Hands-on with the new Samsung Chromebook

Hands-on with the new Samsung Chromebook
After using the new Samsung Chromebook for the better part of a workday, I have to say I'm impressed -- as long as you consider the constraints of its $249 price tag.Google announced the Samsung Chromebook today along with new ambitions to spread its browser-based, cloud-focused Chrome OS laptop much more widely. Google envisions it as good for an extra machine that lies around the house or as a laptop for students.I find it a reasonable device for those categories, especially for people like myself who already have their head in the Google cloud with Google Docs, Google Drive, and Gmail. It's got workable if not standout hardware, its battery life is good, it switches on quickly, and the $249 price tag means it's not as much of a commitment as the $550 Samsung Series 5 550 that arrived in May.However, given sluggish performance sometimes, I can't say I was blown away by the Samsung Chromebook. It's fine for many tasks, but power users accustomed to having more than a couple dozen browser tabs open should steer clear.Chrome OS on the cheap: Samsung Chromebook...See full gallery1 - 4 / 23NextPrevThe big differences compared to earlier Chromebooks are that it's smaller, with a 11.6-inch screen; lighter, with a weight under 2.5 pounds; and very different under the hood. The Samsung Chromebook uses a low-power processor, Samsung's Exynos 5 Dual that's built on ARM's new Cortex A15 design.The design is very compact -- a bit narrower than Apple's 11-inch MacBook Airs, but deeper and thicker. It's got a chiclet keyboard, a generously large trackpad, and a scalloped groove where you can get your thumb to flip up the screen. One day of use does not prove much, but the battery held out well for me.The Samsung Chromebook uses a Samsung Exynos 5 Dual processor, a dual-core system-on-a-chip based on the ARM Cortex A15 design.Stephen Shankland/CNETMedium tweediumThe screen is OK, with pretty good resolution, adequate brightness, and a matte coating to cut down on glare. It's not terribly vivid, though, and doesn't have a very wide viewing angle.In the same vein, the bottom-mounted speakers are workable but produce a muddy sound, especially when muted by fabric on your lap.Although the trackpad doesn't match Apple's (I haven't found one that does yet), it beats out many I've used recently, including some on machines much more expensive. Google wisely adopted some Apple conventions with the trackpad, such as a two-finger tap to right-click and a two finger swipe to scroll or pan. I find clicking requires too much pressure, but fortunately tapping will do the trick, too.Those who want something as slim as what the ultrabook era promises will be disappointed, in particular by the hinge that protrudes upward along the top when the system's lid is closed down. But it's plenty slim and light for most needs. Frankly, I'm more concerned about light weight and fast wake-up times, and the Samsung Chromebook does well there.The Samsung Chromebook has a non-backlit chiclet keyboard with controls for screen brightness, volume, window switching, and browser navigation along the top. A wide trackpad supports multitouch gestures.Stephen Shankland/CNETAlong left edge of the laptop are an SD Card slot and combination microphone-headphone jack. On the back are a USB 2.0 port, a USB 3.0 port (a first for a Chromebook), and an HDMI 1.4 port. A Webcam perches above the screen. Inside is 16GB of flash memory, but people with ordinary amounts of videos, music, photos, and letters will have to rely on Google Drive for some storage. Happily, Google gives Samsung Chromebook customers 100GB of space for two years.The keyboard is adequate if you've gotten used to the chiclet era (I have). It's not a keyboard for pounders, though: the laptop's body flexes, and it makes a popping noise when I rest my right wrist on the face. And the keyboard isn't backlit.Chrome OS, of courseHardware is only half the story here, though. It's great for a $249 device, and it shows what an ARM-based system can do, but if you're not OK with Chrome OS, you should steer clear.Chrome OS, for the uninitiated, puts a version of Google's Chrome browser on top of a Linux foundation. Where Linux PCs run Linux apps, though, Chrome OS devices run browser apps. That's huge, since you can do more and more on the Web. But you run several popular programs -- iTunes, Skype, Portal 2, Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Spotify, or the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search program, to name a few.In aiming the Chromebook at people who want another device around the house, though, those shortcomings aren't necessarily showstoppers. There are plenty of