Google has been testing their Chrome OS for about a year now and has decided to offer a pilot program to gather information from end users. The program is open to individuals, businesses, schools and developers … basically everyone but is limited to the USA and then will extend outward.
Basically you will get a generic looking netbook with Chrome OS and Verizon 3G connectivity.
Well here is their description:
The test notebooks exist only to test the software—they are black, have no branding, no logos, no stickers, nothing. They do have 12.1 inch screens, full-sized keyboards and touch pads, integrated 3G from Verizon, eight hours of battery life and eight days of standby time. Chrome notebooks are designed to reach the web instantly, are easy to share among friends and family, and simply by logging in, all of your apps, bookmarks and other browser settings are there. Setting up a new machine takes less than a minute. And even at this early stage, we feel there is no consumer or business operating system that is more secure.
At this point I have not found full featured applications available for the Chrome OS but it seems that this internet based OS as they want to call it (cough linux) it not being marketed as a productivity solution. More so it is for connectivity or basically browsing the web and maybe sending some mail with Gmail of course.
With the introduction of tablets with 10″ screens running android apple and windows operating systems the Chrome OS seems to be a little late to market with no features that can surpass this newer technology. If you are going to browse the web then why not do it on your tablet rather then a clunky netbook and then perform real work on your desktop computer that has a much wider range of productivity tools.
To find more information or to see if you qualify for the free netbook visit
