Update: Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google's SVP for Android, Chrome OS and Chromecast says that Chrome OS is here to stay: "While we've been working on ways to bring together the best of both operating systems, there's no plan to phase out Chrome OS."

Original post:

Wall Street Journal reports that Google works on integrating Chrome OS into Android and will release a unified OS that runs on phones, tablets, laptops and more. "The company plans to unveil its new, single operating system in 2017, but expects to show off an early version next year."

So why kill Chrome OS and switch to Android? Chrome OS has a small desktop market share, while Android is the dominant mobile OS. There are a lot more apps in the Google Play Store than in the Chrome Web Store and Google had a hard time convincing developers to build Chrome apps. Google even ported the Android runtime to Chrome, so that you can run Android apps in Chrome OS.

Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, has recently said that "mobile as a computing paradigm is eventually going to blend with what we think of as desktop today". Most likely, Google wants to bring Android to the desktop and provide a coherent experience. This solves some of the issues with Chrome OS (the lack of apps, low market share), but brings more challenges (Android is less secure than Chrome OS, it's updated less often, has a more complicated interface, it doesn't have a windowing system, apps aren't optimized for desktop).

I like Chromebooks because they're simple devices that require no maintenance. There are few things you can change, few things that can go wrong. It's easy to share them with other people, you don't have to worry about backups or saving your data.

Pixel C's announcement makes more sense now. It's an Android tablet developed by the Chromebook Pixel team. “We think the Pixel C’s tablet and keyboard experience really unlocks new ways to both play and be productive on one device,” mentioned Google.


Google has a lot of work to do. Android's tablet interface is pretty poor, there's no native multi-window support, Chrome for Android doesn't support extensions, apps and themes.

Chromebooks were all about the web, but native apps turned out to be more important for users. Better performance, better integration with the operating system, better interface - native apps trumped web apps and Chrome OS couldn't find a way to turn the tide.

{ Thanks, David. }

Two years after introducing Chromebook Pixel, Google announces a hardware refresh. The new Chromebook Pixel is less expensive, more powerful and still cutting edge.


Google preserved what made the first Chromebook Pixel stand out: the high-resolution 12.85" IPS display with 3:2 aspect ratio, multi-touch and 400 nit brightness, the aluminum body and glass trackpad. The new Chromebook Pixel has Intel Broadwell dual-core CPUs (i5 5200U/i7 5500U), 8 or 16GB of RAM (depending on the version), 2 USB 3.0 Type-C ports that are also used for charging and external displays, 2 additional USB 3.0 standard ports, WiFi ac, Bluetooth 4.0, a new wide-angle camera lens and up to 12 hours of battery life. Other improvements: Pixel is now thinner and a little bit lighter (15.2 mm and 1.5 kg, down from 16.2 mm and 1.52 kg).

There are two Chromebook Pixel versions: the first one costs $999 (i5 Intel CPU/8GB RAM/32GB SSD) and the second one is called LS - "Ludicrous Speed" and costs $1299 (i7 Intel CPU/16GB RAM/64GB SSD), much like the original Pixel. Both versions are available in the new Google Store and you can only buy them if you're in the US. Google no longer offers an LTE version.


"For the new Pixel, we've joined forces with some of the biggest names in the industry to create a new standard for charging, called USB Type C. The Pixel is one of the first products to launch with this new standard, with more Chromebooks and Android devices following suit soon. Not only does Type-C enable multi-device charging, but it also allows high-speed data and display over the same connector and cable. It's small enough to work with smartphones, powerful enough to charge computers, and conveniently symmetrical (no more guessing which side is up!)," explains Google.

There are some optional adaptors and cables in the Google Store: USB Type-C to Standard-A adapter ($12.99), USB Type-C to DisplayPort cable ($39.99), USB Type-C to HDMI adapter ($39.99).


Apple's latest Macbook also uses USB Type-C, but it has a single port, it's thinner and lighter. Apple opted for a fanless design and used ultra low-power Core M CPUs, which are less powerful than the ULT CPUs from Chromebook Pixel and Macbook Air.

High-end Chromebooks won't sell that well, but Google has a high-quality laptop that can be used by its own employees and other early adopters. It's also a reference device for Chromebook OEMs.

