

Fortune Magazine Names the New Samsung Chromebook Best Device of 2012 - TopTrix
http://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/2012/11/15/best-of-best-tech.fortune/2.html

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crb
Fortune Magazine asked five of its writers for things like best device, best
acquisition, best news blog, etc. One of those writers picked the Chromebook.
The others picked the iPad Mini, Samsung Galaxy S3, MacBook Pro Retina 15",
and Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite.

In the absence of a print version, increment the 2.html by 5 (2, 7, 12, 17,
22.html) to reach each review independently.

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rm999
Wow, thanks for pointing that out. The headline is very misleading. Here's the
full slideshow: [http://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/2012/11/15/best-
of-b...](http://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/2012/11/15/best-of-best-
tech.fortune/index.html)

There are 25 things on there, including five 'best devices'. I guess the
headline wouldn't be as interesting if it made this clear.

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avolcano
I honestly think the Chromebook is one of the best products out there, even
though I'd never buy one for myself. It's the first web-only device that isn't
"ahead of its time" - it just works for everything you need.

Its major downfall is performance on Flash-heavy sites (or even JS-heavy
sites, such as The Verge), but honestly I don't think that's the device's
fault as much as it's the desktop web's. It took developers a while to learn
to optimize their sites for less-powerful tablets and phones, and hopefully
they'll bring some of those lessons to the desktop for lower-powered devices
like this.

Plus, I think a lot of people just don't understand that the device has more
than just web access. Chrome apps give it potential for powerful offline
capabilities. This article has a good overview: [http://www.zdnet.com/yes-you-
can-use-the-new-chromebook-offl...](http://www.zdnet.com/yes-you-can-use-the-
new-chromebook-offline-7000006103/)

(the only thing I don't like is that all of the Chromebooks have been a bit
ugly. I know that you're dealing with cheap plastic, but I actually thought my
slate CR-48 looked nicer than the fat Samsung & Acer Chromebooks!)

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robmcm
From what I can tell it's like having an android tablet with chrome as the
only app, a fixed keyboard and poor battery life.

It seems like the worse of both worlds when compared against a tablet and a
thin laptop...

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nessus42
Have you used one? I love mine. It just works. And it's cheap.

The battery life is 6 hours. What makes that poor?

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wlesieutre
It's shorter than a most tablets, Nexus 10 included.

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RexRollman
Not everyone likes tablets.

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nessus42
And even if you _do_ like tablets, typing even relatively short messages on a
tablet is seriously non-fun.

The keyboard on the new Samsung Chromebook is fantastic; basically a clone of
a MacBook Air keyboard. The touchpad also works really well. (Though I do miss
three finger or tap-and-a-half dragging. On the Chromebook you have to click-
and-hold the touchpad to drag.)

Sure you can get a netbook and run Chrome, but I have one of those and never
use it. The screen flickers, the keyboard is mediocre, and the touchpad sucks.
And it's from a good company too.

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KaoruAoiShiho
One interesting factoid about the Chromebook is that it's actually FREE if you
take into account the extras. Gogo inflight internet + 1tb Google Drive is
$300 dollars of freebies, not bad for a $250 device.

~~~
cryptoz
Free does not work that way. I don't have access to inflight internet nor
would I pay for google drive storage. So it's still $250.

~~~
grannyg00se
I'll take it even furthe: Not only would I never pay for google drive storage,
I wouldn't use it even if it were free. Now if they want to offer me a
discount since I'm not going to use those add-ons, that's a different story.
Until then, it's still $250.

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lutusp
> It starts up fast and never needs upgrades.

Its "window on the Web" is the Chrome browser and it never needs upgrades?

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potatolicious
Chrome updates are non-disruptive (e.g., doesn't bug you to restart your
machine every 15 minutes) and automatic.

It's a far cry from "you have 7 critical updates that require your attention",
or "your computer will automatically shut down in 3 minutes to update unless
you click this button that extends this by another hour".

Or if we're talking about Adobe: "looks like there's _another_ 0-day massive
security hole, Flash player needs you to drop _everything_ , shut off
_everything_ with a web frame so we can fix this".

Or to balance it out a bit Apple-style: "your browser, Safari, needs an
update. We will inexplicably need you to stop whatever you're doing and reboot
to _update your browser_ "

So yeah, "never needs upgrades" isn't technically correct, but it's pretty
close to it.

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phaedrus
I love my Samsung ARM Chromebook. I've already used it while creating
materials for a talk on Javascript. I am able to use the browser to test
Javascript code, and I already use Google docs for the slides so it was a
natural fit. It doesn't replace my MacBook Air - I carry both. So no I don't
_need_ it but I enjoy the idea of it.

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ternaryoperator
You've touched on the problem with the Chromebook. It doesn't replace a
notebook or any other device So it becomes one more device that duplicates
functionality of other devices without doing anything unique. I like mine, but
if I hadn't gotten it as part of Google I/O this year, I'm not sure I'd feel
the dollars for buying one would be well spent.

~~~
nessus42
My new Chromebook is so cheap that I just bring it everywhere. If I lose it,
no biggie.

I love my 11-inch MacBook Air a lot more, which means, ironically, I leave it
at home because I couldn't bear to have it damaged or lost. Also, I have the
Air hooked up to speakers in my bedroom so it's more of a pain to just grab it
and go.

Additionally my MacBook Air is typically upstairs and I keep the Chromebook
downstairs, so if I just want to check my email or HN, I don't have to run up
and down the stairs to find where I left the computer.

