A few days ago, I ordered a book for my classes next quarter on Amazon. Came back home today thinking that it might have arrived, and found a package on my doorstep. I quickly opened it up to make sure it was the right book, and, wait... what is that?
Well, that's some interesting packaging... let's see if the book is still in there... wait... WHAT?
Oh my. That's one of those fancy Cr-48 "Pilot" notebooks. On my doorstep. And in my hands.
A little backstory: a few days ago, I noticed a small banner on the top of Chromium, asking if I wanted to help test out Chrome OS. "Sure," I thought, "why not." Filled out a quick developer application and submitted, not thinking much of it. Never did I believe I'd actually have one in my hands.
Let's dive in. Here's the small info sheet:
Fun fact: this thing comes with 2 years of free data on Verizon, up to 100 MB per month. I just had to create an account and on it went. I think that's pretty damn sweet.
Quite a snazzy boot screen. It takes only a few seconds for it to turn on cold. The thing is rumored to be able to idle for a week. I've left it idle for quite some time already, and I still haven't even charged it.
Here's the sign-in, which uses your Google account, or allows Guest mode, which is basically Incognito.
And here's that keyboard that is causing Internet flamewars:
Beautiful, in my opinion. No caps lock, and the F-keys have been re-purposed for a netbook.
Finally, here's the main screen. It's Chrome, with some applications pre-installed. The moment I first signed in, I was automatically connected with Gmail, Talk, and a plethora of other services, all which can be managed on this home screen. Interesting thing to note is that the Settings dialog on Chrome/Chromium is a set of webpages here, with some OS settings added in.
I loved this line in the safety card: "This product contains small parts, which may present a choking hazard to small children, as well as men who have not emotionally matured."
All in all, this is a pretty sweet setup. I've found and reported a few bugs already, but my experience has been great. Huge props to Google for getting one of these sent out less than 48 hours after I filled out the form. Heck, thanks Google for sending one, period. You've got me hooked.
(Aside: I'm going to be switching around blogging engines here, so there may be some broken links every now and then. I apologize in advance.)