Google announced that 7 new Android apps were added to the Chrome Web Store. OMG Chrome found 6 of them: Couchsurfing (travel), Overdrive (borrow ebooks), Cookpad (share recipes), Packpoint (travel), Homeaway (vacation rental property listings), AnkiDroid (learn flashcards).

These apps are only officially available for Chrome OS, so you need a Chromebook to properly run them. If you use Chrome for Windows/Mac/Linux, you'll see this message: "This application is not supported on this computer. Installation has been disabled."



Google developed an Android Runtime for Chrome, so almost any Android app can run in Chrome without manually porting it. Apps are gradually added to the Chrome Web Store because developers update their apps to work better in Chrome for desktop. "The app code is all running on top of the Chrome platform, specifically inside of Native Client. In this way the ARC (Android Runtime for Chrome) apps run in the same environment as other apps you can download from the Chrome Web Store, even though they are written on top of standard Android APIs," informs Google.

Unfortunately, Chrome Web Store doesn't have a collection for Android apps. You can only find apps also available for Android, but the page includes many bookmsrks to web apps.

Just in case you want to install Android apps in Chrome for Windows/Mac/Linux, there's an unofficial way to do that: use the ARChon Custom Runtime. "ARChon runtime lets you run unlimited number of Android APKs created with chromeos-apk on Chrome OS and across any desktop platform that supports Chrome." Install ARChon Packager on your Android device to generate Chrome packages from apps installed on your phone or tablet.

If you planned to buy Google storage, you might decide to buy a Chromebook instead. When you buy a Chromebook, you now also get 1 TB of storage for 2 years if you redeem the offer by January 31, 2015. You would have to pay almost $240 for 1 TB of Google storage and the most affordable Chromebook costs $199: Acer Chromebook 11. You get the Chromebook for free and you still save about $40.


Until now, Google only offered 1 TB of storage for Chromebook Pixel users (3 years instead of 2). Chromebook Pixel is the most expensive Chromebook and still costs $1299 when you buy it from the Google Play Store.

You can argue that you won't actually save $240, since Google will drop the prices and 1 TB of storage will no longer cost $9.99/month in 2016. That may be true, but you still got a laptop and more than enough cloud storage for only $200-300.

Google built an app runtime for Chrome that allows Android apps to run in Chrome OS. The first Android apps you can run in Chrome OS are Duolingo, Evernote, Sight Words and Vine.



Bringing more powerful apps to Chrome OS is a great idea. Making it easier to bring mobile apps to Chrome encourages developers to go beyond web apps and write native apps that work offline, include hardware integration and work outside of the browser. While cross-platform web apps are still useful, the new Chrome apps can bring some missing features that people expect to find in native apps. "These combine the best of websites and native applications — they're available offline, are always up to date, and they can communicate with devices like USB drives & Bluetooth speakers," explains Google.

"These first apps are the result of a project called the App Runtime for Chrome (Beta), which we announced earlier this summer at Google I/O. Over the coming months, we'll be working with a select group of Android developers to add more of your favorite apps so you'll have a more seamless experience across your Android phone and Chromebook," informs Google. You can tell Google what Android apps you'd like to be ported to Chrome.

For now, the first 4 apps can only be installed in Chrome OS, but I'm sure that Google will add support for Chrome in the near future.


It's interesting to notice that the apps aren't manually ported to Chrome, as I assumed. Here's an explanation from a Google employee:

"The app code is all running on top of the Chrome platform, specifically inside of Native Client. In this way the ARC (Android Runtime for Chrome) apps run in the same environment as other apps you can download from the Chrome Web Store, even though they are written on top of standard Android APIs. The developers do not need to port or modify their code, though they often choose to improve it to work well with the Chromebook form factor (keyboard, touchpad, optional touchscreen, etc)."

Here's an APK for Duolingo (Android app) inside the CRX file (Chrome app):

You don't need a teardown to notice that Chromecast's model number is H2G2-42. From iFixit:

"Wasn't 42 the answer to life, the universe, and everything in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? And H2G2 is an abbreviation given to the book, as well as the name of a website dedicated to making a guide to life, the universe, and everything."




