Is Google Better Than Christmas?

This afternoon, on a very boring day during break, I answered the doorbell to the best guest.  A UPS truck driver!  Stumped, I had not ordered anything.  I opened the box bewildered.  I lifted the flap to the back of another box, and all I noticed were the words "lithium" and thought laptop immediately struck my mind.  Then, after a few moments I remembered back to a few weeks ago when I applied for the new Google Notebook.  Get the box open and sure enough, there it was!  The beautiful CR-48 Google Notebook.  

What proceeded were the longest 20 minutes of my life, it seemed.  See, I live in Michigan; which when in December is quite freezing.  I had to allow this thing to warm-up or I may break it before I even really touch it.  I finally get to turn it on and I spend the next minutes reading agreements and setting this bad boy up, it runs it's updates and I finally get to play.

Now, I'm an avid Chrome web browser user and love it.  I wasn't quite sure what to expect with the Chrome OS.  Really, it's the same thing essentially.  So, I decided I should take some time and browse around the web market.  Which by the way, if you don't have it set-up already, set-up the browser sync capability within the Chrome browser (I already had this set-up for when I go to class).  Anyway, the Web Market had some pretty interesting things, such as, SlideRocket (can't wait for my next presentation!), Vyew, TweetDeck, and SpringPad.  These were really all I left installed after a few hours of playing around with random apps.  

Now for a work in progress, I am a big fan of the OS.  I think it's come a long way since I tried the Chromium Project live USB.  It feels a lot more natural on the hardware provided by Google and it's CR-48.  As for hardware, the computer doesn't have much.  A smaller solid state drive, a couple of gigs of RAM, and a smaller single core ATOM processor from Intel.  But, you don't really need much when working with a cloud based operating system.  Plus, with smaller hardware you get some sweet battery life, around 8 hours on a full charge.  Performance was off and on and really seemed dependent on the wireless strength.   

Aesthetically, I love the look and feel of the device.  The keyboard is awesome and the replacement of the function keys and the caps lock key are not noticeable to me, if not a huge improvement.  I love the thing personally, other than one real big downside for me was the touch pad.  The requirement of two finger tap for right-click, doesn't work well to me (maybe I'm just not used to it).  For me though, the pro's greatly outweigh the con's.  Overall, it's a stupendous device and would like to thank Google for giving me the best Christmas gift I've gotten in a long time.

Google is better than Santa Clause!


*This was written on December 21, 2010