Look how tiny it is!

In June I finally decided it was time to buy a Kindle. I had just donated a bunch of books that I didn’t want anymore, and decided I’d rather not add to my physical collection in the future. That, and I also love playing with new gadgets So I picked up one of the 3G models for $189. The free, lifetime, worldwide 3G coverage seemed worth the extra $50 to me. I envision that it will be highly convenient at airports, train stations, hotels, etc.

Now that it’s been a few months, and I’ve been able to complete several books, I wanted to jot down my thoughts.

The Hardware

When I unboxed it, I couldn’t believe how light and tiny it was. As you can see from the photo above, it’s not much bigger than my hand. At 0.335″ thick it’s also exceptionally thin.

The next thing I noticed was the brilliance of the e-ink screen. I actually thought that the initial writing on the screen was a plastic overlay…then I looked closely and realized that it was just pre-programmed on to the e-ink screen!

The screen is the #1 reason why any avid reader should buy one of these over a backlit iPad or Nook Color. It looks as good as paper. The words jump off the page. And most of all, it doesn’t tire your eyes out. I can’t really put in to words how great it looks. All I can say is that this is far far better than reading on any LCD/LED screen I’ve ever read on. At the end of the day my eyes are tired from looking at a monitor all day long. I don’t want that fatigue on my reading device as well. I’d rather read on paper than on a backlit screen.

The rest of the hardware is actually pretty brilliant. The buttons to turn pages are perfectly placed. You can tell that they fixed a lot of the issues from previous versions. It just feels right when you’re holding it, and no matter how I’m holding it I never have to adjust my position to flip to the next page.

In terms of not having a touch screen, something that I’ve seen debated quite a bit – I actually prefer it that way. The joystick takes a bit of getting used to, but at least the screen isn’t covered in fingerprints! I hope that Amazon always offers a non-touch screen version.

Lastly, the battery life of up to 2 months is simply amazing. I rarely even think about charging it. I think I’ve only charged it a few times since I bought it, something drastically different than what we’re used to with most electronics.

The Software

The software does exactly what it should – it gets out of the way so that you can read. Like any OS it has it’s quirks, but nothing you don’t get used to in the first few uses. When I start reading it picks up exactly where I left off, which is all you could really want from e-reader software. You also get all of the reading features you’d desire – the ability to control font size, highlight passages, change orientation to landscape, the ability to quickly search text or jump to another chapter – plus a whole lot more.

The experimental features, like “read to me” (where it dictates the book to you) and the web browser are OK. They’re fun to play with, but at the end of the day that’s not why you buy a device like this. The browser is better than I thought it would be…but it still sucks. If you need to read a Wikipedia article, or type a quick email, it’s sufficient, but anything more and you’ll drive yourself nuts with the slow page refreshes. To be honest, it’s so much faster to do those things on my phone that I haven’t really used the browser since day 1.

How I Use It

I have two primary uses for it: reading new books and reading articles using Instapaper.

When it comes to books, shopping on the Kindle itself works pretty good, but I still prefer to use Amazon on my computer and just have it sync when I start up the Kindle. The Kindle Store on the Kindle lets you buy right off your wishlist, so if I don’t have my computer handy I usually just buy a book straight off my wishlist. Like everything Amazon does, having my credit card tied right to my account makes it extraordinarily simple to buy something – it’s literally one click and then a minute later it’s downloaded and ready to read.

Once I start reading a book, it really just feels like I’m reading a book. The experience itself is no better or worse than reading a physical book, which I think is the highest praise you can give a device like this. It truly gets out of the way so you can read. I’ll still buy a book from time to time, either because it’s not available on the Kindle, or because it has an artistic component that the Kindle can’t capture (say a large hardcover with brilliant photos), or because I’m heading to the beach as I did recently (gotta keep the sand out!). Otherwise I think I’ll just buy all of my books for the Kindle. It’s just so much more convenient – no need to wait, no need to store it somewhere, no need to return a borrowed book.