If you check YouTube.com's source code, you'll find some references to "hitchhiker".


One of YouTube's sprites has "hitchhiker" in the filename.

AirPlay is one of the greatest iOS features. It lets you wirelessly stream music, videos, send photos and even mirror your device's display on your TV. It's simple to use, it's supported by many apps and devices, but the most important thing is that it just works. Sure, you'll need to buy an Apple TV or an Airport Express and AirPlay is mostly limited to Apple devices and accessories that license AirPlay from Apple. AirPlay works because it's a native feature, has a consistent interface and it's very easy to understand.

Android OEMs tried to solve the problem of sending content to a TV by adding HDMI ports, supporting MHL and adding software for DLNA. It's obvious that people don't like cables and a mobile device shouldn't be restricted by a cable. DLNA has a lot of compatibility issues and doesn't work well for streaming online content. Last year, HTC and Samsung added an AirPlay-like feature to their flagship phones and started to sell companion devices. The issue was that the features were limited to a few apps. This should've been an Android feature, not two different APIs limited to a few HTC and Samsung devices.

Google started to address this issue when it added support for watching YouTube videos on a TV using the mobile YouTube apps. Pair your mobile phone with your TV and you can easily send the video you're currently watching to the TV. You can also your phone as a remote control and pause the video, change the volume or switch to a different video.

YouTube's "send to TV" is the backbone of Google Cast, a feature that can finally compete with AirPlay. Developers can use "the Google Cast SDK to enable mobile and web apps to cast content to the TV". Google Cast is not limited to Android, it works on Google's favorite platforms: Android, iOS and Chrome. There are already a few apps that support Google Cast: YouTube, Google Play Music, Google Play Movies & TV, Netflix. To use this feature, you need to buy Chromecast, a very cheap device that connects to your TV's HDMI port and runs a simplified version of Chrome OS Google TV. It only costs $35 and it's a lot smaller than an Apple TV. You can buy it from Google Play, Amazon and Best Buy, but only if you're in the US.


Google Cast is only the cloud version of AirPlay: it only works with content that's stored online, so you can't send a song that's stored on your tablet or a video you've just recorded. Just like for AirPlay, the mobile device controls what's playing on your TV, but the content is streamed directly to the Chromecast. There are a few differences: Google Cast works on Android, iOS and Chrome and the Chromecast functionality will be integrated in other devices, including Google TV devices. Another difference is that any mobile device from the same network can control an existing Google Cast stream, so you can have multiple remotes.

Here's the Google Cast icon: it's not displayed when there's no device available.


"While content is playing on TV, a user can multitask on their device. For example, a user can search for a video on their phone's YouTube application and then send it to their TV via a Google Cast device. They are able to play, pause, seek, and control volume using their phone and still be able to check their email while the content keeps playing on the TV," according to the developer documentation.


There's also support for mirroring. "In addition to apps like Netflix, you can use Chromecast to bring a broad range of content available on the web to your big screen, thanks to a new feature in the Chrome browser that allows you to project any browser tab to your TV. From sharing your family photos to enjoying a video clip from your favorite news site, it's as simple as pressing a button. This feature is launching in beta, but we're excited for people to try it out and give us their feedback," explains Google.

Here's a video that shows this feature in action:


To use Google Cast, you first need a Chromecast. It's a low-cost device that connects to one of your TV's HDMI ports and uses USB for power. For only $35, you get a lot: the Chromecast dongle (only 34 grams), a USB cable and power adapter and an HDMI extender. To setup the device, you need to visit google.com/chromecast/setup and install an app. It's interesting to notice that Chromecast only supports 2.4GHz WiFi networks and the only Chromebook you can use to setup Chromecast is Chromebook Pixel.

To cast from your computer, you need to install the Google Cast extension for Chrome. There are only 2 Cast-optimized sites: YouTube and Netflix. For all the other sites, you can cast a tab and mirror it on your TV. Unfortunately, casting a tab requires a powerful computer even for standard streaming: at least a Core i3 PC, a Macbook Pro 2010, a Macbook Air 2011 or a Chromebook Pixel. You need a Core i5 PC, a Macbook Pro 2011, a Macbook Air 2012 or a Chromebook Pixel for high-quality streaming. Casting a tab is limited to 720p streaming, so you won't get 1080p mirroring.


