Update (Dec 21 evening, heh): The screen has auto-adjusting brightness. Which means it automatically turns brighter in a bright environment and auto-dims in darker environments.
A couple weeks ago, Google announced that they were giving away some laptops for people to test out their Chrome OS. This weekend, I received an unmarked package (suspicious, right?) and didn’t recall ordering anything recently. I had no idea what it was, but since it was addressed to me, I opened it up anyways. Inside, I found a box that had a diagram of a mouse and its rocket wheel invention?
Anyhoo, inside was my free laptop! It’s Google’s Cr-48 Chrome notebook. I even tweeted about it and how it’s probably harvesting all my info and sending it back to the mother ship.
It almost looks like a macbook, but it’s black and has a soft rubberize exterior. I like it better than the slippery mac surfaces. Specs or boasted functionality?
- 12″ display
- 10 second boot time
- instant on from standby/sleep
- full-sized keyboard (with no caps lock key)
- built-in wi-fi and Verizon 3G (free 100mb per month for 2 yrs.)
- webcam
- mic
- 3.8 lbs
- 8+ hrs of battery life
Here are some more pictures:
The search key that replaced the caps lock key:
I haven’t used it that much yet, but here are my initial thoughts:
Likes:
- Super-fast
- Simplicity-clean black design, soft rubber coating
- Browser keys along the top of the keyboard
Dislikes:
- Mousepad is REALLY hard to use–a challenge to right-click and impossible to drag-and-drop
- Webcam quality is pretty poor
- The power button is used to turn the machine off or switch users, but I can never get it to work properly. I always end up turning the computer off
- No LED on keyboard keys (I guess that’s not too different from my Alienware)
There’s still time to get in on this if you don’t mind being a guinea pig. You have until 11:59:59 PM PST on December 21, 2010 to sign up.
Talk to me, Goose.