[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Doctordude - Tik Tok Together (Ke$ha vs The Beatles)
Yes, this exists. And now it’s in your life. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if you want to hug me or shoot me, but in all honesty I kind of.. love it?This has no business being this listenable.
Wait, does this mean I like Ke$ha now?
Smudges on matte black
I’ve been putting the CR-48 through the ringer and it’s still performing like a champ. I’ve taken it on a cross-country trip wherein it completely lost battery charge, loaded countless apps and extensions, deleted over half of those, and, worst of all, I’ve allowed my toddler to play with it.
A couple crashes later and everything is still good. Smudged, but perfectly functional. After reading various reports of bricked CR-48’s (mostly due to switching on developer mode) I was a little concerned about my precious beta device but thus far it seems unwarranted.
When I get back from visiting the in-laws and if the CR-48 survives another go-over by the TSA and U.S. Airways then maybe I’ll try developer mode and see how my luck holds up.
Google Chrome CR-48 Netbook Initial Impressions
Yes, I was one of the lucky recipients of the Google Chrome CR-48 Netbook. I came home yesterday to a large, mysterious box addressed to me.
“Did I have something on order?” I thought. Certainly it was possible, what with the holidays and the recent assembling of a new PC for my wife. But this box was roughly the dimensions of a monitor and I had no such things on their way.
I grabbed my trusty pocket knife, carefully sliced the packing tape and pulled out… yet another box.
But this box, oh this box was covered artwork depicting a mouse constructing something wild and on seeing this my brain began frenetically thinking.
“Oh my god!” I exclaimed. My wife asked me what was the matter and I said that I knew what this was.
I laid the box down and began opening it, my wife and daughter hovering nearby to see what wonder had entered into their house. I began whooping when my suspicions were confirmed and out came a matte black rectangular object roughly a foot on the diagonal.
“What? What is it?” My wife asked.
“It’s the new Google Chrome Netbook!” I shouted triumphant.
From there came an evening of setting up, surfing with, adding extensions to, and load testing my precious… I mean, my new CR-48.
First off, setup is super easy. You open it up and it comes on. It has a simple wizard that walks you through just a few steps. A Google account is necessary but how few of us don’t already have those. The whole while I’m setting the CR-48 up I’m marveling at how nice this device feels. The color is very appealing, matte black makes it feel both hip and professional. The surface of the netbook itself offers just the right balance of slick plus friction. The multitouch trackpad is nice and big, very responsive, and instantly intuitive. The keyboard is surprisingly spacious, well laid out (Google customized the layout just a bit), and very responsive.
Complete the brief setup and you’re in. What you’re presented with looks just like the Google Chrome browser with a few minor additions. At the top right is your clock, Wi-Fi meter, and battery indicator. In the browser itself is a different homepage including links to the App Store which I’ve only begun to touch the surface of (using the ScribeFire addon to compose this right now). Clicking the wrench for settings there are OS-specific settings including accessibility, user, and network options. Settings are somewhat sparse but that is not at all a hit against this. Keeping it simple and having things just work is a major part of the Google experience and this netbook and OS have so far delivered.
In terms of other tests, YouTube videos play fine when in their original window. Full-sizing a video leads to moderate choppiness. Hulu is the same. Netflix streaming is not yet supported so that could not be evaluated, but given the tenacity of Netflix engineers in developing cross-platform apps for their service and I expect it won’t be long before we see it on Chrome OS as well.
HTML 5 videos and apps seem happy on the CR-48 and I haven’t managed to strain the system with any of those yet. Flash also seems fairly happy, though one roll-over fullscreen ad did cause some stuttering.
I’ve only had the netbook for one evening and so far I’m very impressed. If anything I can say that the only downside I’ve found so far is the lack of keyboard backlight. Given the dark color of the system, the matte finish, the lowlight situations one tends to fine oneself in, and a new keyboard to grow accustomed to, I find myself sometimes hunting and pecking for the right key or hand placement. Of course, this might just as easily be remedied by a portable book light.
