There are some major, I won’t call them failings as that would be unfair, but certainly issues with the operating system around the lack of offline storage and offline apps.  There’s no native document editing or media playback, and with everything the OS does requiring a live Internet connection to work, there’s the fact that the device will be a useless brick when you try to use it offline.

There’s still a chance that the Samsung hardware can redeem it though as Chrome OS isn’t a bad operating system or indeed a bad idea.  It’s a very polished OS and very quick; though some people have said not quite as quick as a standard Linux installation and not being able to install Linux on the Series 5 I was unable to test this.

The build quality of the Series 5 is superb.  The bright white top (it’s also available in black) is just lovely and the quality of the plastics used throughout are up to Samsung’s usual high standards.  It’s got a mini VGA port, a USB 2 port and a combined headphone/microphone socket on the left of the body, an SD/MMC card reader on the front and another USB 2 port and, crucially, a USIM slot on the right of the body.  This is helpfully behind a flap, though the SD/MMC card reader isn’t and so a card will protrude from the machine when inserted, which is a touch disappointing.

Internally there’s an Intel Atom N570 processor running at 1.66GHz and 2GB RAM.  This is backed up by just 16Gb of storage, of which the operating system takes an ‘unspecified’ amount; remember the Chromebook isn’t about offline storage so doesn’t provide feedback on how much storage space it has available.

The screen is super-bright and generally excellent and the machine will give you a solid 8.5 hours of battery life between recharges, so it will easily keep going for the entire day.  The battery is non-removable however as is becoming the trend these days.  Last but by no means least there’s a 2MP webcam above the screen.

Google have specified a new keyboard layout for Chromebooks with the row above the numbers now having keys for back, forward, refresh, switch screen (you can open browser links in new windows and what I dub the earthquake button as it makes the screen shudder when you have only one window open, will otherwise slide between them.  Then there are controls for brightness up and down, volume up and down, mute and finally a power button.  The caps lock key is now a wide search key, but it’s a bit too wide which results in a narrow enter key.  This I found disappointing and I’d have hoped for a slightly better keyboard layout.

If you press the power button it’s debatable whether you actually turn the device off.  As it’s entirely flash memory-based it’s never really off.  This makes for a maximum 8 second startup time and from standby you can be working in under three seconds.  This really is the definition of “instant on”.  The machine weighs 1.48kg and is the size of a small netbook.  It’s also worth noting that the lightweight charger comes equipped with a USB socket for charging your smartphone or other device, a very thoughtful addition.

But what is the Series 5 like to live with.  Well it’s certainly portable though perhaps not as light as you might hope for such a ‘lightweight’ machine, which will be down to the excellent battery and screen.  You can merrily use the Series 5 out and about thanks to the USIM slot and with my 3G data SIM installed it connected quickly and seamlessly to my provider and a provided a broadband-speed connection.  You can enable and disable both the wireless and mobile data connections in the software to maximize battery life and make certain you’re not wasting your valuable paid-for data when wi-fi is available.

So I can dispel one myth straight away.  On the evening of getting the Series 5 delivered I took it down the pub and was using it happily.  This machine is anything but a brick when away from wi-fi, this is excellent news though you’ll want a good data package to go with it.  This means that if you want a Series 5 or another Chromebook it would be worth finding a good deal with a mobile phone operator.

It’s nice to see a multi-touch trackpad too and indeed this is one of the most friendly things about the Series 5 as it’s both large and extremely usable.  Indeed the keyboard quality, despite the narrow enter key deserves a mention for being very easy to type on with large keys and easy to read letters on the keys.

This brings me on to the types of people who might benefit most from having a Chromebook.  These people being children who might benefit from having something at school that will help them access Google Docs, as this is commonly used by schools now, and pensioners who will benefit from the simplicity of the OS, the great keyboard and bright screen.  On this note though, Google will have to do some work to enable the partially sighted to  scale the whole OS and not just the contents of the browser window.