For Android devices, you can use a few apps: YouTube, Google Play Music, Google Play Movies & TV and Netflix. "To cast to your TV from your smartphone, tablet or laptop, simply open up a Cast supported app, press the the Cast button and the Cast button will turn blue, letting you know you're connected. Once you are connected, you can Cast videos, movies and TV shows directly to your TV," explains Google. For now, the only iOS apps that support Google Cast are Netflix and YouTube.



I haven't tried Google Cast, so I don't know how well it performs, but these are the early days. Once more apps add support for Google Cast and more devices include Chromecast's functionality, it will be a lot more useful. Chromecast is a Chrome device, so it will constantly improve and add new features.

Google works on creating a Native Client app for Quickoffice, a software acquired last year. There's an Office Viewer extension for Chrome, which is bundled with Chrome OS.

Now Google experiments with adding editing features to the Office Viewer. If you have a Chromebook, you've switched to the Dev Channel and have the latest Chrome OS version (29.0.1547.2), you can enable these features:

1. open a new tab

2. type this in the address bar: chrome://flags/ and then press Enter

3. use Ctrl+F to search for "document editing"

4. click "Enable" next to "Enable document editing"


5. click the "Restart Now" button to restart your computer and use the new flag.

The editor is pretty basic and it only works for Microsoft Word documents and Excel spreadsheets. For some reason, the document editor only saves documents in the Office 2007 format.




It's likely that editing will be a standard feature and it will also be available in the Chrome extension. Google will have to change its name to shows that it's more than a file viewer. It will be interesting to see how Quickoffice for Chrome integrates with Google Drive.

Chrome OS supports a lot of file formats without relying on Google Drive. You can open and edit photos (BMP, PNG, GIF, JPEG, WEBP), you can play videos (3GP, AVI, MOV, MP4, WEBM, OGV), play music (MP3, M4A, OGG, WAV), create ZIP archives, extract files from archives (ZIP, RAR, TAR), open PDF files, text files and Microsoft Office documents (DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, PPT, PPTX). Offline and natively.

{ via François Beaufort }

A few months ago, François Beaufort posted some screenshots of a Native Client Chrome app for Google+ Photos. The app is now available, but Google says it's only for the Chromebook Pixel, which is not exactly true.


"When you plug an SD card into your Pixel, the app will back up your new photos to Google+ automatically. (For your eyes only, of course.) And when you're offline, you can still view your most recent photos. The Pixel's high resolution display makes your photos look their best, and browsing via touchscreen is a lot of fun. You can share individual photos, set of photos, or an entire album in just a few seconds. Simply select the images you want, then click 'Share.'"


It's a pretty useful app for Chromebooks and it's not limited to the Pixel. In fact, I don't see why it couldn't work on any desktop computer that runs Chrome. It could even replace Picasa at some point.


You can download the app from the Chrome Web Store. Google engineers "are working to bring the app to other Chromebooks as well", even though the app works on other Chromebooks. The Office Viewer powered by the Google-acquired Quickoffice used to be limited to the Chromebook Pixel and it's now available as a Chrome extension.

Update: I've tried to install the app in Chrome for Windows and it worked:


... but then I got this message:


Then I switched to my Samsung Chromebook Series 5, installed the app and it worked well.




Even the SD card import worked:



So the app should work on any Chromebook. Maybe it's only optimized for the Pixel, maybe there are some bugs that need to be fixed. All I know is that the app worked well on my Chromebook and I don't have a Chromebook Pixel.

Wired publishes an interview with Sundar Pichai, Google's Senior Vice President for Chrome, Apps and now Android. Back in March, Larry Page announced that "Andy [Rubin] decided it's time to hand over the reins and start a new chapter at Google". Now Sundar Pichai is in charge of Android and many people wondered if Android and Chrome OS will merge.

