Google Chromebooks celebrate 1 year anniversary

December 12, 2011 By Molly McHugh

It's already been a year since Google first introduced us to the CR-48. Aside from a new name and shinier coat, how far have Chromebooks really come?

It’s been roughly a year since Google’s Chromebooks (then known as the CR-48) first surfaced. Google’s “nothing but the Web” netbooks have laid fairly low, making a big initial splash and then playing second fiddle to a variety of other Google releases this year (the Google Wallet and Google+ specifically coming to mind).

Those who are fans of the Chromebooks loyally defend their user-friendliness and accessibility. But there are plenty of skeptics who remain. So in review of the past year, how far have they come and where are they going?

Manufacturers

When Google officially announced the Chromebook this summer, we got a peak at the new hardware. The original beta product was little more than a black box with what were then unknown capabilities. But at the Google Chrome event last year, we finally saw the real deal: two sleek netbooks from Acer and Samsung.

In addition to showing off the new devices, Google said other manufacturers would follow, giving users more selection and variety. A year later, Acer and Samsung remain the only Chromebook-makers.

It’s not exactly encouraging that no other brand names have jumped on board with Chromebooks. Whatever progress they have made, it’s obviously not enough to lure in any new partners. Progress in this area: nil.

Chrome OS depends on apps

Winning the corporate world over with enterprise apps has been a struggle for Google. The company’s Rajen Sheth recently spoke at GigaOm’s Network 2011 summit about this experience, saying “some businesses literally threw me out of the meeting five minutes in when they realized I asked them to move their emails outside of their firewall.” But now Google Apps have four million business customers and are looking more and more like a legitimate business solution.

And this could translate into a couple of things for Chromebooks. One, Google could look at its experience with Google Apps as a mold of what will happen for its smartbooks. Chromebooks are introducing a new type of operating system, a new payment plan, and are altogether very different from how people are used to owning and using laptops, but like how the corporate world had to grow into Google Apps.

Secondly, the success of Chromebooks is very much dependent on Google’s continued development of Google Apps and its Chrome Web Store. The Chromebook might bill itself as a laptop, but it’s really no such thing. Instead, the Internet disguises itself in physical form and users are left without a toolbar, desktop, or software. You’re entirely at the mercy of the Chrome Web Store, which was off to a slow start last year.

On the plus side however, it’s gotten a recent makeover and passed 30 million aggregate users. What’s probably the best news for all things Chrome is that it’s swiftly moving up the browser market share ranks. It recently surpassed Firefox for the number two spot. And really, in order for Chromebooks to succeed, the Chrome Store has to succeed. In order for the Chrome Store to succeed, Chrome has to succeed. It’s a vicious cycle and one that makes Google’s Internet products very dependent on each other, for better or worse.

What’s next?

Many of the original complaints users and reviewers had with the Chromebook related to reliability. Offline support was iffy, and with such a device it means the thing is rendered useless. But an update from a few months back has apparently addressed this. OS updates in general have been incredibly user-friendly, being pushed out regularly

Clearly, addressing glitches and keeping with the Chromebook status quo won’t be enough to keep these things going. Google’s going to have to issue bigger improvements. Our guess (or hope, rather), is that the next iteration of the Chromebook will feature more powerful ARM chipsets for overall more efficient use as well as improved battery life.

And as far as looks go, Google wouldn’t be mistaken to take the Ultrabook route and design a sleeker, thinner, more professional-looking model. Compared to the aluminum, streamlined notebooks that are taking the consumer market by storm, the plastic-coated, shiny Chromebooks look like toys.

The biggest hurdle Google will have to address is fragmentation. Android and its tablet-smartphone division has been something of a sore spot for Google, and add the Chrome OS to this inventory of operating systems and it can easily look like a tangled mess.

Because Chrome isn’t your traditional laptop operating system and depends on the Internet, it can find itself looped into the mobile OS bracket. Google needs to find a way to redefine this so that isn’t the case, because Android loyalists will argue Google’s Android tablet/smartphone experience is superior and Chrome OS users might feel like they’re missing out (the Android marketplace easily trumps the Chrome Web Store). The creator of Gmail himself expressed his doubts about this decision.

