Are Chromebooks Netbooks? Can they be Ultra Mobile? Are You Interested?

Posted on 11 May 2011, Last updated on 22 June 2022 by

Acer Chromebook 4I want to wind back to a post I wrote about Chrome OS last year

Personally I’m having trouble working out what Google are doing here. Is it to promote HTML5 development? Am I failing to see the long-term play? Are we really going to be using operating systems on our desks that are dumber than the ones on our phones?

The advantages for netbooks users are limited. The license cost advantage will be just $15-$25, the device support will be poor and there will be a million and one re-distributions causing confusion and splintering for Linux.

High-speed javascript processing won’t be unique to Chrome. Fast boot won’t be unique to Chrome. HTML5 won’t be unique to Chrome. Web apps won’t be unique to Chrome. What’s going to get people to buy a Chromium OS computer? I doubt people will be queuing up for an OS that never needs upgrading.

I’ve also talked about the cloud NOT being mobile.

Put the two together in a Chromebook and you’ve got something underwhelming for Ultra Mobile fans.

Despite that, I got very excited listening to the Chromebook announcements this evening. Very excited. It peaked when I heard that the Angry Birds game (yes. I’m getting bored of that too!) had been written, in HTML5, to work offline. Some of the HTML5 performance demos were impressive too. And then, I saw the 1.3KG 11.6 inch 1366s768 Acer Chromebook. OK, it’s not as attractive as the Samsung Series 5 but look what’s inside.

Not only is it running on an Intel N570 netbook platform but some of the code, according to my source, came from the Meego project and there’s a tight connection between Google and Intel on this. Intel are even calling these Chromebooks, Netbooks!

samsung series 5 chromebook 3Finally, it was music to my ears to hear that legacy PC support was being dropped. No checking for floppys on boot. I assume it’s not a BIOS-based start-up too. USB support will be slim to start with, true, but it’s what we need to do. To start from scratch. Windows has the apps, but not the underpinnings to be a great mobile operating system.

Put THAT all together and you’ve got a slim OS build on a Linux Kernel where all the functionality is in the browser. Put that browser in MeeGo and what have you got? Chromebook and Laptop? Put Chrome OS on Oaktrail or Moorestown and what have you got? Always on?

As with MeeGo, Honeycomb and other ‘new’ OS’, the apps are going to be the big issue but look what Google just went and did. They offered an app store where the dev gets 95%. 95%! (Update: OK. Thats in-app purchases although doesn’t it mean you can offer a free app and then sell the license for the full version in-app for a 5% fee?)

I’m interested now because app development could be fast. Why? It’s very interesting for devs from day one. How many Chrome browsers are already installed?

I’m as interested in Chrome OS as I am in Honeycomb as a slim OS and app layer that could help in many ultra mobile scenarios….in the future. I’m buying an Acer Chromebook for testing, that’s for sure. I hope you can join me on the live session because that’s going to be a very interesting one.

But you may not be so interested. Looking at the 12 inch 1.4KG Samsung Series 5 Chromebook you might think what the hell has this got to do with Ultra Mobile? Let me know in the comments below. Lets talk it through and shake-out the issues and queries. Here are some starting points.

  • Touch
  • USB support
  • No Bluetooth
  • Apps
  • Offline Cloud
  • Ethernet Port missing

Both devices are in the database along with all the specifications and links available at the moment.

Acer Chromebook

Samsung Series 5 Chromebook

Google Chrome Blog announcement

10 Comments For This Post

  1. Guy says:

    Like you were last year I still fail to see the benefits in our multi device lives. I have a Android smartphone for ultra mobility, a tablet for a near desktop browsing experience, a fairly mobile macbook for long work sessions and a full desktop PC for heavy lifting and the occasional game, where would Chromebooks fit into that list?

    I definitely agree with you on the legacy front, the reason a MacBook Air runs Windows 7 better than any other native Windows laptop I have used is because of the EFI boot, no floppy, etc.

    Interesting times for sure though.

  2. turn_self_off says:

    Lets not forget that during the Angry Birds demo, they specifically mentioned that the whole game could be downloaded to the device for offline gaming.

    As such, these products are imo no different from a netbook except for how the ui is implemented. This especially as technologies such as WebGL takes hold.

  3. Yu says:

    By the way, is it just me not finding it, or is this blog still lacking a way for subscribing to comments without commenting yourself? :-/

    Anyway, I don’t quite see the point, what could possibly get me to choose a Chrome OS notebook over an ordinaray notebook with Chrome browser.

  4. Chippy says:

    By removing the legacy pc layers you can run tailored platforms that give better battery life, always on and faster boot. I would bw interested in exploring that.