"Android and Chrome are both large, open platforms, growing very fast. I think that they will play a strong role, not merely exist. I see this as part of friendly innovation and choice for both users and developers. (...) So in the short run, nothing changes. In the long run, computing itself will dictate the changes. We're living through a pivotal moment. It's a world of multiple screens, smart displays, with tons of low-cost computing, with big sensors built into devices. At Google we ask how to bring together something seamless and beautiful and intuitive across all these screens. The picture may look different a year or two from from now, but in the short term, we have Android and we have Chrome, and we are not changing course," Sundar says.

He compares Android and Chrome OS with iOS and Mac OSX, which are different, but have a lot of things in common. "We want to do the right things at each stage, for users and developers. We are trying to find commonalities. On the browser layer, we share a lot of stuff. We will increasingly do more things like that. And maybe there's a more synergistic answer down the line."

That explains features like Cloud Messaging for Chrome, launched one year after Cloud Messaging for Android. Chrome also experimented with intents, but this feature is no longer supported.

It's interesting to note that Sundar's biggest Android challenge is to "improve the whole world's end-user experience without changing the open nature of Android". That's difficult to do, considering that most Android devices run old Android versions and some are rarely updated, not to mention that the most popular Android devices run custom operating systems based on Android, with custom interfaces, frameworks and different built-in apps.

For now, both Android and Chrome OS will continue to exist. Chrome's new packaged apps will also be available on mobile devices and it will be interesting to see if they look like native apps. Android tries to fight fragmentation by introducing new APIs using Google Play Services. For now, native apps make more sense on a mobile device than on a desktop computer, but this could change. Chrome OS could follow Firefox OS and run on smartphones and tablets.

Whether your laptop runs Windows, Android or Chrome OS, whether your phone or tablet runs Android, iOS, Chrome OS or Firefox OS, Google's goal is to "bring together something seamless and beautiful and intuitive across all these screens". I call it Google Operating System and it's not Android or Chrome OS.

I was still trying to figure out why Google released Chromebook Pixel, when I realized that I wrote a post last year which answered this question "avant la lettre". It's weird to quote an old post, but here it is:

The trouble with Chromebooks is that Google can't come up with a powerful ultrabook that costs $700 or $800 because people would think it's too expensive. Why not get an ultrabook that runs a full-fledged operating system and install Chrome?

To solve this issue, Google could try to change people's perception about Chrome OS and show that it's not just a browser. The latest Chrome OS releases made a lot of important changes: the browser can be minimized and resized, it's easier to open multiple windows, there's a desktop and a taskbar, you can change the wallpaper, there are cool applications like the media player, ScratchPad or Calculator that no longer open inside the browser. By including great applications that work offline (a dictionary, some games, a contact manager, a calendar app) and encouraging developers to build standalone apps that work outside the browser, Google could show that Chrome OS is more than just a browser.

That's what Google did. After buying Quickoffice, Google ported the mobile app to Chrome using Native Client. Right now, it only opens Office file in read-only mode, but it will soon support editing files. It's not exactly Microsoft Office, but it's a pretty good office suite that works offline.

Google also works on a Google+ Photos app powered by Native Client that will let you import photos from your camera or phone and upload them to Google+. The most useful feature: automatic selection of the best shots.


Chrome OS already has many features that live outside of the browser and it will add even more. Powerful Native Client apps that also work offline will allow Chrome OS to compete with full-fledged operating systems like Windows and Mac OS. Chromebook Pixel is Google's way of telling the world to take Chrome OS seriously. Chrome OS is no longer an experiment and a Chromebook is no longer useful just as a second device, it could become your main device.

If you've ever wanted to buy 1TB of Google storage to upload all your documents, videos, photos and audio files to Google Drive and Google+ Photos, now it's cheaper to buy Google's Chromebook Pixel. When you pay $1300 for the ultrabook, Google also offers 1TB of storage for 3 years.

The regular price for 1TB of Google Drive storage is $50/month, so Google offers $1800 of storage for only $1300 and the hardware is "free". Obviously, there's a big difference between monthly payments and an upfront payment, not to mention that you may not need 1TB of storage right now and you can always upgrade later.


Google only offers 100GB of storage for 2 years when you buy any other current-generation Chromebook (Samsung Series 3, Samsung 550, Acer C7, HP Pavilion 14), so you only get $120 worth of storage. Chromebook Pixel users get 10 times more storage and an additional year for using it. And that's not the only "goody": "your Chromebook comes with 12 free [Gogo in-air internet] passes that you can use over 2 years on domestic US flights."

