Hands on with Google Chrome OS
Chome does indeed boot in around seven seconds in a virtual box. Our generic Intel Atom netbook managed it in around 16 seconds, but considering the USB drive's maximum read is only 18MB/s a dedicated SSD would at least half this time.
It's also still streets ahead of the 50 seconds Windows 7 manages. Luckily the LAN adaptor worked but the Wi-Fi doesn't.
CHROME OS APPS: The application list, which seems to be in a constant state of flux
It's seems at this very early stage that there's little to no widespread hardware optimisation. The netbook struggled to smoothly play full-screen YouTube video, something the Intel chipset can easily accelerate. Obviously this will eventually be addressed with better driver support.
On the 'real hardware' version of Chrome OS the battery charging/discharging meter worked perfectly, picking up the amount of charge and how long it predicted the battery would last.
There were also no problems readying external USB storage devices including cameras. Chrome OS tried to valiantly play an AVI file off our camera, opening a new video panel, but we didn't have much luck getting it to work.
For the nosey, using the File:// URL enables you to browse the file system, pressing Ctrl + Alt + T on real hardware opens up a standard terminal, while pressing Shift + Escape displays Chrome browser's memory usage.
FILE BROWSER:The standard URL of File:// still works, so you can poke around the file system
CHROME OS MEMORY USAGE:This is a standard Chrome browser stats page, but it provides a useful outline of the memory footprint
FLASH ON CHROME:Flash and YouTube all work fine, if a little slowly at this stage
Google Chrome OS: our (very) early verdict
At this very early stage Chrome OS is just a technological novelty. It's more browser than operating system and while the aim of Google is to ultimately provide consumers with cheaper access to its cloud kingdom, is this really it?
Android is already a far more attractive option and with the latest generation of phones delivering netbook-level specs, would you pick a locked-down version of Linux (which Chrome OS is) over an Android option?
But a year is a long time - Chrome OS will no doubt be very different by the time it hits the streets in late 2010. What we have here is not even an Alpha version of the operating system. We'd certainly hope Google radically overhauls the Chrome interface in later versions - and freezing out all the open source library seems madness to us.
From Google's perspective, pushing out an army of low-cost and probably 3G-enabled netbooks – geared towards using ad-funded online cloud apps – would seem the right thing to do to propel Chrome OS forward. But will would-be buyers see it the same way?
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Liked this? Then check out 10 things to know about Google Chrome OS
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