Early on in life, I stumbled upon the concept of threshold devices. This is a device or product which makes a task so much easier it actually changes your behavior. For instance, my first house had a garage with a door which I had to manually open and close. Because of this, I soon learned it was easier most times to park my car outside than 1. get out; 2. open the garage door; 3. get back in; 4. drive the car into the garage and; 5. get out and close the door.
Then I installed a garage door opener and everything changed– I started parking my car inside. The simple process of pressing a button and watching the door open and closed, crossed the threshold of inconvenience for me and changed my behavior.
In some ways, my Google Chromebook does the same. For instance it takes my Macbook Air over a minute to boot up from a cold start, connect to the internet, launch a browser to Gmail and start to read. My Sony Vaio laptop is over 4 minutes to do the same. My Chromebook does it all in under 20 seconds. This, for me, crosses a threshold making it possible to actually check my email more often. Is this good?
For me, YES. It allows me to check on things first thing in the morning, often during the day, and last thing at night, which is important because SWG is a virtual company, and we have responsibility over a number of our customers outward facing server technologies.
I’ve noticed small things about the Chromebook, often go overlooked when it’s being reviewed. The above mentioned startup speed is one of them, another is the built-in 3G networking which alllows me free 100Mb of Internet Access per month, and a tremendous sales model which let’s me pay on demand for more bandwidth. Say I’m sitting somewhere without WiFi access, I can use 3G to access my emails, GDocs, calendar and other apps. If I run out of bandwidth, I can instantly purchase more, for a single day or a month.
Another attribute often missed by reviewers is the simple fact the Chromebook is not a laptop. Some reviewers complain there is not enough disk storage, or there are no other browsers, or it doesn’t run Photoshop, and my favorite, it doesn’t work unless you are connected to the Internet. Well, as my daughter would say with her eyes rolled to the ceiling, “Shocking!”
Just like the iPad is not a full tablet computer (aka MS tablet), neither is Chromebook a full notebook computer. It doesn’t have a Desktop– and that’s the whole point! I’ve compared it to the Nissan Leaf electric car.. it’s not for everyone– which is different from saying it’s not for anyone– a point missed by many reviewers.
No comments yet.