Chromebook Pixel is the first Chromebook designed by Google and the first premium Chromebook. Until now, Chromebooks used low-end CPUs, average displays and plastic chassis. Google decided to change all that and build "the best laptop possible" to inspire other manufacturers. It's like the first Nexus Chromebook.


But why is it called Pixel? It's the first Chromebook with a retina-like display, 3:2 aspect ratio and 2560x1700 resolution. Much like Apple's Retina MacBook Pro, Chromebook Pixel uses pixel doubling to make everything look sharp and crisp. The display has "the highest pixel density (239 pixels per inch) of any laptop screen on the market today" and it's a 12.85-inch IPS touchscreen with 400 nit brightness and 178° extra-wide viewing angles.


Pixel has an anodized aluminium body, glass touchpad, backlit keyboard, hidden vents, Intel i5 processor and 4GB of RAM. "The touchpad is made from etched glass, analyzed and honed using a laser microscope to ensure precise navigation. The Pixel also has powerful, full-range speakers for crisp sound, a 720p webcam for clear video, and a total of three microphones designed to cancel out surrounding noise," informs Google.

Google also includes 1TB of free Google Drive Storage for 3 years. You can also buy a special model with an integrated LTE modem for Verizon.

The Verge has some cool pictures. "There are subtle design touches throughout the machine that help add to the 'premium' feel that Google is going for. The fan vents out in the hinge, every edge is subtly bezeled to prevent sharp angles, the speakers are fairly loud despite being hidden underneath the keyboard, and Google even opted to not put labels next to the ports."

The downside is that Google's Chromebook is really expensive: $1300 (WiFi)/$1450 (WiFi+LTE). It's more expensive than Apple's MacBook Air and most ultrabooks. While it has a better display, Chrome OS is more limited than MacOS (or Windows) and it only became popular when Samsung and Acer started to offer $200-$250 Chromebooks. When you can buy tablets with high-resolution displays for $400 (Nexus 10) or $500 (iPad), the $1300 Chromebook Pixel feels out of place and overkill. After all, you can buy a Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10 and a Samsung Chromebook for less than $1200. An ARM device would've been a lot cheaper, but less powerful.

"The Pixel will be available for purchase starting today on Google Play in the U.S. and U.K., and soon on BestBuy.com. The WiFi version ($1,299 U.S. and £1,049 U.K.) will start shipping next week and the LTE version ($1,449) will ship in the U.S. in April. If you're interested in a hands-on experience, you can visit select Best Buy (U.S.) and Currys PC World (U.K.) store locations."

Now Google has a good reason to open its own physical stores.

{ via Google Blog }

There's something wrong about the latest Chromebooks: battery life. Cr-48, Google's prototype hardware, had a 63Wh battery that provided more than 8 hours per charge. Samsung's first Chromebook had a similar battery that provided "up to 8.5 hours of continuous use".


For some reason, a few months after introducing the Series 5 Chromebook, Samsung switched to a different battery: 41Wh and only 6.5 hours of use. The updated Series 5 Chromebook, which uses a Celeron processor, has a battery with a larger capacity: 51Wh, but the same battery life. Samsung's latest Chromebook, which uses a Cortex A15 chip, has a 30Wh battery and the same battery life because the ARM chip is more efficient.

What about the latest offerings from Acer, Lenovo and HP?

- Acer C7: 37Wh, 2.5Ah, 3.5 hours battery life
- HP Pavilion: 35Wh, 2.55Ah, 4.25 hours battery life
- Lenovo X131e: 6.5 hours battery life.

It's not clear why the latest Chromebooks no longer have a great battery life, but the new batteries are obviously cheaper and lighter. Google's Chromebook features page no longer mentions the word "battery", even if this was one of the main selling points for the first Chromebooks.

Update: Peter Kasting, an engineer on the Chrome team, says that this story could be inaccurate: "I was skeptical of this story, and according to a fellow Chrome developer, there's no connection between Jeff's work and Chrome OS". Jeff Nelson has a patent for "Network based operating system across devices", but it's only vaguely related to Chrome OS. His LinkedIn page claims "Mr. Nelson invented Google Chrome OS while working at Google in 2006."

