Comments on: Chrome OS Aura UI review: first look

By: richtea

richtea — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:29:41 +0000

Thanks to Dylan for an actually informative input.

By: Dylan

Dylan — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 02:00:21 +0000

For an actual Chrome OS user (besides my Android phone, my Acer Chromebook is my only computer and I’ve loved it for months), Aura is an amazing change. Previously, all you had was tabs in a un-closable window. Now though, you can have an infinite amount of tabs and windows open, and this makes it much easier to write research papers, multi-task, and do other similar tasks. The refreshing simplicity of Chrome OS is still there, but it’s been changed enough so as to drastically improve the user experience of a Chromebook user.

By: Josh

Josh — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 15:21:36 +0000

I’m still unconvinced by the whole idea of an OS that runs mostly in the “cloud”. Clearly this benefits Google a great deal, but there are far fewer benefits to end users.

The idea of storing all your documents in the cloud is often overstated I think. For businesses, the major benefit is probably collaboration and sharing with other colleagues. (And I wonder how much of that is done when you’re in the office?)

The web still isn’t particularly good at complex interactions, no matter how hard Google tries to add more and more desktop-like interactions to its OS.

I use Google Docs occasionally at work. There are many small (but irritating) oddities and quirks e.g. scrolling in spreadsheets is sometimes erratic; in Google Documents, you can’t even do a simple thing like span a table cell. I would consider that a basic feature.

Also, Chrome OS laptops (”Chromebooks”) are priced very un-competitively against netbooks and laptops. I simply can’t see any convincing reasons to buy a Chrome OS laptop over a similarly priced laptop.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 11:09:57 +0000

Oh darn, they’ve only gone and moved it from ‘News’ to ‘Blog’ section – the title still holds though: “Chrome OS Aura review”

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 11:00:55 +0000

Chris – Please look up the definition of ‘review’. It does not refer to the future, nor to using one’s imagination. For this reason, your desire for the whole world to look at Chrome as a tool for ubiquitous internet in a perfect future is simply irrelevant. Hardware is unlikely to get any cheaper, as supply gets tighter, resources get scarcer and labour becomes more expensive. How on earth you can believe that Google doesn’t command purchasing power and economies of scale defies belief. Your use of latin doesn’t mask the fact that your points actually contradict yourself in previous posts.

Therefore, the competitive advantage of Chrome is currently non-existent.

This review was not a blog post. It was a review. You criticised the review, and then cried foul when I countered your opinion. Don’t throw stones in glass houses.

You say “All the information in the piece is freely available from Google and elsewhere” YES! Because publications and individuals perform these reviews, which you have criticised PCPro for doing so!

If you consider that there are currently millions of people without access to running water or electricity, perhaps you’ll realise that we are a long way from the perfect world where local storage is not necessary.

By: Mikhael Michaelides

Mikhael Michaelides — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 09:48:05 +0000

As per my previous post – I still don’t get the point of ChromeOS in *this* day and age – April 2012.

Mobile internet / wireless is still not as ubiquitous as people would have us believe (and yes I’m talking right here in central London), so using a device that depends on an always-on connection still doesn’t make sense. There are plenty of times I would like to use my device off-line (for example when writing documents and replying to e-mails) and ChromeOS just doesn’t seem to be geared up to it.

If it’s a vision of the future (or “bleeding edge”), then fine – but that will be in 5-10 years’ time, not now.

I really hate to say or even admit it, but this is perhaps where Apple might have a slightly better way of going about things – they take currernt/existing technology and make it work well, rather than something that’s a bit too far-off in the future and is before its time.

(IMHO – this is just my £0.02 worth before everyone jumps on me!!)

By: JohnAHind

JohnAHind — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:37:01 +0000

Well Chris, if you are going to make my points for me I can safely “goof off to the beach”!
For the reasons you state, Chromebooks are just as expensive as other potential client devices for Google’s cloud applications, and they do much less! Not a great sales pitch!
If, on the other hand, Google made sure all Android devices worked as clients for the cloud side of its Chrome infrastructure, it would get instant market penetration and could avoid the distraction, marketing confusion and cost of developing two operating systems targeted at overlapping market segments.
If the market wants clients that are restricted to Google’s application cloud, then the Android ecosystem can easily produce them by stripping down, or just locking down, Android.

By: Garrett

Garrett — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 05:03:55 +0000

I appreciate how this reviewer fully understands that a first release of software in the development channel (one full step beyond beta, two beyond stable) can be rife with bugs and missing features. I appreciate how the reviewer demonstrates some of the new design features, but does not show any benchmarks or comparisons to past versions to show how much of a step forward this is. I appreciate how the reviewer sums it up with the conclusion that he clearly held from the beginning that the chromebook is a silly device. I appreciate good reporting

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 18:03:36 +0000

@Mike that was very rude, but I think you weren’t thinking. To take your points in turn:
(1) Actually the hardware was not addressed in the blog post. Maybe you missed previous coverage of this issue on this site, which was informative.
(2) Free or cheap Wi-Fi is very easy to find, particularly outside the UK. This does not really count as an argument against relying on the technology.
(3) A matter of opinion. Office suites are a Desktop application mainly, and the Chromebook is designed for ‘mobile’ computing. A better comparator is the tablet market, where your point also applies.
(4) All the information in the piece is freely available from Google and elsewhere. You can even test it yourself, if you are motivated. This review will probably never make into the magazine because it counts as ephemera. I stand by my point.

This wasn’t a review, it was a blog post. It wasn’t offering money-saving advice, and it is just an opinion. I fail to see how it is any more informed than any other opinion I find in any other blog.

Also if you use your imagination, you may be able to imagine a world where Internet access is as ubiquitous as electricity or running water. In such a world, local storage is no longer critical. It may even be relatively expensive. The Chromebook is designed for that world. Just think before you rant, next time.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:45:21 +0000

PC Pro, I think there should be a blanket policy of deleting ad-hominem remarks. They are deeply anti-social and generally irrelevant to everyone else. If that means deleting comments I have made also, then so be it.