But certainly Google has been ahead of the curve when it comes to cloud computing before, and this might be the case with Chromebooks. Fingers crossed, it is, but we’re still hoping for some key upgrades in the coming year.

Showing 15 comments

SMP at 6:16am 2nd January 2012 Google is at the moment only targeting the education, business, libraries, and channel markets with the Chromebooks. These are by direct of channel sales on a subscription basis. Online consumser sales are low key and targeted at early adopters only and priced at a premium. The consumer market isn't being tackled yet. I see a huge market for Chromebooks in the as yet untapped consumer market. Chromebooks make the ideal shared home computer - zero maintanance, 7 second boot, instant resume, stateless therefore can be the a personal device shared between all the members of the family without messing up of each other's settings, data, or emails. All a family needs is a Chromebook, a home WiFi router for your broadband and each person has a reliable Internet and secure access to their private data from anywhere in the home or any WiFi hotspot if travelling or on holiday. 3G as a pay as you go option is available as an Internet anywhere backup on travelling as and when required. As for issues of Internet connectivity, most home users don't want to use computers that are not connected to the Internet anyway, and in most countries broadband Internet is very reliable. In addition to that, 3G data plans are available as a backup to Internet failure or when travelling if required. For most users with 3G and WiFi models, this makes mains power failure more likely to interrupt use than lack of Internet connectivity, with Windows desktop users far more likely to be interrupted by both power failure and loss of Internet than Chromebook users. The browsing of the Internet, and sites like Facebook, Google search, and Twitter, and the use of Hotmail, GMail, Yahoo mail, is sufficient on its own to justify buying Chromebooks for home use. Business users may need Microsoft Office running on Windows desktops, but hoe home users, Google Docs or Zoho docs or Microsoft Office 365 are more than sufficient for the occasional preparation of office documents that typical home users may require. Console type games on Chromebooks and Chrome browser are going to become widespread due to the ease of porting existing games to run as Native Client apps on Chromebooks or chrome browsers. All this will mean that Chromebooks (and perhaps higher powered Gamebooks), will do just about everything home users want to do for 95% of households. Those that don't can just get an additional Windows PC or keep their existing PC as a second device. In theory Chromebooks can work offline with local applications to the same extent as Windows desktops by virtue of HTML5 local storage, local SD card storage, and Native Client applications/plug-ins. However Chromebooks are intended to be used primarily online, and there aren't too many offline apps yet, and these are mainly Google Docs and games at this early stage. With Native Client coming on stream we will see more local applications with offline capability coming on stream very rapidly, especially with regard to 3D games, video and photo editors, paint, vector graphic and CAD type applications and local spreadsheet, wordprocessor and presentation applications. This is already happening with console quality games.
James Stein at 4:37pm 13th December 2011 The thing I like the best about Google Wallet is that, unlike many of its competitors, it would allow users to link all of their cards, regardless of brand (Visa, MasterCard, etc.) to their Google Wallet accounts. From a consumer’s point of view, the best mobile wallet would store all of our cards, as well as cash and checks. What we would not want to have is a clutter of apps for each individual card type or even each card issuer. So Google is moving in precisely the right direction and I hope the promised future versions will build on that foundation. h
TechFreak at 11:36am 12th December 2011 And they are still a failure. Overpriced, limited as to what they can do.
1. Gary Lai at 8:41pm 12th December 2011 Well, an entry level iPad is $200 more expensive than an entry level Chromebook and even more limited in what it can do. Chromebooks are great products, well worth the price. A web browser can do 90% or more of what most people need to use a computer for. I don't see how that's limited. Keep at it Google, the world will catch on.
  1. TechFreak at 9:51pm 12th December 2011 Don't you need an internet connection to even be able to use a Chromebook? My understanding is that non of the apps run natively on the system, it's all done from the Cloud. With an iPad, you can run most, if not all apps without an internet connection. Including watching movies you downloaded, typing a document and playing games.
    