Google are updating Chrome OS regularly though and even my issues with offline apps is being addressed with a forthcoming offline version of Google Docs.  Who knows what will happen with a media player and other apps in the future.

So what what do I think of it and can I recommend the Series 5?  The machine is $430 (£350) or $500 for the 3G version which is the price of a high-end netbook with a 320Gb hard disk.  So would you want to buy a Chromebook rather than a netbook onto which you can install Google’s Chromium OS, the downloadable alternative to Chrome OS?  To be honest, at this point I’d rather recommend a good netbook instead, but Chrome OS is a great operating system and they’re addressing all the shortcomings one by one.

To top this off with the Series 5 being such a quality product, if you’re not a big user of files and music (perhaps you use your phone for music) then the Series 5 can be recommended.  Certainly if you’re looking for a sturdy portable device for the kids going back to school next month coupled with the dependability of Linux, you can’t go far wrong with the Series 5 Chromebook, just make sure you buy the 3G one.

Overall 7/10

You can buy the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook at Amazon: There are currently four models available, two Wi-Fi models and two 3G models in the colors Titan Silver or Arctic White.

Samsung Series 5 3G Chromebook (Titan Silver)

Samsung Series 5 Wi-Fi Chromebook (Titan Silver)

Samsung Series 5 3G Chromebook (Arctic White)

Samsung Series 5 Wi-Fi Chromebook (Arctic White)

To be fair to Google and Chrome OS I’m being a little unfair with the title of this article as some people will clearly be extremely happy living with a Chromebook as their primary computer.  I decided to give the “no” as my overall conclusion however because these demographic groups simply aren’t the majority.  Let me explain.

Google’s Chrome OS, which is a Linux based OS that is simply nothing more than a web browser, is an accomplished piece of work.  It’s very fast and responsive and for the 90% of things we do on computers that just happen to be online, perfectly good and usable.  After all, what’s the difference between using a web browser in an operating system and using a browser that is an operating system?

Unfortunately you don’t have to be using Chrome OS for very long before the limitations begin to creep in.  The lack of offline applications, proper ones anyway, for editing the documents we all use in our day to day lives, such as Word and Excel files and digital photographs is just galling.  Having to edit these documents in a web application is simply not good enough for most people.  These applications are limited anyway but even more so when you can only edit documents you have stored on that service.  Both Hotmail and Gmail will allow you to edit documents sitting in your inbox but email is a crummy way to transfer files around when we’ve got USB flash drives.  There is limited storage on Chromebooks and you can technically use this to store files that are later uploaded to Office Live or Google Docs, but that’s not the solution most people want.

It’s even worse when it comes to editing photos.  Most services these days, including the already excellent pixlr.com will take an age to upload a digital photograph from your camera, let alone a whole bunch of them.  Then having nowhere on your device to store these photos is very unhelpful.

I was interviewed by the IEEE back in January 2010 about Chrome OS, shortly after it was announced.  I was dubious about the concept then, saying that while Google might be confident that cloud-based services were the way forward, and that they might even be correct in that assumption, that the current infrastructure of the Internet simply isn’t good enough to permit it in any meaningful way.  This is the whole problem with Chrome OS, in that it’s just too ahead of its time.  There’s little wrong with the actual product, but your average Internet connection simply isn’t up to the job of working with it.

There are other ways in which Chrome OS falls down though beyond a lack of storage and a lack of a meaningful way to edit documents offline (though in fairness Google do say they’ll be adding offline support for Google Docs soon, and are rushing out Chrome OS updates very frequently).  The lack of any type of media player means you either have to use up your bandwidth listening to Spotify or YouTube, or you work in silence.  This isn’t much fun I can assure you, and I quickly found myself crying out for a media player.

There’s also the security issue.  While Google will argue that Chrome OS isn’t prone to viruses it is prone to malware that tries to trick ther user into parting with sensitive data.  The browser security goes some way to rectifying this but it’s still not enough and third-party malware detection apps are now beginning to appear in the Chrome OS web store.  This is a problem Google need to recognise and act upon if they’re going to behave responsibly.  With the ongoing debacle over Android security still raging though, I’m not getting my hopes up.