Was Chrome OS developed before Google Chrome? Jeff Nelson, a former Google engineer, says that he started working on a Google OS prototype in 2006. The goal was to make Firefox run faster, so he used this browser.

"It was a chopped down Linux distribution - as so many 'new' operating systems are, these days. I wrote the first version as early as July 2006 and showed it around to management. Instead of launching a project, the response was extremely tepid. My boss complained, 'You can't use it on an airplane.' Actually, you could as, under the covers, it was still a bare-bones Linux distribution and could execute any Linux program installed on it," Jeff explains. "The main priority when I started constructing the operating system was the need for speed - to create a super-fast operating system."

Jeff was developing web apps at Google and he had to restart the browser frequently. "Restarting the web browser was a particularly slow operation, often taking 30-45 seconds, whether IE or Firefox, Linux or Windows. However, even simple tasks such as displaying a directory in a file explorer were unreasonably slow operations, requiring several seconds for a task that should be nearly instantaneous. (...) The solution? Move the entire desktop operating system into RAM. By moving the entire operating system into RAM, that immediately took off the table the largest performance bottlenecks in the operating system: File I/O."

Most tasks were now completed almost instantly, Firefox restarted in 1 second and even the code compiled faster. The problem was that RAM is a volatile memory, so you could lose data if you didn't save it to the disk. He solved the problem by only using web apps and performing some backups to a local storage media. Web apps solved many other problems: avoiding software installation, using less storage, many apps weren't available for Linux.

"Thus, tracking down web apps to replace any and all functionality normally found on a desktop, became a priority. That's how the seeds of the webapps on the Chromium desktop, albeit originally written in HTML and running on Firefox, were planted," concludes Jeff.


Google released a lot of web apps in 2006: Google Chat, Google Page Creator, Google Calendar, Google Spreadsheets, Google Docs, Picasa Web Albums, Google Apps for Your Domain. Chrome was launched 2 years later and the first prototype Chromebook (Cr-48) was available in December 2010.

{ via Chrome Story}

What happens when you take a thin and light Windows PC and transform it into a Chromebook? Here are 2 examples of laptops from HP and Lenovo that have been morphed into Chromebooks. Both replaced an Intel Core i3 CPU with a Celeron CPU, the standard HDD with a 16GB SDD and Windows with Chrome OS. HP made some additional changes and removed 2GB of RAM and replaced the 2 USB 3.0 ports with USB 2.0 ports.

The price dropped from $590 to $330 for the HP laptop and from $620 to $430 for the Lenovo laptop. The less expensive Intel CPU and the free Chrome OS license help manufacturers save about $200.

Chromebooks started as an experiment and ended up becoming best-selling Amazon laptops. They're so popular that more and more computer manufacturers release Chromebooks: Lenovo launched the 11.6-inch ThinkPad X131e Chromebook for schools and now HP launches a 14-inch Pavillion Chromebook.

Today's Chromebooks are a lot more powerful than the original Chrome OS devices, since they traded Intel's Atom for Celeron and Cortex-A15, but they're not high-end devices. Celeron is a low-end CPU, displays are average, build quality is not great. It's hard to come up with a premium notebook that costs less than $500.

Well, it turns out that Google works on a new Chromebook that features a backlight keyboard, aluminum casing and a high-resolution 2560x1600 display with touch support. Unlike the previous Chromebooks, it's designed entirely by Google. Here's a leaked ad for the upcoming Chromebook Pixel:


Nexus 10 has the same resolution and Chromebook Pixel could use the same Cortex-A15 SoC that also powers the Samsung Chromebook. It's not clear how much it will cost, but the ARM SoC is a better option than a powerful Intel CPU since the device could be a lot less expensive. If Samsung's Chromebook costs $250 and Nexus 10 costs $400, it's likely that Chromebook Pixel will cost less than $500. The first premium ARM laptop.

