Chrome OS, Google’s freshly announced personal computer running system, is coming this autumn and guarantees to revolutionize netbooks and other underpowered machines. Fundamentally, the OS is a modest,
Microsoft Office 2007, fast-booting platform whose goal is usually to run a browser, and from there all of the Google apps and also other web solutions you know and enjoy. But why bother? Your netbook previously incorporates a browser and access to Google’s applications. What could Chrome do for you and your netbook?
Cost
Netbooks are cheap. So cheap that a disproportionately large chunk of the cost is made up of a Windows license. Ever wondered why the Linux versions of netbooks cost around $50 less? Microsoft tax. Chrome OS is based on Linux and will, like most Google products, be free, bringing the price of a $500 netbook down by 10 percent.
Speed
Windows 7 runs faster than Vista on a netbook. Scratch that.
Windows 7 runs on a netbook, period. But Chrome OS is designed to operate on low-powered Atom and ARM processors, and web-based applications don’t require that much horsepower on the client end so it should be faster still. Better, it will be modest. Google is promising boot times measured in seconds, not minutes,
Office 2007 License, so battery life should also get a boost — it will be possible to cold boot instead of sleeping or hibernating the machine, saving precious juice.
Compatibility
Google says that “[Users] don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware,
Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007, or have to worry about constant software updates.” One of the big problems with using anything but Windows XP on a netbook has been drivers. Try installing OS X on one if you don’t believe us, or any version of Linux not specifically designed for your model. If Google can come up with an OS that can be downloaded, dropped onto any machine and then “just works,” we might just have the ultimate portable OS.
Portability
Netbooks are meant for the road. At home, a bigger laptop or computer is almost always better but when traveling, a netbook shines. Swapping between the two can be a pain, though. With Chrome,
Office Professional, you can bet that all of Google’s service — Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa and so on — will be built-in and have offline accessibility via Google Gears. If you are a good Google Citizen and use all these services, you’ll never have to worry about having all your latest data with you,
microsoft Office 2010 Serial, whether you have a net connection or not.
New Applications
With its world wide web solutions, Google has been slowly duplicating everything that we can do locally on our computers. Almost. There are a few things that Google doesn’t do yet, most notably a video player and a music jukebox. Sure, there’s YouTube, but what happens when you want to watch something other than a skateboarding dog in a blender? There are open-source options: The awesome VLC video player has just reached v1.0, for example, and the Songbird music player, based on Firefox, can even sync with an iPod. Both already run on some flavors of Linux.
Google may use these, buy them or even roll its own. One thing is sure, though: If Google can put out a whole OS that is as clean, quickly and focused as its individual world wide web products, the Chrome OS could be a revolution. A free revolution that could be making Microsoft extremely uncomfortable right now.
Google Announces PC Working Technique to Compete with Windows [Wired - Epicenter]
Product page [Google]
Photo illustration by Charlie Sorrel/Wired.com; Original photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
See Also:
Inside Chrome: The Secret Project to Crush IE and Remake the Web
Chrome 2.0 Preview Means Mac, Linux Versions Coming Soon
Chrome 2.0 beta Delivers Impressive Speed Bump
What Mozilla Could Learn From Chrome’s ‘Channel Switcher
As MS pushes out IE8, Google Pushes the Envelope with Chrome
Office Professional Five Things Google’s Chrome O
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