times when all you need to do is check e-mail, read some news, load a recipe, making a bank payment, click around YouTube, or spend time on Facebook. For that, it's a very economical device. It's fast start-up speed is conducive to flipping it open for a few moments and then plopping it down on the counter or coffee table again when you're done.And of course ordinary Web pages work as they would on any other machine. For apps, including games, you can visit the Chrome Web Store for freebies and purchases. You can pin apps and Web sites you like by right-clicking (err, two-finger tapping) on the tab, at which point it becomes narrow and stays put.If you're wondering whether to get this or a tablet, though, you'll have to assess your priorities. Tablets have a wealth of entertaining apps and better battery life. But when it's time to type, I find Chromebooks much more agreeable than using my iPad and Kensington Bluetooth keyboard or my Transformer Prime with its own keyboards.One other factor that could help tip the balance: the Chromebook has 3G networking capability, though it's not yet certified in the United States and of course that adds new usage fees.Straining to keep upMy biggest complaint with the Samsung Chromebook is performance. In short, it struggles under a load, especially when there are many browser tabs open.One problem: text sometimes arrives sluggishly in a long Google Doc word-processing document, and paging up and down through even simple, moderately long documents could be excruciating. Another problem: a YouTube video playing a song in the background paused when I tabbed away to another task. Another video stuttered while I was scrolling in Google Docs.On the left edge of the Samsung Chromebook is an SD Card slot and a headphone-microphone jack.Stephen Shankland/CNETMy current favorite browser torture test, panning across my nine columns of Twitter feeds in the Tweetdeck Web app, can be slow. And something I hadn't seen before: initiating a new tweet often takes the Chromebook 5 or 6 seconds before a window appears where I can type.The Chromebook must reload older tabs that haven't been used in a while. That's a fair strategy for devoting limited memory to the task at hand, but it happens more often than I'd like -- when revisiting he New York Times or Hipmunk sites after just a half hour away, for example.Closing down tabs to keep it to a half dozen seemed to help, though. And I have seen firsthand that Google really does improve the operating system steadily with its six-week update cycle, so today's problems could ease with future releases of the operating system.Really? No right-delete key?I'd like to share a couple comments here on Chromebooks in general, which I generally use more than 10 hours a week for work and personal tasks. Perhaps I'm a relic from a bygone age, but I really miss the right-delete button so common on Windows keyboards but missing from Chromebooks and Macbooks. I certainly type text more than the average person, so I feel this pain more acutely, but even with e-mails and Facebook posts it's very handy not to have to position your cursor exactly right to delete text.A wide trackpad accommodates multitouch gestures. You can tap lightly or push down more firmly to click buttons.Stephen Shankland/CNETI also wish there were a way to set the keyboard repeat rate and the delay (too long for my tastes) before a key held down will start repeating. And for a company as global as Google, it's a shame there's no way to get accented characters through a long press the way I love on OS X or the SwiftKey Android keyboard.Keyboard fans also should learn that page-down and page-up keys can be simulated with the alt-down-arrow and alt-up-arrow combinations, and that moving the cursor to the beginning or end of a line of text by using the ctrl-alt-up-arrow and ctrl-alt-down-arrow combinations.There's no caps lock button, and you probably won't miss it. In its place is a search key -- this is a Google device, after all. Pressing it will pop up the grid of icons in the apps launcher. You can arrow around the grid to launch an app, or if you start typing it behaves like Chrome's Omnibox, which is to say it will open a Web page or launch a Google search. (You can change the default search engine if you prefer Bing or other alternatives.) Confusingly for people who are used to Windows 7 and Windows 8 or OS X's Spotlight function, Google Drive documents don't show on the search results list. Perhaps that'll arrive in a future update, though -- Google has just begun a field trial in which Google Drive documents appear in Google search results.Overall, though, it's a solid device for the price when used for occasional Web tasks, especially for the Google-centric people.