    Gary Lai at 11:19pm 12th December 2011 That's untrue. It's a myth that's being perpetuated. Many things work offline on a Chromebook. It has an MP3 and video player and photo viewer that can play/view files off the 16 GB local storage or from its SD card reader. It has a normal file manager just like a Windows laptop which allows you to browse these files, cut and paste, etc. Through the Chrome web store you can install HTML5 extensions to the Chrome browser which work like native apps when it is offline. Many of these apps are free. These include offline Gmail, offline Google Docs and Calendar, and other word processing apps which sync with cloud storage when back online, offline games like Angry Birds, offline eBook reading with the Kindle app, etc.. Any laptop or tablet is going to be a bit crippled when it is offline, the Chromebook is really not that worse off by comparison. Also, many models of Chromebook has Verizon 3G access, so the only place most people will be stuck are on airplane flights without WiFi access or in remote areas where Verizon does not have coverage. I've had my Chromebook for 3 months and have traveled with it quite a bit to several cities and I've never actually been offline with it other than to try it out.
    
    TechFreak at 10:57am 13th December 2011 Can you install apps like Microsoft Office on there? 16GB is pretty shallow IMO. The iPad gives you 64GB.
    
    Gary Lai at 12:12pm 13th December 2011 A 64GB iPad costs $700. For $390, you can buy a 16 GB Acer Chromebook for $300 plus a 64 GB SD card for $90, and end up having even more storage than the iPad that costs $310 more. Which one is overpriced now? But the whole question of how much storage is on it and whether you can install apps like Microsoft Office is missing the point. While a Chromebook does work pretty well offline, it is meant as a device for cloud computing, where storage space and local applications do not matter. Google is making a bet that the world is moving to cloud computing and ubiquitous WiFi and 3G availability. Rather than running Microsoft Office local application off the hard drive, a Chromebook is meant to run a Microsoft Office Web Apps or Google Docs applications with virtually unlimited cloud storage for a small fee (e.g., for $20 a year Google Docs gives you 80 GB of cloud storage, Microsoft has a free 25 GB cloud storage account for Microsoft Web Apps). Rather than playing MP3s off the hard drive, it is meant to stream music from Amazon Cloud Player, Google Music, Pandora, or MOG. Rather than watch movies downloaded from iTunes, it is meant to watch to streaming video from Netflix or Amazon or Hulu. For those that are wondering how much local storage it has and what applications it can run, those people either do not get it, or get it but are not ready for cloud computing, yet. That is a legitimate concern, maybe Chromebooks are for early adopters. But as an early adopter of a Chromebook I can say from personal experience that it works fine. My family has been using a Samsung Series 5 3G+WiFi Chromebook as our primary home computer for 3 months now, at least a few hours a day as it is passed around by everyone. We have a Windows machine, which is never used anymore, and a tablet too, which doesn't get used much. We've been on a few trips with it and have always been within WiFi or 3G range, even on airplanes. We've never not been able to access our data or web applications. But if we are ever not connected, it will work fine too.
    
    Molly McHugh at 1:48pm 13th December 2011 I definitely think that part of the problem early reviewers and users have had with Chromebooks is that they think they are traditional laptops. They look and feel like laptops but you open them and it's something completely different. Everyone sort of knew what they were getting into with tablets, but we aren't really accustomed to a totally cloud-based computing solution like this. Which isn't to say it's doomed, it's just a super niche item at the moment. And for that niche it works perfectly well. But if Google wants to make these a mass market product (and who knows if that's the case) then it has an uphill battle. Plenty of consumers using them like you have been are extremely pleased though, which just goes to show they are filling a demand in some respects.
    
    Gary Lai at 2:14pm 13th December 2011 Molly - I agree with you that it's a misunderstood and consequently niche product right now because people just aren't accustomed to the concept. But I think the problem is more of perception than actual capability. I know plenty of people that have trouble grasping the idea of a Chromebook, that there is no desktop, that there are no local apps, that there is small local storage because everything is supposed to be in the cloud. These same spend people nearly all of their time in a web browser, never actually running local apps or storing much of their hard drive. So I think there's a good chance that once people get that they are already moving their lives to the cloud and this pace of change is accelerating, then Chromebooks will cease to be a niche product. Think about it - Google Music, Amazon Cloud Player, Google Docs, Microsoft Office 365, webmail, streaming music and video (Netflix, Hulu, MOG, Pandora, Picasa, Flickr, YouTube), Kindle Cloud Reader, video chat with Google Talk or Hangouts, the list goes on. These are all services that not long ago you would have needed a separate program installed on your computer to run anything like it, but now, all you need is a web browser.
    
