Although I promised myself I wasn’t going to spend time running Google’s Chrome OS right now, I got the bug. Thanks to gdgt who put an image together, I’ve spent about 15 minutes tinkering with it in VirtualBox. Chrome OS is definitely bare-bones right now and slow in a VM, but any performance judgements should be considered irrelevant right now. Two thoughts came to mind as I got my hands dirty: who is this for and what can make it successful.

As far as the first question, Chrome OS is for someone like me — someone who spends 98% of their day in a browser. Or it could be for everyone else, provided they use it in the manner intended. Is it meant to replace a daily operating system for most people? No more so than a netbook would be a replacement for a high-powered workstation. It’s simply not that kind of tool. Chrome OS is intended for quick access to the web on a portable notebook-like companion device. Think of it as the environment and device you’d go to when you don’t want to boot up a full OS but you want a larger screen and keyboard than your smartphone has.

So what can make it successful? There are several factors, but one of the key ones is what makes Firefox so useful — extensions. As Mozilla’s browser has shown, you can do quite a bit in a browser with the right tools. And oddly enough, while Chrome OS doesn’t yet support extensions officially, you’ll see in my video that I have a few installed anyway. That’s my first look and first thoughts. I’ll have plenty more to say as the project matures.

Note: because I couldn’t resize the virtual machine or Chrome OS, I recommend watching this video in full screen and in the HD version when it becomes available.

What the hackintosh community brings, Apple taketh away. And the hackintoshers then put it back. With the 10.6.2 Mac OS X update, Apple removed support for Intel Atom CPUs, so all of those netbooks running Snow Leopard lost their spots. A modified kernel brings back support, says MacWorld, although I’d be pretty leery of said kernel. Put another way: I’d live with OS X 10.6.1 on my netbook — but that’s just me.

Even though I had fun running OS X on a both a netbook and a touchscreen UMPC, a couple of weeks with the operating system turned semi-frustrating. Ironically, it was for the same reasons that Windows was a hassle on UMPCs when they first hit: the desktop operating system isn’t designed to fit in a space under 1280 x 800 or so. Does it fit? Yup. Does it work well? Sometimes yes and sometimes no, depending on the dialog boxes you see. It simply required too much tweaking to use on a full time basis for me — not to mention that pesky licensing issue.

MoTR 190 is 37:49 minutes long and is a 34.7 MB file in MP3 format.

CLICK HERE to download the file and listen directly.

HOSTS: James Kendrick (Houston), Matthew Miller (Seattle) and Kevin C. Tofel (Philadelphia)

TOPICS:

Matt’s back from möbius with a handset rundown
Maybe Pocket PC isn’t such a bad name, after all
Hands on with the HTC HD2
Kevin has a 3.5G wireless broadband secret he’s been holding out on
Google’s Chrome OS explained

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Google’s Chrome OS might have the focus today, but Qualcomm made sure that people don’t forget about Android. The company showed off a smartbook concept made by Quanta and powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform. Although this is the same chipset running in some high-end smartphones, the Snapdragon chip isn’t underclocked — it’s powering Android on the full 1GHz speed on the Cortex-A8 architecture.

Bill Timmons of Qualcomm envisions smartbooks in the same price range as a smartphone, but I think that’s a tough challenge, barring the subsidy factor. While the devices have the guts of a smartphone, there’s still a larger display to pay for. If these devices are too close in price to netbooks, I suspect that netbooks will win out with most consumers — people will perceive the fuller featured netbook running the familiar Windows OS as a better value. Anything over $200 and I just don’t see smartbooks becoming successful. And while I was leaning towards Chrome OS boosting the slow starting smartbook market, the lack of application support brings me back to Android as a potential operating system for smartbooks and netbooks.

Google held their developer and press event today to show off the upcoming Google Chrome operating system. The source code for Chrome OS is open source and available as of today, so theoretically, you can build your own Chrome OS. However, the actual release isn’t planned until late in 2010.

Some takeaways from the live stream that I watched:

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This is not confirmed by Lenovo, but more details about the ThinkPad netbook rumored for a January release have appeared on the web. The ThinkPad X100e is unusual, not just for being a ThinkPad netbook, but for the AMD processor it’s reported to use to run things. The 11.6-inch screen pushes the netbook classification a bit, but the $449 price if accurate is firmly in netbook territory. The specs are very ThinkPad-like, and that dual trackstick/trackpad is definitely ThinkPad material.

