14 DAY TRIAL // Google has been extremely active over the past few days, and beside all of those Android-related surprises they've provided (you can read more about those in our Telecoms News section), they've also officially unveiled what just about everyone's been waiting for quite a long while now, namely the first-ever netbook to run their Chrome operating system.
Dubbed Cr-48, the Chrome OS netbook takes its name after an isotope of the material Chromium from Mendeleev's table of elements, which sorts of signifies that we're not talking about a finite product just yet, but somewhat of an intermediary variant.
The device is a 12.1-inch system, featuring a full size keyboard and somewhat oversized clickpad, but the keyboard does have some peculiarities compared to a standard QWERTY, namely the fact that the function keys have been replaced by a series of Apple-kile action keys, while the Caps Lock key has been removed completely, a Search button taking its place.
Furthermore, the netbook will apparently provide an impressive battery life (more than 8 hours of active use and up to a whopping 8 days in stand-by), which really leaves us wondering just what this thing's configuration is (AMD Fusion APU, anyone?).
Other features worth mentioning include the Qualcomm Gobi 3G chip, 802.11n dual-band WiFi, a built-in webcam and flash storage, as well as the built-in USB port and VGA output.
What's also very important to mention is the fact that Google's not actually selling the CR-48, but instead offering it via a program called Pilot, which is sort of a public beta, both for the netbook and for the operating system.
However, in order to get into the Pilot program, one will have to fill a pretty lengthy application, and even so, it's not quite sure that, even in this case, they will receive a unit, given the fact that the available number of Cr-48 netbooks is limited.
Sadly, as far as we can see, the Pilot program is only open to US applicants for the time being, which is a bit sad, since we would have really loved to apply ourselves in order to get our hands on one of these things.
Anyway, Google's clearly not targeting a profit with the Cr-48 (after all, they're giving them away for free), but does manage to achieve two separate goals: first, it shows the world what they can expect from the Cr-48 running the Chrome OS, and then, it allows them to get real-life usage feedback from the people participating in the Pilot program.
And it seems that we'll have to wait until mid-2011 in order to get our hands on the market-ready products, coming from some of the world's best-known portable systems' manufacturers, such as Samsung and Acer.
