Chrome OS Laptops Revealed at Google I/O: Do You Trust the Cloud?

Google Chrome OS Laptops to Be Available June 15

Google revealed two Chrome OS-based laptops at the Google I/O Development Conference in San Francisco. Google is betting that users will be so sick of Windows* that they will be comfortable trusting storage and computation to the cloud, while the notebook itself serves as a terminal.

Leasing Your Chrome OS Laptop

Chrome OS laptops will either be purchased outright, or leased for around $20 per month (students) or $28 per month (businesses), which would include warranty support.

The Samsung Chromebook will have a 12.1 inch screen, WiFi and Verizon 3G and will be priced at $429. That price includes 100MB per month from Verizon, but remember that everything is getting saved to the cloud. Everything.

The Acer Chromebook will be cheaper at $349 but will have WiFi only an 11.6 inch screen. So, cheaper than an iPad, but not by much. Both notebooks have tiny SSD drives for local storage until offline work can get cloud-saved.

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Is There Really a Market for Cloudbooks?

Not quite a netbook, the Google Chrome OS-based laptop is more of a cloudbook, with only a web browser to connect the user to all of his or her data, files, and applications. Would you trust your digital life to the cloud? For casual web users, the answer is probably yes, especially if they already drank the Gmail Kool-Aid.

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Introducing the Chromebook

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And, not to dis the end user too much, but will they really notice the difference between using a netbook and plugging away on a cloudbook? Well, yes, if remote data storage fails. Personally, I wouldn't trust sensitive material in the cloud: regardless of how much more likely a local hard drive failure is than a cloud-bust, at least I have sole control of that disk. Kapersky Labs also has some questions regarding Chrome OS security.

While tablets such as the iPad and Galaxy Tab already serve similar functions, they are more for consumption than creation: trying to type a document on a tablet is an exercise in agony. Regardless of what iPad lovers (and the 3 Playbook fans out there) say, touch-screen tabs are just not meant for typing anything beyond a Facebook update, unless you attach a keyboard to turn them into laptops.

Also, think of all the porn you could store in the cloud. The future is here.

(*This test machine choked on its own update while I attempted to write the first version of this story, so I'm thinking that, yes, users are more than ready to walk away from Windows.)