• Display: 11.6″ 1366 x 768 screen
• CPU: AMD Athlon Neo MV-40
• OS: Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Pro (32 bit or 64 bit)
• Memory: Up to4GB
• Storage: 160/250/320GB 2.5″ 5400rpm HDD
• I/O: 3 USB ports, VGA output, 4-in-1 card reader
• Connectivity: 802.11b/g/n WiFi, optional Bluetooth, 3G
• Input: Trackpoint and multi-touch touchpad
• Camera: 0.3MP
• Battery: 3 cell (2.2 hour) or 6 cell (5.1 hour)
• Dimensions: 11.1″ x 82.” x 11.2″ (w/6 cell battery)
• Weight: 3.3 pounds (w/6 cell battery)

The debate between netbook and notebook might have found some middle ground with the ASUS Eee PC 1201N. I just caught the LAPTOP Magazine hands on with this device and that’s the impression I came away with. Why is that? Mainly because the 1201N offers specs closer to a notebook, but has the price and size near to a netbook. The $499 price tag competes well with many high-end netbooks and offers:

• Microsoft Windows 7 Premium
• 12.1 inch display with 1366 x 768 resolution
• Intel Atom 330 dual core processor
• 2GB of RAM
• Nvidia ION graphics
• Hard drive of 250GB (plus 500GB online storage)
• VGA, HDMI, 3 USB 2.0, Ethernet, headphone and microphone port
• Memory card slot
• 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• 11.7 x 8.2 x 1.3 inches
• 3.2 pounds weight

LAPTOP hasn’t done a battery test yet, but ASUS expects five hours with their Super Hybrid Engine. The notebook is patterned after the Eee PC 1005 / 1008 models, also known as Seashell, so it’s based on the thin, wedge-shaped design of those netbooks. Although this is just a first look, I’m intrigued and impressed — and looking forward to the detailed review that’s sure to be coming.

I’m officially jealous that I can’t go to the Google press event on Thursday where the Chrome OS will be shown. Our GigaOm Network Editor in Chief, Sebastian Rupley, has the invite, so maybe I can convince him to livestream right to my monitor later this week. Why do I have Chrome fever? Three reasons.

First, I live in a web browser for most of my waking hours. I don’t need many of the standard features that a full desktop operating system provides, so it’s essentially just feature-bloat for me. Second, in the past two to three years, I’ve moved over to Google’s services for email, contacts, phone management and more. Lastly, while I expect Google’s Chrome OS to run on x86 devices, I’m really hoping to see it to thrive on the ARM platform. Chrome OS is probably overkill for a netbook or notebook, so I’m thinking it will help kickstart the smartbook platform — a lightweight web-based OS for a power efficient processor for all day browsing.

What are you expecting to see out of Google’s Chrome OS this week?

I spent a fair bit of time in a doctor’s waiting room today, and that meant surfing the web on a UMPC. I ran across a few articles that point to recurring ludicrocity that I have to comment about. Sit back and enjoy the ride, and let me know if you find these things as silly as I find them.

Retweet — the new retweet function that Twitter has rolled out was seemingly in every third tweet I’ve seen lately. Let me be straight — I am interested in reading smart things that folks have to say, on Twitter or anywhere else. I do not care that 1,300 people also found them interesting enough and retweeted them. We don’t need more noise on the web, we need more focus.

Droid Auto-focus Bug — the Android development team has admitted there is a bug in the auto-focusing API that caused all of the Droid’s bad camera experiences, and then fixed them automatically. There’s a time-stamp error in the API that causes it to work poorly for 24.5 days, and then properly for 24.5 days, ad infinitum. Time-stamp? In a camera focusing routine? You’re kidding me, right?

Microsoft Exec Ray Ozzie — smartphone apps don’t matter, developers will port all apps people want to all the platforms. Apps are not a differentiator among phone platforms. Spoken like a company in denial. Sadly, Ozzie is Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect. Let that sink in for a moment.

Windows 7 Starter Edition on Netbooks — Joanna Stern of Slashgear points out that 23 of 28 netbooks on sale at Amazon currently are preloaded with Windows 7 Starter Edition. Ms. Stern also points out the basic functionality that is missing from the Starter Edition, such as desktop wallpaper customization, that makes Windows XP a better value for netbooks than Win 7 Starter Edition. It’s like we have taken a step backward in the Windows world, yet again.

Subsidized netbooks with integrated 3G are all the rage these days. It seems every carrier is offering them, and the reaction is mixed. There are some who find the convenience of having 3G connectivity in the netbook to be worth the data plan cost, and others who don’t like having the 3G tied to one device. I am definitely in the latter camp, finding the Verizon MiFi meets my needs while letting me use the 3G with any devices I wish. My step-daughter is getting a subsidized netbook, however, and I have to admit her needs make that the best fit for her.

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