Chrome Tablets

If you can’t wait for a Chrome tablet, then you can put your hands on your very own Chromebook, now you have the chance. Acer and Samsung Chromebooks are up for pre-order on Amazon and Best Buy, with shipment due on June 15th. For now, the netbook is available only in the US, but other countries will soon follow.

There’s the Acer Cromia, which sells for $379.99 for the Wi-Fi version, and $449.99 for the 3G model, and the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook, which is available for $429.99 (WiFi only) and $499.99 (3G), in both silver and white color options.

Advertised as being “built and optimized for the web”, with a boot time of only 8 seconds, the Chromebook stores all your data “in the cloud”, so you can access it anytime, from any other Chromebook. It also updates itself automatically and is very well protected against malware and other possible threats. Check out Amazon and Best Buy if you want to get one of your own.

Following the first day of Google I/O, we’ve stumbled upon some interesting pieces of information. It looks like Google will bring out a Chrome OS laptop which will be sold with a 20 dollar a month “student package”, or so said a senior Google executive.

This would a great option for all the students out there who are on a tight budget, right? And that means they can try out the Chrome OS laptop with cloud-based connectivity and see how it works out for them. No further details were made available, but we’re expecting more news as the rest of the Google I/O unfolds.

There are some new Chrome OS-running devices believed to be in the works. First of all, there’s the Samsung “Alex”, which is rumored to be a 10-inch device sporting a 1280 x 800 pixel display, which also comes with a 1.5GHz dual-core Atom N550 processor and 2GB of RAM. It’s also supposed to have a Qualcomm Gobi 2000 3G card installed, WiFi, Bluetooth, a webcam, and a Synaptics touchpad.

Another Chrome OS device in the making is the Acer ZGB notebook boasting a 1366 x 768 display, and a 10 – 12-inch screen size. It’ll probably have an Atom processor installed, a HDMI port so it can be connected to an external display, and that’s about everything we know so far.

Another possible device is the Seaboard, which will be powered by a Tegra 2 chip and it’ll feature a touchscreen, but also a physical keyboard and lid, so it can turn into a convertible slate/netbook. It should also come with USB and HDMI ports. Unfortunately, these devices aren’t officially confirmed, they might just be in the testing stage. But stay tuned for more juicy details.

Netbooks running on the Chrome OS are not far from becoming a reality, for those who are interested in cloud computing. Recent rumors indicate that the upcoming netbooks running on Google’s new operating system will become available with a monthly subscription plan, which will cost somewhere around $10 – $20.

For those who are not willing to pay a monthly fee, there will also be the option of non-subscription Chrome OS netbooks, but they will be coming not from Google, but from other manufacturers, like Acer, ASUS, or Samsung.

The main advantage for those who will choose a subscription plan will be that they will receive hardware refreshes and they will get free replacements for defective hardware, or even get new netbooks once the old ones become outdated. This option may turn out to be profitable for many users, it remains to be seen if Google will offer any other services along with its monthly plans.

Recent details revealed in Google’s source codes indicate that there is a tablet version of the Chrome OS in the making, which also goes to show that a future Chrome tablet is indeed possible. Here are some changes which point to the imminence of a Chrome OS tablet:

- the appearance of a “virtual keyboard” which can be shown by a browser;

- a touch-optimized new tab page;

- a new CSS code for the new tab page;

- a more touch-friendly browser; and

- a new “user-agent string” for touch-user interfaces.

It is premature to say whether the new Chrome OS for tablets will eventually merge with Android, as previously rumored, or stand on its own.

According to rumors, Sony is working on a new VAIO netbook which will come installed with Chrome OS. The device will feature a 11.6-inch screen with a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, a powerful Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage space via a memory card. It will have the following dimensions: 298 x 215 x 19.9 mm, and a weight of  approximately 1 kg.

Other known features include Bluetooth and WiFi support, WWAN, and GPS, as well as other VAIO applications. The new Chrome OS-running netbook from Sony is expected to become available this summer.

It seems like netbooks are losing more and more ground, mostly due to the increasing popularity of tablets. ASUS wants to change that, and it has plans to introduce a new netbook to the market which should cost somewhere around $200 – $250, which is significantly less than the $300 or more you have to pay for a netbook these days. And the best part is, the new netbooks will run a lightweight OS, meaning Android 3.0 or Chrome OS.

The upcoming ASUS Chrome OS netbook should have a screen size of 10 or 11 inches. It’s definitely more plausible that the new devices will come installed with Chrome OS, instead of Android 3.0, since the latter was designed especially for tablet use and requires a touchscreen interface. The said netbook which should cost no more than $250 is scheduled for a June release in the US. So, what do you think, would you be willing to pay $200 for a Chrome OS netbook from ASUS?

Google VP of Product Management, Sundar Pichai, has recently posted on his Twitter account that Google has shipped all the Cr-48 laptops for the time being. If you haven’t been one of the lucky ones to get into the Pilot Program and receive a Chrome OS device for testing purposes, then you should be patient until the summer, when commercial devices are expected to become available.

It looks like Acer and Samsung will be the first manufacturers to come out with laptops running on the Google Chrome OS. Other manufacturers will follow, if all goes according to plan. So, whether or not the Pilot Program was a success or not, it looks like anyone who wants to will be able to get their hands on a Chrome OS device, provided that they have patience until mid year.

You might remember the Cr-48 netbook running Chrome OS which has been given out to a limited number of people for testing purposes. Google has recently updated the Chrome OS and brought some significant improvements to the trackpad issues encountered. This means that the new version of Chrome OS, 0.10.156.46, has brought with it some new “trackpad and sensitivity settings”, meant to enhance the user experience.

Other updates of the Chrome OS build include fixes for WiFi connectivity, 3G modem and 3G connection issues, power enhancements, auto update engine and debugging enhancements, on screen indicators improvements, and GTalk optimizations. Let’s hope all these enhancements and optimizations are headed in the right direction and that Chrome OS will actually have a future.

We haven’t heard anything about Chrome OS for a while, and the latest news comes right from the recently ended Mobile World Conference, held in Barcelona. That’s where Google chairman, Eric Schmidt, made a not-so-surprising statement regarding the future of Chrome OS: it will ultimately converge with Android. Although the two operating systems are different – Android is focused on touch-based devices, while Chrome OS is more suitable for PC’s and netbooks, meaning devices with a physical keyboard – the two are very likely to become united in the future.

Eric Schmidt went on to say that “We’re working overtime to get those technologies merged in the right way…I learned a long time ago, don’t force technology to merge when it’s not ready, wait for the technology to mature to the point when it can be merged.” So, it seems like a merge between the two operating systems is imminent, it remains to be seen how and when it will actually happen and what this convergence will entail.