    SMP at 6:59am 2nd January 2012 Chromebooks offer a very different value proposition not only from desktop computers, but also from Android and iPhone tablets. Most people don't understand its real value proposition. Stated simply, it offers zero maintenance, transparent backup, and device independence in terms of user data and user preferences (all consequences of statelessness - ie. nothing is stored locally). While Android and iPhone are easier to maintain and configure than Windows which is an absolute maintenance hog, they still require maintenance, and are essentially personal devices rather than ones built for seamless sharing. These are definitely worth having for non-personal devices. Google has tried to explain the advantages of Chromebooks, but I think not successfully. 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL2FlfitzSo 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY6FuADDHKc&feature=relmfu 3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DazdIFMbC_4&feature=relmfu 4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKJRI06c-B0&feature=relmfu 5) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3tQnm1dfeM&feature=relmfu 6) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBHmtdvj7iA&feature=relmfu
    
    TechFreak at 2:00pm 13th December 2011 I am not ready for Cloud computing. I don't want to know what it MAY be able to do, but I want to know what it can do now. I have my laptop and an iPad. Both of those combined serve the functions I need. If I had a Chromebook, I would still need to buy a regular laptop or an iPad to get what I want from it.
    
    Gary Lai at 2:22pm 13th December 2011 That's fine, Chromebooks are definitely not for everyone, but that doesn't mean they are a failure or overpriced or especially limited as you initially stated. I have a Windows laptop and iPad too, in addition to my Chromebook. There are three computer users in my household, so it is advantageous to have multiple computers. The Chromebook is what everyone reaches for first. The iPad is only used if someone is already using the Chromebook or someone wants to play a game, since it's better suited for gaming. Any the Windows laptop? It's been in a drawer for 3 months, nobody wants to bother with it.
    
    SMP at 10:40am 2nd January 2012 Like many people, your post displays complete ignorance what Chromebooks actually are at a very fundamental level. You can't install ANY APPLICATIONS WHATSOEVER on a Chromebook - that is the idea of a cloud appliance. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKJRI06c-B0&feature=relmfu You can however run web apps like Microsoft Office 365, and compatible office programs like Google Docs and Zoho. In addition Chromebooks will run any Windows desktop application that will run on the Windows OS itself. It does this the same way it runs web apps - by running the Windows applications on a server (a virtualised desktop server) and displaying the screen on the Chromebook. You can do this on your corporate server if you are a business, or on an external cloud server like http://www.virtualwindowsdesktop.com/ The Chromebook does not require more than 16GB local storage because it is a cloud device and so does not store anything locally - no local apps stored locally, and no data stored locally. If you added additional local storage, then it simply would not be used for that reason. From the tone and angle of your post, it appears you are actually looking for a branded Windows laptop, in which case you are wasting your time posting here. The website you are looking for is this http://www.microsoft.com/windows/buy/pcs.aspx . Hint - look for the 4 colour Windows logo on the laptop. rather than a Chromebook.
2. SMP at 6:40am 2nd January 2012 They are not overpriced in terms of what you are getting. They are of much higher build quality, and have a much better build quality than the el cheapo Windows netbooks and low end laptops you are comparing the price to. Battery life and build quality does cost money, which is why people pay over a thousand dollars for Macbooks and Ultrabooks when much cheaper laptops that run faster are available. The reason for the higher build quality and battery life is because Google is not aiming the current Chromebooks at consumers or home users, but at businesses, libraries, and education. El cheapo netbooks/laptops simply won't sell to businesses, libraries or schools, because they are very poor value for money for those who can actually afford to pay the extra $50-$75 involved. They don't want cramped 1024x768 displays or cramped keyboards that reduce productivity. They don't want less than a full working day of battery life which will require them to be charged for half a day. They don't want flimsy build quality that will not survive exposure to school kids. They do not want removable batteries that schoolkids will walk off with. I too would like to see a consumer Chromebook, and higher powered mains Chrometop better suited to console type games as well as Internet browsing. However, the current Chromebook isn't it. Ideally it should be ARM based and cheap like this: http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs It will happen in time no doubt, once Google has ironed out all the rough corners and incorporated all the new web technologies - like Portable native Client introduced by the product.