Finally there’s the backup and restore problem.  Chromebooks don’t come with a restore function.  In order to create one yourself you need to activate your Chromebook with your user account.  This primary account can never be deleted though so should you want to pass the device on to a friend it will be there forever.  This is a huge oversight and one that Google badly need to fix because I’ve certainly not found a way to do it.

Overall though there are too many failings in Chrome to recommend it for day to day usage for all but the most casual computer user.  This does bring me on to the categories of people who would like it though, these being children and pensioners.  For these two groups, who will have limited use for a computer except for games, browsing and messaging, Chrome OS is a great idea.  It’s simple to use, difficult to break (though my Chromebook crashed on me once on the first day) and does everything these people will need.

So can I recommend Google’s Chrome OS?  Well it’s not looking good so far but the hardware could still save it, and I’ll publish my full review of the Samsung Chromebook here in a couple of days.

Most of us live in our browsers and perform 90% of our computer-based activities either in the browser itself on in an app that replicates something you can do in a browser, such as Windows Live Mail or Tweetdeck. It stands to reason then that an operating system into which there isn’t any actual installable software, with the exception of some browser plug-ins from the Chrome OS App Store, is one that the average user would be happy with for around 90% of the time.

Well I’m a dedicated Windows user and generally not a huge fan of Google.  That aside though I’m going to give it my best try to live with Chrome OS as my primary operating system for the next week.

I’m starting right now, writing this article on the Chromebook in a browser that has tabs open for my email and social networking, so I’m off to a good start.  Do I see any problems though? Well currently I’m working on a document in Microsoft Publisher.  Sadly there’s no online equivalent to this software from Microsoft, Google or any other company so I might have to revert to the PC for just doing that job for a few hours and music might be an issue.  There’s no in-built media player in Chrome OS but I could try Spotify and see how I get on with it.

Initial impressions of Chrome OS are good though, and so far I like it.  It’s not perfect and it’s clear to see where it can be improved (malware protection and better accessibility options jump out at me as being the most obvious).  Generally though the overall experience with Chrome OS, given that I’ve not been using it for very long, is very positive.

So I’ll feed back to you next week just what its like living with a Chromebook.  In the mean time though it would be interesting to hear from all of you who own one what your experiences of it are, and if you’ve managed to switch to it.

It’s no big secret that Google has been preparing a streamlined, Chrome-esque operating system to challenge Microsoft’s double decade monopoly. They claim it will be faster, more powerful, and less expensive (read: free) than anything Microsoft has ever put out. Most interesting of all, it appears Google is prepared to fight a two front war: first, with its open source Chromium OS, downloadable by individuals for any use, and second, Chrome OS, to be shipped on-board select tablets and mobile devices.

Attacking the PC market is a serious undertaking, but Microsoft has been working very hard lately to become more competitive in the handheld realm. They are gaining ground on Apple and are holding back Android, so surely things are looking up for them, right?

That might have been true a few days ago, before HP announced its plans to expand usage of its lightweight operating system, webOS. In the past the company had limited the operating system’s applications to its own products. Soon things may be very different, in ways that don’t well suit Microsoft’s interests.

In an interview with Reuters, HP CEO Leo Apotheker let slip that “it’s not correct to believe that [webOS] should only be on HP devices.” And the company seems to believe him. Rumor has it that a fresh batch of PCs will roll off the HP assembly line with the operating system dual-booting alongside Windows.

Ok, so HP has plans to start pushing its OS against those of others, namely Microsoft. So what?

For starters, webOS is widely respected for combining the three golden words of contemporary tech: cloud, social, and mobile. While Windows may have been the gold standard of the past, it hasn’t made strong moves toward cloud computing (although we will see what happens when 8 actually comes out). The future of social media sits on the cloud, and many aspects of mobile usage rely on consumers’ love of social media.

