Holy Chrome...!

Being an outspoken and unabashed geek, I have a tendency to give away my demographic information in exchange for the occasional chance of getting something cool.  Not in the "CLICK HERE FOR A FEE iPAD (when you sell our crap for us)" kind of sense, but more like a "Sign up for our pilot program and we'll let you keep the hardware." sense.  Rarely, (OK, never...) do I ever hear any response from these signups, and when I do, it's usually, "Sorry, we're full." or, "You're not our target demographic."

So imagine my surprise at finding out that I got accepted to the Cr-48 Chrome Netbook program.  Not via email, of course, but by having a netbook simply show up on my front porch this afternoon. I've been toying with the idea of getting a netbook with Christmas money, and boring my wife with said talk, for several weeks.  Imagine the delight and surprise to have one just magically appear.  It's Google-riffic!

So, the out of box experience: The box itself is pretty cool. Funky technical drawings, documentation with a sense of humor, and I'll admit that the simplistic design of the machine itself is pretty darn cool.  There are no logos or otherwise identifying marks on either the box it shipped in, or the netbook itself.  The only id on it was the sender's address, Bryan Jeffries.  (Thanks Bryan!)  So it was a total surprise when I opened the box and found the Chrome instruction sheet.  I suspect that was planned by Google, though a heads-up that it shipped wouldn't have been a bad idea.  Good thing I was home.

Startup and setup are pretty simple as well.  It's a simple matter of powering on, accepting the terms and conditions, allowing the netbook to download software updates, signing in with your Google account, and taking a webcam pic for the ID.  I am hoping I can figure out how to change that profile pic.  Iz nastaaay...

As part of the package, you get two years of 100MB per day usage of Verizon's wireless network for the 3G portion of the connectivity.  Otherwise, the local wi-fi will do.

Hardware: I'm not used to this type of keyboard, so I can see that there'll be a bit of a learning curve there.  I'm not too worried about it.  I will have to play a bit with learning the touchpad, the keyboard shortcuts and such, but the real reason for the netbook is the convenience, so a little learning curve is to be expected, I think.  I'll let you know about my progress as it goes along.

UX so far?  Its Chrome.  I use it every day anyway, so only the additional connectivity settings and user security options are new. As far as the light OS footprint, I'm really not in a position to judge yet.  I'll need to figure out how to get the system specs, download and store files, (if that's even possible on a cloud-based OS), and most importantly, use it for work.

Here's hoping I get some discussion going on here.  Any other Cr-48 users out there?  What do you think so far?  Wanna compare notes?

Thanks,
-David.