  5. aftermath says:

    While I adore logic like this, I hate when it’s applied asymmetrically. Yes, the legacy PC stuff has disadvantages, and while the absence of such disadvantages isn’t itself an advantage, it does create new opportunities for new advantages. HOWEVER, the legacy PC stuff also has advantages. Google’s Chrome OS not only misses out on those advantages, but it introduces new disadvantages as well. I understand that you were merely answering his question about why somebody MIGHT prefer this over what a traditional netbook offers, and you’re obviously very aware of and willing to share your healthy skepticism about what’s going on here.

    In fact, one thing that I have to say in all of this is that I think Chippy has done a FAR BETTER job of actually analyzing what Google is bringing to the table, both good and bad, as well as what it’s missing out on, both good and bad, than almost anybody else at this point. Most people are content to promote on Google’s behalf without serving their readers by adding an interpretive layer. It frustrates me that pro-bloggers who cover technology have the ability to create very informed and objective opinions that they could use to benefit their readers, but in most cases they’re either too ignorant to pull it off or just sit their mute.

    Having said all of that…this isn’t technology. This is a business model. There is nothing new here. The technology is old. The business model is old. It’s a very desirable business model for technology companies to latch on to because it weakens the primary advantage of technology platforms for people who buy them: durability. Chrome OS is a bellwether for our generation, and its success or failure will probably determine the extent to which consumers will lose hold of the basic advantages that originally made computing as widespread and popular as it is today.

    I get it. It’s fun to think that this is new and because it looks so different from what’s normal, dumb people think that it’s cool and will jump on board without understanding what they’re getting into. We need people to be this stupid. Otherwise, they won’t work the jobs that we create for them nor will we be able to trick them into giving all of that money back to us by selling them junk and raking them with debt. Of course, I’d rather be poor and live in a world full of rational, pleasant people, but apparently it’s the people themselves who like it the other way around. However, if this is what computing is going to turn in to then count me out. I’ll go back to pencil and paper, until Google figures out a way to charge me a monthly fee for owning paper or the right to read what’s written on it.

  6. Mike Cane says:

    This stuff is still all 7-10 years away:
    http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/blank-is-the-new-black/

  7. Ben_Voigt says:

    While I’ve yet to see the I/O announcements for myself, I think Google has maneuvered itself into a pretty interesting position to conquer the business market.

    Google offers already Google Apps for Business, where you pay so you see no ads, and on the other hand Google doesn’t peak into your stuff to see what ads to serve you. This agreement is based on trust. I’m not saying you should trust them on this, but let’s assume this is indeed how this business model works.

    Google offers Android, a mobile OS which is tightly integrated into the Google Apps platform. The last piece was Google Docs, and to be honest, while it still does not perform like the browser-based version it compares to other downsized office solutions on mobile devices.

    Google announced Chrome OS, a PC OS tightly integrated into the Google Apps platform.

    Google announced offline access to several Google Apps within Chrome OS.

    So basically Google will by this summer offer a PC-based, offline working full office suite running on a pretty secure OS, transferring data over secured connections into one of the most secure cloud storages, from where it can be accessed from mobile devices using the same secure connections. An everything is integrated natively.

    The only thing missing is encryption on the client’s devices, so that the cloud storage is zero-knowledge. Encrypt on the Chrome OS device, upload the data to the cloud, download to the Android, and decrypt there and vice versa.

    And Google would loose nothing from this in their ad business, as business data are untouched by them already (our assumption from the beginning).

    The platform for this exists, the servers exists, and the hardware is rolled out in the summer.

    Given the current direction in which WP7 is moving, Microsoft could not react in time to this, RIM misses the PC market, Apple misses the iOS/MacOS integration. Depending on what HP does they could position WebOS to meet this business model linking WebOS and HP PCs, but even then they don’t have the server backend Google already has.

  8. turn_self_off says:

    Interesting take. One thing about HP and WebOS btw, and that is eprint. http://h30495.www3.hp.com/about/eprint

    This involves sending a email to an account managed by HP that then converts the content of the email into a printable format and pushes it to the printer registered to said account.

    also, HP already provides a host of services for businesses via the net: http://www8.hp.com/us/en/services/it-services.html

  9. animatio says:

    as long as these devices do not beat my actual netbook in any aspect – which is the case – i call this a hype and blending a whole techy community by marketing chowchow …
    chip i am really very astonished that you will follow this line.
    (that you will have to do as an expert is another book to write).
    my fore-say is that all those who follow this trend will be caught in future by a never ending dependency in all aspects of there digital life without the slightest trace of “free it will*.
    btw the always on slim os stuff you already can realize with any existing x86 machine and a small footprint os like puppy running in memory together with a sleep mode to memory and not to disk. what you have to look after is that you get a device (netbook) with an excellent low power consumption management like eg the old asus 1000 series had or the new hp minis 510x series. what i am doing on these machines (because they do support this) is using a stepped procedure of sleep mode functionality, means first to memory for a certain time and if not reactivated during this time to disk. this way i always come back to my actual working environment without data or system loss even if a battery should run empty once and that for weeks. (a feature eg win mobile always on devices do not have. if the battery is dead also the system is dead and must be rebooted to memory).

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