There seem to be a trillion variations on tablet/laptops these days. There are laptops with keyboards that slide, with screens that flip, with hinges that bend backward. I have a strong feeling most of them will wind up in the junk drawers of history.
But one of them is eminently successful, and it's not getting enough attention: Google's new Chromebook.
The Chromebook laptop concept has been kicking around for years now - handed out as loaners on Virgin flights, sent to reviewers as prototypes - but the 2012 version should make a lot of sense to a lot of people. Simply put, it's a great second computer for $250.
The laptop's shell is plastic, but it performs an excellent impersonation of silver brushed aluminum. It feels really, really good. The Samsung logo is the only thing on the top. The Chromebook is very light - 2.4 pounds - and its extremely clean, satisfying keyboard is carefully modeled on the MacBook Air's. The keys are black with white lettering, and they poke up through holes in the “deck.†The trackpad works perfectly.
There are HDMI, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 jacks - on the back, alas - and a memory-card slot on the side for transferring camera photos. And a headphone jack. (For $330, you can get a version that gets online over the cellular data networks.) The 11.6-inch screen isn't glossy, which is good, but it's a little washed out. It has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Google claims 6.5 hours for the battery, and that seems about right.
The Chromebook concept takes some getting used to: It's exclusively for online activities. Web, e-mail, YouTube, and apps like Google Drive (free, online word processor, spreadsheet and slide show programs). The laptop has no moving parts: no fan, no DVD drive, not even a hard drive. It's silent and fast, as long as you don't try to do two things at once (video playback and music playback, for example).
And it comes with very little storage; you're supposed to keep your files online. Google starts you off with 100 gigabytes of storage for two years; after that, you have to pay for more storage (although you get to keep whatever you've already used, no charge).
There are all kinds of payoffs to this approach. The laptop turns on instantly. The operating system is updated automatically every six weeks or so. It has “insane levels†of security, according to Google.
Google also gives you 12 free passes for Gogo, the service that gives you Wi-Fi on plane flights, so you can keep working in the air. If you use Chrome on your real computer, and you sign in with your Google account, your bookmarks and online files synchronize across all your machines.
The Chromebook runs something Google calls the Chrome OS - it's not the Mac, it's not Windows. It doesn't run “real†softwa re like Photoshop, iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Skype, and so on. It's basically just a Web browser, although it does offer accounts to help keep family members' stuff separate.
Now, if this laptop cost $450 (like the last Chromebook), it would appear to be laughably limited. You'd mock the screen and the speed (it has an ARM chip inside, not Intel inside). You'd scoff at the lightweight plastic.
But $250 changes everything. A price of $250 means you don't spend hours online comparing models. A price of $250 means half the price of an iPad, even less than an iPad Mini or an iPod Touch. And you're getting a laptop.
(There's an even less expensive Chromebook from Acer - $200 - although reviewers seem to find it somewhat cheap-feeling.)
For so many things people do with their computers (and tablets) these days, the Chromebook makes eminent sense. Flash videos play. Netflix movies play. Office documents open. In other words, Google is correct when it asserts that the Chromebook is perfect for schools, second computers in homes and businesses who deploy hundreds of machines.
It's also a perfect computer for the technophobic. It's very hard to get lost in an operating system that basically has no features.
It's been a long, patient slot for Google to get here, but with year after year of careful tweaks and improvements - and a jaw-dropping $250 price - the Chromebook is finally ready for prime time.