The 404 588- Where the pain in Spain is mainly a stock market drain (podcast)

The 404 588: Where the pain in Spain is mainly a stock market drain (podcast)
Jill Schlesinger of CBS MoneyWatch is back on the show today to talk to us about all things financial and technological in a way that onlyAunt Jill can.First up, we get to Twitter and social networks. A few weeks ago, Jill met with our bosses upstairs and the first question out of their mouths wasn't "How are you doing?" but rather, "have you broken a thousand Twitter followers?" Strange times that Twitter followers equals your worth to the company, but it's true. If you want to help Jill, you can follow her at @jillonmoney. While you're at it, follow us at @the404, or you can follow us individually at @rhapsodyartist, @malusbrutus, and @jeffbakalar.(Jeff was the only one you made iteasy.)Did you know that you can retire at age 50 in Greece? Apparently that and massive public debt has caused the economic crisis in Europe that is affecting us all the way across the pond in the U.S. If you're wondering who to blame for the loss in your retirement fund, you can blame the Greeks and their Trojan horses.If you work for the consulting firm Accenture, you can blame computers and super geniuses called "quants" for watching your company stock drop from $40 to just a single penny! Jill said that computer models set up to analyze the market fell a bit into a feedback loop, causing the market to plunge a thousand points in just 20 minutes. Trillions of dollars of market capitalization was lost because some computer nerds thought they were smarter than you.After the break, we get to some questions from the chatroom. We have to warn you the first question is a bit heavy, and boy did it make the guys feel like we were way behind in life.At the age of 33, Dana already has a ton of property, no debt, and had money to invest. Meanwhile, we're still looking forward to 30 more years of student loans to pay off. Finally, Jill answers the most important question of all, "How do you make a lot of cash really quickly?"She's got an answer for you in the last few seconds of the show, so be sure to check it out.EPISODE 588PodcastYour browser does not support the audio element. Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) |Subscribe in RSS Audio |Subscribe in RSS Video This content is rated TV-MA, and is for viewers 18 years or older. Are you of age?YesNoSorry, you are not old enough to view this content.PlayFollow us on Twitter!The 404Jeff BakalarJustin YuWilson TangAdd us on Facebook!The 404 Fan PageThe 404 GroupJustin YuJeff BakalarWilson Tang

How much has Steve Jobs' Apple bitten you-

How much has Steve Jobs' Apple bitten you?
Plenty is going to be said about Steve Jobs' resume in the days that follow news of his resignation as Apple CEO, but it's the devices he's shepherded over the past decade that have made the most indelible mark. Consider the following:• Physical music album sales peaked in 2000 at just under 800 million albums, according to Nielsen Soundscan. The iPod debuted in 2001 and sales started dropping quickly, all the way down to just over 300 million albums sold in 2010. During that same period of time, more than 12billion songs have been downloaded from iTunes. These days, even the most stalwart Apple detractors have likely purchased at least a few tracks from the store.• Jobs accomplished something else remarkable with iTunes--he successfully thwarted piracy. By making the iPod and iTunes store so easy to use, he got the Napster generation to start paying for music again, and with few complaints over the price and Apple's walled garden approach.Related coverage• Steve Jobs resigns from Apple (roundup)• Apple under Jobs' watch has given us the Jetsons/Star Trek vision of the future, and made it much cooler than those once-nerdy conceits. The iPhone packed more communications power into a single device than any sci-fi writer ever imagined. Yes, BlackBerry came first, but the iPhone was the first smartphone we could teach both senior citizens and toddlers to use. And now they do. • Remember how cool and novel touch screens once seemed to be? Now more of us probably know how to pinch or swipe on a touch screen than could make the proper hand signal for a left turn. Thank Steve and Apple's engineering team for that one. The iPhone taught the world how to pinch and swipe on a touch screen.Apple• Speaking of those handheld computers that just happen to have a phone in them, it was the App Store that really made the concept take off. Here came a means for turning your simple phone or music player into a full-featured digital utility knife. And then came Angry Birds...• I'm still figuring out how the iPad is changing our lives, but judging by the places I've seen them in use--processing payments at a music festival in the Colorado Rockies, pulling up my medical records at the doctor's office, in the cockpit, and being aptly operated by an 18-month old--it's safe to say that Mr. Jobs' many revolutions are still under way and will continue altering our daily lives, even after he steps down as CEO.How have Apple devices released since Jobs' return to the company in 1997 changed your life? Let us know in the comments.