Chromebook..... Pass or Fail?

At Google I/O this year last week, they announced Chromebook.

Chromebook is basically a netbook with nothing but the web. Its like windows with only internet explorer (okay, chrome is better than IE) but the point is same.

What I think is Chromebook cannot be the PC replacement device, not at least in India.

The Chromebook has only the web; this means you cannot do anything in addition to what you can do on a netbook with internet. To do anything, you need to be connected all the time. Not everyone here has wi-fi at home and 3G is still in nascent stages as the data costs are quite high and the service also is not good. I used Vodafone 3G for a week, lost substantial amount of credit from my balance and returned to good old 2G, unsatisfied. See, my point is, you cannot completely rely on 3G connections to do all your internet related work and let me tell you, browsing the web on a netbook will be much more costly than on a mobile as the Chromebook will offer the complete desktop versions of websites while mobile phones use the less data hungry mobile optimized versions. So get ready for your data bill to run into thousands, if you are going to stream that HD video on the Chromebook because it will not allow you to store it on the device itself. Every time you'll have to listen to that favourite song of yours, you'll have to stream it online and add to your data charges.

Cloud based computing is a good and futuristic thing but can you rely on Google to store your important documents safely and confidentially in a pool of million other users? I doubt it.

Google is not a saint who will keep offering us the goodies and not think of making money out of it. Who knows, if they sell your photos to a blackmailer or your company's profit and loss file to the IT department. Okay it will not happen exactly this way but it is a possibility that in the fine print of those terms and conditions which we pretend to have read and click “I AGREE”, there might be a condition which gives Google all the power to make money out of your documents and files by auctioning them.

A few days ago Sony's PlayStationNetwork was hacked and personal information of millions of users was stolen.

If the hackers can do it to Sony, why can’t they do it to Chrome OS?

Chrome OS cannot match Windows in terms of productivity. Even though Google thinks so, you cannot do everything online. I don’t think there is an app or will ever be in the Chrome Web Store which can match Adobe Photoshop in all its glory and functionality. You cannot play REAL games on a web browser but only those small little flash games which are actually good for not more than 5 minutes of play.

Google docs is a nice little tool to play with once in a while but its no match for MS Office Suite when used as a full time software to do some productive work in an office environment.

Given the price of Chromebook at $500 which roughly translates into Rs 25000 or more, you can easily get a nice netbook which will do some other offline work in addition to letting you surf the net the way Google wants you to.

I don't think so!

All these vulnerabilities will hamper the growth of Chrome OS as a first choice OS for professionals. People might use it as a fun thing or as a secondary device for a quick look at some of websites or social networks (this thing boots up really fast @8 seconds) but for some productive use I will head to my Windows PC.

We are still a long way to go for a proper web based OS to be able to cater all our needs and till then please continue using your Windows/Mac/Linux machines.