Keep in mind that HP isn’t even the main challenger. Google owns mobile, is moving toward cloud and is getting pretty chummy with social giants like Facebook after failing to put up a challenger to face them. Apple is holding onto its piece of the pie, and tablet and netbook manufacturers are still interested in the prospects of linux-based operating systems.

So where does all this leave Microsoft and their upcoming Windows 8? Desperately trying to find its place in an evolving tech world. Things were so much more simple when they were just the great big bad guy…

So what is this change I hear you cry. This will be the move to the computer in your pocket and, surprisingly, Microsoft seem to be ahead of the game this time. I say surprisingly because in recent years Microsoft have long been playing catch-up to their competitors and, frankly, making a bit of a mess of it. Windows Phone is the best example of how the company completely failed to bring the right product to market at the right time. Currently this smartphone sits with little over 3% market share and the company has huge volumes of work to do to catch up with the big boys.

When it comes to computing in your pocket though Microsoft could yet come up with a few surprises, and I fully expect that they will. The first indication of the computing in your pocket future took the form of the Motorola Atrix. This is a smartphone that can sit in a dock at the back of a netbook-style keyboard and screen assembly and be used as a desktop computer.

This Android powered phone has received great reviews as a phone but hasn’t been so well received as a netbook. That said it’s the first device of its kind and a very exciting prospect. We never expect version 1 products to tick all the right boxes anyway.

Google don’t seem to be too concentrated on the prospect of dual devices at the moment. They’re OS product line-up has even become a little fragmented with Chrome OS now gearing up for release and Android being steered towards touch-only desktop devices.

Of Microsoft’s other competitors Apple seems best-placed to compete in this arena. Their iOS smartphone operating system is already based on their successful OS X desktop operating system and the news that the company is planning to port an iOS-style user interface to their desktop computers could show a hint of the way forward for all of us.

It’s with Windows 8 and Microsoft’s move to ARM processors though where the most interesting developments lie. In research most people have answered that they’d most like to be using Windows on mobile devices. This is despite Microsoft’s disasterous history with phones and tablets.

With an ARM-powered Windows we have the glint that we might just see a proper desktop OS available as a secondary interface on a smartphone when you plug your phone into an appropriate dock, be that on a dumb screen and keyboard affair or on your own desktop instead of a PC case.

Either way we can fully expect not be carrying around slimmed down computing devices in a year or two and instead be expecting to be carrying full computing devices with quad-core processors, large volumes of storage and full desktop apps. This is a hugely exciting prospect and one that futurologists were getting excited about twenty years ago.

This future is now just outside our doors, the question remains will people embrace it?

Some specs have not been revealed yet. We do not know the MHz of the cpu, the size of the internal hard drive or the RAM. Acer’s Chromebook starts at $349, Samsung’s at $429, which is pricey if you compare it to other netbook offers.

But hardware or appearance is not the thing that sets the netbook aside from other offerings. It is that it ships with Chrome OS, Google’s attempt to get a foothold in the operating system market.

Instead of writing a long article about Chrome OS’ advantages and disadvantages, I though it would be nice to post a top 5 list instead. The top 5 things that get me excited, and the top 5 things that disappoint.

Top 5

• Security – Google has designed Chrome OS with security in mind, just like they did when they designed the Chrome browser. Applications run sandboxed which means that malware can only affect what’s inside the sandbox, and not something that’s outside of it. While it may affect the browser, it cannot affect the underlying operating system. That is, unless the sandbox gets penetrated. The user home directory furthermore is encrypted by default which means that temporary Internet files, cookies and other user related data are not accessibly by anyone else. [reference].

  Chromebook users furthermore get options to restore a previous “working” version of the operating system, and automatic integrity checks during boot time to verify that files have not been manipulated.

• Guest Mode – If you are a Chrome OS user, you can access all your personal data and files on any device running Chrome OS as long as the device has an active Internet connection.
• Cloud Storage – This has some advantages, like accessibility of your personal data on all devices running Chrome Os.
• Fast Boot – It takes less than ten seconds from booting Chrome OS to having it fully operational.
• Ease of Use – If you know how to operate a web browser, you know how to operate Chrome OS.

