got cleared up, some how.  Maybe I unknowingly changed the sensitivity settings.
  4. Screen size - I really like the size, actually.  I feel really comfortable with it.
  5. Keyboard transformation/shortcuts - Mainly, I love it.  I can do delete by simply pressing alt+backspace, yet the old ctrl+delete functionality seems to have been extinguished.  I also think that using esc in Chrome to stop a page from loading has been axed.  I really like that I can bypass the two-finger click with alt+click (I pretty much stick my tongue out at the two-finger click on the Cr-48).  On the other hand, I'm pretty confident this is broken in Docs, right now, which is a huge bummer when I'm trying to do things like spell check. Finally, I’m feeling uncomfortable with ctrl+alt+down/up arrow for end/home, and I believe Chrome OS lacks traditional ctrl+end/home (skip to beginning/end of a doc), altogether; I really hope I'm wrong, as I feel like I use that combo all the time.
  6. Battery life - I love how it actually gives me an estimated time remaining (and that it lasts like 10x longer than my HP).
  7. “System tray”  - I love how it’s just my clock, my network, and my battery:  All I ever wanted, anyway!
  8. Flash - Yes, I can confirm that I’m disappointed with how jerky flash has run for me.  Again, this is pre-release.
  9. Search engines and passwords - Neither is synced, and I’m pretty bummed out about it.  Ah, well.  Good old manual entry to the rescue!
  10. Underlying Chrome Version - We now come full-circle to speed issues (it's probably apparent how much I value keyboard shortcuts).  Underneath my Chrome OS version, I appear to be running Chrome stable. I’ve been using the canary build, on my HP, for the past while, and I believe it's about 12 weeks, three months, or two versions ahead of stable, in terms of features and speed.  I miss my bleeding edge features/speed! I think I've heard it rumored that there is or will be a way to switch Chrome channels. I sure hope so.

All in all, I'm pretty impressed with what I've seen so far, with my principal gripe being the Cr-48's speed lag (which is probably because a) this is pre-release OS software, b) I'm used to a dual core Intel Centrino, and c) I'm currently on Chrome stable, rather than canary).

Please hit me with any questions you're dying to ask (or otherwise). I'll post more, later.


                                

3 comments:

Fletch said...

Very interesting. I'm proud of you for breaking in the new frontier. Hopefully this doesn't drive you crazy with bugs, etc.

Daniel said...

Thank you, sir.

Yeah, my main frustration, at this point, has simply been how slow the experience has been in comparison to what I'm used to (see the post for more).

Another big question mark will be whether I can even tap into our Holy Roman Enterprise wireless network (lots of steps). I might go in tomorrow or next week to check. I doubt Google would be willing to give me free 3G with Verizon for the whole semester . . .

Not sure said...

It was a amazing experience and now that I have a Chrome book as well we can walk Chrome "n" Chrome together and take over the world.