Samsung Chromebook Limited by Internet Dependency

The Samsung Chromebook Reviewed: Worth Buying, But Limited by Its Internet Dependency | MIT Technology Review: ". . . . One of the big changes to the latest versions of Chrome OS compared to earlier ones is that Google has added a Windows-style taskbar to the bottom of the screen. That helps it look more familiar to a Windows user, but there are still no conventional programs. Instead you must turn to Google’s Chrome Web Store. You can browse the store’s limited selection, and click to add the apps you want to use; the next time you open a browser tab, they appear as icons. You can also add apps to the taskbar across the bottom of the screen for quick access—as I did for e-mail and online documents—or access them all from a menu button there. If you don’t pause to ponder the difference between an “app” and a bookmark (often there is none at all), it works surprisingly well. Apps exist for most things you might want to do, whether that’s play games or edit spreadsheets. . . . At $249, the Wi-Fi-only Samsung Chromebook is worth buying for anyone who wants a cheap, functional laptop that’s also light and responsive. Acer’s $199 Chromebook is probably also a good buy. But if Google wants its computers to make sense as anything more than the cheapest serviceable laptops on the market, it will have to either subsidize 3G data or fix Chrome OS’s offline limitations."

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