Flop 5

• Cloud Storage – With all the news regarding Cloud storage break-ins, security issues and data loss, it may not sound like a good idea to rely primarily on the cloud.
• Compatibility – With Chrome OS, you cannot run your Windows applications directly. Google’s solution is virtualization so that you can run those applications. It is however not clear how this is handled at this point in time, and how users can get their applications to run on the Chromebook.
• Google Account link – Your Chrome Os account is linked to a Google account. Google may collect even more information about you this way, even if you use a fake Google account just for the Chromebook.
• Less choice: Would you buy an operating system where you had to use the default browser? Yes, you may be able to run Firefox or Opera in a virtual machine but that again does not sound overly comfortable, considering that this will have an impact on performance.
• Decent Internet connection – You will need a decent Internet connection to get most out of the device. You get offline access to some of your files and documents, but for the majority of things, you will need a decent Internet connection.

I for one will not buy a Chromebook at this point in time. I’d like to play around with one though, to experience it first hand. What’s your take on this?

Engadget are reportingthat smartphone maker HTC are building the device which will sport a 1280×720 multi-touch screen, 2Gb of RAM and a minimum of 32Gb hard disk storage.  It’s also possible that the tablet will also sport a webcam, GPS, 3G and Wireless G and N.

What’s not clear is if the device will be hardware crippled in any way that would prevent a user from installing another operating system, Windows 7, Ubuntu or Android for instance, as the main OS or in a dual-boot configuration.  Certainly a minimum of 32Gb of storage would allow for this.  It would also make the tablet much improved because the main problem with a cloud-based OS is that it’s only usable if you have an active and stable net connection.

This, presumably, is why Google have partnered with Verizon as a distributor.  It can only serve to put yet more strain on the mobile phone networks though, who have already been complaining that their infrastructure is creaking under the bandwidth-hungry data plans for other tablets such as the iPad.  A completely cloud-based OS can only make this situation worse.

The price?  It’s possible that the device could come completely free on a monthly data plan, though there is no confirmation of this at this time.  Certainly this is where HTC’s expertise would come in, in building the tablet down to a price.

The device is rumoured to launch on November 26th in the US.

Now though it appears that Chrome OS could be the right product launching at excatly the right time.  Back then, for it now seems such a long time ago, it was heavily criticised by many people for not supporting local storage or local apps and forcing people to go online if ever they wanted to do anything.

Now though things are different, gone are the comments about buying an expensive paperweight for the next time you’re out and about, and in come cries that it’ what we’ve all been waiting for.

So what’s behind the shift?  Quite simply the introduction, or should I say reintroduction of tablet computing has made all the difference.  These are devices that most people will use for light commuting tasks around the home. Taking myself for example, for I shall no doubt buy a tablet later this year, I want one for when I’m crashed in front of the TV and want to do nothing more complex than a little light web browsing or email, but don’t want to be hunched over a laptop or sat at a desk in front of a PC.  In fact I’ve deliberately moved a PC out of my living room for this very reason.

For these tasks, most of what a tablet will be used for, it’s perfect.  A small, lightweight device for using in the home in front of the TV.

The problem the iPad and other tablets have is that, for these purposes they’re simply too expensive.  Apple and other tablet manufacturers have touted them as take-anywhere devices, and have included features such as 3G connectivity to help with this.  I can’t see most tablet users dragging the thing around with them though, we all have smart phones for that.

The big advantage that Chrome OS will bring is price.  Google have already announced that their free OS is aimed at small, low cost, low power machines that will save on price by foregoing the local storage they don’t need.  This would bring the tablet down to the kind of price range that would finally appeal to the masses, and the iPad could be facing some VERY serious competition indeed.

Chrome OS will be minimalistic which has the advantages that it will boot fast. Several security concepts like sandboxing processes or verifying core systems during startup make it harder to attack and less likely to spread.

