In a world commonly called the “Post -pc era” by techno analysts, we are always net connected using some sort of mobile device, be it a tablet or phone. At work we all still use Macs or PC’s, which are usually also net connected. But the nay sayers tell us that soon those deskbound (inc. laptops) devices will be banished to hell along with floppy disks and green screens, in favour of our fondle slabs.
One of the main players in the mobile space are Google, with their own OS (Android), and devices (Nexus, etc) and supply chain (HTC, Samsung). They also have a fantastic range of cloud based applications starting with gmail and running up to the pro versions of google apps, and great viewers such as Picasa.
With all this in mind these guys have most to win from the “post – pc era”, by delivering more great devices and apps to run on them.
So i raised more than an eyebrow when Google announced in May 2011, a new device to hit the market in June, the Chromebook. This was a laptop style device running Chrome OS (also new). This interested me, as Google’s dev teams was one part of the business i had always admired, and a competing OS looked really interesting, until i realised i already had it, and it was called Chrome (the browser).
So now you can have a laptop that runs a browser, and with the advent of HTML 5 runs some apps offline if you don’t mind using Google sanctioned apps (ever tried paginating in Google docs ?). It’s basically a £400 laptop that doesn’t do any of the stuff you use your usual laptop for without a persistent IP connection, or some considerable concessions.
The latest versions of chrome do all this (kindle cloud on chrome is a great app). So to get the best of Google’s post PC era, buy a cheap PC (or not so cheap Mac) and run Chrome (which i really do recommend)
Yesterday Google dropped the price of this device (but not in the UK yet !), but to everyone else its already free !! If this is the culmination of Google’s web dominance, then i feel they have lost the plot. I give them about another 6 months before they bin the whole thing, in favour of , emmmmmmmmm PC’s ?
Mrben09 