Google Chrome OS Reviews

By Dena Cassella January 12, 2010

In late November of 2009, Google unveiled more details of its new Chrome operating system (OS). Google’s Chrome OS will be a whole new type of operating system—the company is calling it a lightweight operating system that will take place within a Chrome-based browser. The company says it envisioned Chrome as a Web-only experience, so you can kiss your file system and software applications goodbye. One of the fixes for this new operating system that has caused a bit of chattering is that it’s supposed to be extremely fast. Google is gearing the Chrome OS for speed: speedy Web access, speedy Web browsing, and just over all speed in performance.

Contents

IT Pro Gives Realistic Review
eWeek Finds It Intriguing
GadgetMix Tries a Speedy Boot Up
Tech Radar Has a Quick Hands On
Computing Unleashed Gives 7 Reasons

Another important feature of Google’s Chrome OS is its storage. The Chrome OS model essentially uses local storage only for caching and to speed operations, allowing the operating system to store individual users’ data in cloud-based applications and services. This will provide quite a convenience for people—to be able to tap into their online lives from a variety of machines and locations. All-in-all this new OS is starting to sound mighty tempting—speed and convenience, what a perfect OS features.

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Well, not everyone will be looking to Google’s new OS when it debuts this year—it just may not suit everyone’s personal taste. Also, Google has made some very bold promises regarding its new OS—speed and security, namely—and we would like to know just how those promises measure up to the real Chrome OS experience. Although this new operating system may be too young to be put to the test, many people are—here are the few reviews of Google’s new Chrome OS operating system.

IT Pro Gives Realistic Review

IT Pro notes many great aspects of Chrome OS, but still find that this is a niche operating system and isn’t as revolutionary as Google makes it seem. The review concludes that although this OS will be great for netbooks, it is hard to see it as the business OS of the future (aka Google’s hope and dreams for it).

eWeek Finds It Intriguing

eWeek noted in it hands on review of the new operating system that it is very convenient that its interface looks so much like the Chrome Web browser because a lot of people are already familiar with it UI.

GadgetMix Tries a Speedy Boot Up

GadgetMix.com made an attempt at Google’s speedy Chrome OS boot ups on a netbook, but unfortunately they found the process wasn’t as speedy as promised.

Tech Radar Has a Quick Hands On

TechRadar.com also agreed this operating system is too much in its infancy to be fully judged. The quick hands on review concluded that it did seem more like just a browser than an actual operating system.

Computing Unleashed Gives 7 Reasons

This review gives seven different reasons why Google Chrome is a unique operating system—like having a browser itself as an interface and Chromes swift boot up time.

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Computing

This new Google Docs feature is exactly what I’ve always wanted

Text box in Google Docs on a laptop.

As a writer of a certain age, I've lived a lot of life in Google Docs. It's where my first drafts go, but it's also where my crazy ideas, unhinged brainstorming, and research dumps go.
There’s so many conveniences about Google Docs that make it my go-to for word processing, but let’s be honest: It’s still fairly barebones, especially when it comes to organizing and managing different files within Google Drive. But this new feature makes all of that much easier, keeping it all contained all within Docs itself.
It’s called Document Tabs, which you may have already noticed floating just to the left of your document.

The idea is simple: It lets you create multiple documents within a single Docs file. Create as many “tabs” or separate documents as a single project might need, and switch between them extremely fast. That accessibility to them is really where the gold is. No more switching between different browser tabs.
It’s even more handy on mobile, of course, where switching applications or tabs is even more cumbersome. Here, you’ll find Document Tabs hovering just at the bottom of the screen with some simple arrows to flip between your different tabs. All we need now is a simple gesture to be added to flip between them even more seamlessly.
Document Tabs takes the place of the old outlining system, which would grab headers and automatically create a table of contents around them. I used this frequently, but it was pretty finicky. More than that, it resulted in overly long documents that I still found myself scrolling through.
Document Tabs is a really elegant solution to that problem. Whether it’s segmenting chapters in a book, multiple aspects of a project, or even just different parts of an article, it’s already become an extremely useful outlining and productivity tool for me.
It even had a pretty clean way of converting the tabs when you need to export. All the tabs do is combine down into one document, but they’re sectioned off with titles and some basic formatting. That’s not going to be ideal in every situation, of course, so it’s something to keep in mind if you need to export and share it with someone outside of Docs.
At the very least, though, it’s worth trying out. And if you’re a Google Docs fiend like I am, I have a feeling you’ll get quite a lot out of it.

Computing

You’ll soon be able to use a phone without leaving your VR headset

Meta gave the Quest 3S passthrough cameras that are good enough to check my phone without taking the headset off.

The Meta Quest 3S and Quest 3 are two of the best VR headset you can buy, and they'll soon have an interesting new feature that lets you use a Motorola phone without leaving VR. Motorola Smart Connect already lets you mirror your phone to a Windows PC or smart TV. Now, your VR headset is gaining this ability too, but on a huge virtual screen.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared the news at Lenovo's Tech World 2024 event, and also spoke about Meta's Llama model, as spotted by UploadVR. The model is the basis for Lenovo's AI Now, a personal agent for laptops that runs on-device without requiring a cloud connection.

Mobile

Google Flights is making it easier to find the best-priced airfare

Plane landing.

Up till now, airfare search results on Google Flights have prioritized a combination of price and convenience over cost alone. This means you might be missing the cheapest options and spending more than you need to.

Via an update to its online tool that's rolling out gradually over the next couple of weeks, Google is finally making it easier to surface the best-priced airfares for your journey, though you may be sacrificing a bit of convenience if you opt for one of them.