There is one premise though that users have to understand. Chrome OS is not aiming for the same market that Microsoft is targeting with Windows or Apple is targeting with Mac OS. At least not in the years to come. Why? Because it is to limited. Here are a few examples:

• Cloud based data storage means that an Internet connection is required to access the data. Google probably plans to make it possible to store data on the local computer system (Google Gears?) so that it can be accessed without Internet connection. This does however mean that a fast connection is required to be able to upload, download and sync the data. It could on the other hand be the perfect system for users who want to use it for very specific operations, i.e. banking, chatting or social networking to name a few.
• Entertainment: If you want to play that 10 Gigabyte ultra-HD video sitting on your desktop you can do so by clicking on it. How will this work if the video is in the cloud? What about an audio collection? This could become really problematic if data cannot be stored offline, especially for users with slow Internet connections. But then again, who says that this is one of the applications of the OS?
• Games are another area where Chrome OS will not cut it. You can play browser games sure but that’s it for now.

There are however some advantages. This (likely) includes lower hardware requirements to run the operating system (not only cpu or memory but also hard drive space, optical drives), data backups that are taken care of or a possible lower battery usage for the system.

Chrome OS will be a very specialized operating system in my opinion and not the Microsoft Windows killer that many users hope it to become.

But what’s so special about Chrome OS? The Google blog mentions three aspects that distinguish it from other operating systems:

First, it’s all about the web. All apps are web apps. The entire experience takes place within the browser and there are no conventional desktop applications. This means users do not have to deal with installing, managing and updating programs.

This means that Chrome OS is storing all data in the cloud. Many web applications handle data in this fashion already, think about Gmail, blogs or photo hosting websites for example. Privacy advocates on the other hand might find this problematic depending on the privacy and security regulations.

Second, because all apps live within the browser, there are significant benefits to security. Unlike traditional operating systems, Chrome OS doesn’t trust the applications you run. Each app is contained within a security sandbox making it harder for malware and viruses to infect your computer. Furthermore, Chrome OS barely trusts itself. Every time you restart your computer the operating system verifies the integrity of its code. If your system has been compromised, it is designed to fix itself with a reboot. While no computer can be made completely secure, we’re going to make life much harder (and less profitable) for the bad guys. If you dig security, read the Chrome OS Security Overview or watch the video.

Chrome OS implements some security features like sandboxing to secure the operating system and data from taking harm. The operating system is also checking its code on every startup to verify the integrity. Would be interesting to know how this affects boot time. Most of this is already available in today’s operating systems or by using third party software like Sandboxie.

Most of all, we are obsessed with speed. We are taking out every unnecessary process, optimizing many operations and running everything possible in parallel. This means you can go from turning on the computer to surfing the web in a few seconds. Our obsession with speed goes all the way down to the metal. We are specifying reference hardware components to create the fastest experience for Google Chrome OS.

This does sound interesting but there are already other options to boot a computer in a significantly lower time than today’s average (a Phoenix bios showcased a much faster boot time a few months ago).

It will nevertheless be interesting how this turns out. According to the blog posts first consumer releases can be expected at the end of 2010. Here is a short – well done – video about Chrome OS.

What’s your first impression of Chrome OS?

Fake videos showcasing the new Google Chrome OS have been making their rounds on the Internet in the last months. There have not been on the other hand lots of attempts to turn an existing Linux distribution into something that resembles the Google Chrome OS.

Chrome OS is one of the first attempts. It is offered as a Live CD and virtual image currently. Chrome OS uses a GNOME 2.24 desktop environment with the Google Chrome 4.0.207 web browser integrated. Several other programs like Open Office or Flash Player have also been integrated into the distribution.

To be 100% clear here. This is a custom Linux distribution and not the official Google Chrome OS. It still resembles the operating system and can be used as a Live CD to run the Google Chrome web browser on Linux. Interested users can download the Live CD or the virtual image from the Chrome OS Linux website.