Who said that Chromebooks aren't popular? If you look at Amazon's list of the best sellers in the "Laptop computers" category, you'll find 4 Chromebooks in the top 11:

#1: Samsung Chromebook (57 days in the top 100) - out of stock
#5: Samsung Chromebook 3G (57 days in the top 100) - out of stock
#9: Samsung Series 5 550 Chromebook (199 days in the top 100)
#11: Acer C7 Chromebook (6 days in the top 100)


What other notebooks are constantly in the top 10? Apple's MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, which are also the top-rated laptops. Samsung's ARM Chromebooks are the #9 and #10 top-rated laptops, after a long list of MacBook models.


Samsung's ARM Chromebook is also the best-selling laptop at Amazon UK:


What about France, Germany, Spain, Italy? Google says that "Chromebooks are currently sold out. We are working on getting more devices available for you soon."

Google now offers 3 Chromebooks and it's quite difficult to decide which is the best one for you. There are 2 Chromebooks from Samsung: one of them uses a high-end ARM SoC, while the other one uses a low-end Intel Celeron CPU with performance that's comparable to a Intel Core 2 Duo CPU from 2006-2007. There's also a Chromebook from Acer that uses a less powerful Celeron CPU, it replaces the standard 16 GB Flash storage with a 320 GB HDD and has a weird keyboard that seems to be borrowed from a Windows netbook.


For some reason, Samsung's Intel Chromebook is a lot more expensive than both the ARM Chromebook and the Acer Chromebook. Sure, it has a better screen, the most powerful CPU, Gigabit Ethernet and the largest battery, but the Acer Chromebook is $250 less expensive. On the other hand, buying a Chromebook with a hard-disk drive is a terrible idea because it impacts performance and you won't be able to use so many gigabytes in Chrome OS. The Acer Chromebook also has a poor battery life (only 3.5 hours of usage) and it's thicker.


The ARM Chromebook is the most efficient, the most silent and the lightest Chrome OS laptop ever released. Even if it only has a 2-cell battery, you can use it for more than 6.5 hours, which means it's 2 times more efficient than the Acer Chromebook. It also has the best GPU ever included in a Chromebook, which means it's great for watching HD videos and playing WebGL games. After all, Samsung used the same system-on-a-chip for the Nexus 10 tablet. It's too bad that the Series 3 ARM Chromebook doesn't have the screen from the Samsung Series 5 550 Chromebook, which has a better aspect ratio (16:10 vs 16:9) and it's brighter.


To sum up, I think the best Chromebook right now must be Samsung's Series 3 ARM Chromebook, followed by Samsung 550 and Acer C7. The Acer C7 Chromebook is the most customizable Chromebook, since you can add more RAM, replace the HDD and remove the battery.

	Samsung Chromebook	Samsung Chromebook 550	Acer C7 Chromebook
CPU	Exynos 5250 1.7GHz dual-core ARM	Celeron 867 1.3GHz dual-core - 1271 CPU Mark	Celeron 847 1.1GHz dual-core - 1016 CPU Mark
GPU	Mali T604	Intel HD Graphics	Intel HD Graphics
RAM	2 GB	4 GB	2 GB (expandable to 4GB)
Fanless	yes	no	no
Camera	0.3MP	1MP	1MP
Display	11.6’’, 1366x768, 200 nits	12.1’’, 1280x800, 300 nits	11.6’’, 1366x768, 200 nits
Ports	1xUSB3, 1xUSB2, 1xHDMI	2xUSB2, DisplayPort	3xUSB2, 1xHDMI, 1xVGA
Connectivity	dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, optional 3G ($80)	dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Gigabit Ethernet, optional 3G ($100)	dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, 10/100 Ethernet
Speaker	3W stereo	4W stereo	stereo
Camera	0.3MP	1MP	1MP
Card slot	SD/ SDHC/ SDXC	SD/ SDHC/ SDXC/ MMC	SD/ MMC
Weight	1.1 kg/2.43 lbs	1.37 kg/3.02 lbs	1.38kg/3.05 lbs
Thickness	0.69’’	0.83’’	1.08’’
Battery	2 cell, 30Wh, 6.5 hours	4 cell, 51Wh, 6 hours	4 cell, 37Wh, 3.5 hours (removable)
Price	$249	$449	$199