My Thoughts on Chrome OS

Google’s Chrome OS is a Linux distribution with only one application – Google Chrome. Google noticed that people are using the Internet more and more and because of that, they decided to make an operating system that works entirely with an  Internet browser and uses web-apps. The advantage of Chrome OS is that with this concept, they are able to optimize a Linux distribution to boot really fast, as it is only required to run an Internet browser.

I really like the idea of Chrome OS and would love to own a Chromebook. However, there are a couple of problems which I would like to see fixed before I order one of  those Chromebooks. A Chromebook would be really useful for me, as I would be  able to take that to to my school with me instead of my MacBook, which costs a lot more, weighs a lot more and has a hard drive which is more prone to failure and causes my Mac to take longer waking up from sleep mode.

Google Drive

The first thing Google need to sort out is Google Drive. More specifically, they need fix the document editor. I love the user interface in the document editor and while it has most of the features I need in an Office suite, there are a few features that Google left out. The biggest feature that I would like to see added is the ability to merge cells in the document editor. It is a very basic feature found in iWork, Microsoft Office and even LibreOffice. If Google can’t add that feature to a web-app for some reason, they could at least install a cleaned up or slimmed down version of LibreOffice to Chrome OS.

The Price

Chromebooks are a great idea and I would love to buy one, but I’m sorry Google – I just don’t want to pay £350 for a glorified Internet browser. There are netbooks that you can get for nearly as low as half the price and while I hate netbooks, there are some people who don’t have a problem with them, and it is easy for anyone to download Google Chrome on one of them.

Posted on Thursday 31st May 2012 - Leave a comment