The other, potentially more intriguing usage is Instapaper. Any time I come across a long, interesting article on the web, I send it to my Instapaper, which syncs daily with my Kindle. You have to set it up to sync over wi-fi only, otherwise Amazon will charge you a data fee to sync over 3G. Instapaper does a great job of helping you set this up. Once it’s up and running, I just click the Instapaper button in my browser (I installed the Chrome Extension, but there’s a bookmarklet that works in all browsers), and then it shows up on my Kindle to read the next time I fire it up. I recently read the great New Yorker article Getting Bin Laden. It took a solid half hour or more to read. I would not have wanted to read that on my computer – my eyes would bleed! In fact, in the past I probably wouldn’t have read it for that reason. There’s also the added bonus of reading distraction free, without everything else on my computer pulling me away from reading. With the Kindle, it’s just me and the text.

Wishlist

I really only have one wish: color e-ink on a higher resolution screen (OK so maybe that’s two wishes). I say this because I still read a lot of magazines and those still don’t have a viable replacement. To me, the iPad or Nook Color isn’t because of the backlit screens. And the Kindle isn’t because of the lower resolution and black and white screen. I want eye popping color e-ink…and it’s coming. But in the meantime I’ll continue to read all of my magazines every month (I believe I’m subscribed to 5) and then throw them in the recycling bin. Part of the joy of reading a magazine, especially Sports Illustrated or Wired or Fast Company, is that they have beautiful layouts and photography. A device won’t be the ultimate reading device for me until it can translate that as seamlessly as the Kindle handles reading a novel.

Conclusions

This is a device for people who read a decent amount of books. If you only read a book or two a year, or if you don’t read at all, it probably won’t make sense to get one (most people I know who don’t read much don’t seem to “get” the awesomeness of e-ink). But if you read a lot, I think the time to finally buy one of these is now. The price has gotten low enough that it’s worth it to me. Especially when you factor in the instant purchases, the space savings (compared to a huge bookshelf), and the ability to read online content using Instapaper.

In terms of a comparison to the iPad – I don’t really think there is one. If you want a reading device, you’re crazy to pick an iPad over this. And if you want a multi-purpose device that does the web, games, apps, email, video chat, and also has the ability to read a little bit, then you’d be crazy to buy a Kindle over an iPad. They’re really two separate devices for two separate uses, which is why they’re both succeeding.

Update 9/7/2011 – got one of these “official” Kindle Leather Cover cases for my birthday, and it’s amazing. It has a reading light that’s powered by the Kindle battery. Absolutely brilliant!

While any modern smartphone is more than capable of being a MP3 player, it comes with several disadvantages. If you break it, you break your phone. If you lose it, you lose your phone. It’s most definitely heavier and bigger. It uses your phone’s battery. And you can get interrupted with phone calls while working out.

To me, it’s well worth the $39.99 for the Clip. Case in point – I lost my original Clip about a month ago. It was probably three years old. I spent a few minutes looking for it but when it became evident that it was probably permanently lost, I just hopped on Amazon, ordered a new one, spent 15 minutes adding music to it when it arrived, and I was back in business.

I feel much the same way about the GPS in my car. While I could use my phone, it just seems simpler and more convenient to have a dedicated device just for navigating me around. Not to mention that a good GPS now a days is under $100.

Tying this back to my last post about the Chromebook: if the Chromebook was a $99 computer it would begin to make sense for everyone to have one…just because it’s a $99 computer. I’ve noticed that I treat my CR-48 totally differently than I do my laptop. It’s less valuable to me so I’m more willing to use it in situations I probably wouldn’t use my laptop: outside, on the train, while I’m eating, to read recipes while I’m in the kitchen cooking, etc. If all MP3 players like the Clip were $100+ I probably would just suck it up and use my phone. The low price point makes it expendable, which in turn makes it an awesome device. With a $99 Chromebook all of a sudden you overlook it’s shortcomings and see that it has a 3G connection, long battery life, and boots up almost instantly, and it becomes a pretty attractive device to have around just for the sake of having it. If Google doesn’t do it, someone else eventually will. ASUS has a $200 computer on the way. It’s just a matter of time before prices dip under $100.

We’re living in exciting times for computing. There’s this ubiquity that’s forming where the lines are blurred between what’s a web browser, an app, and an operating system, and what’s a computer, a tablet, a phone, an e-reader, a gaming machine, a television, etc. The announcements from Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, and the like seem to be coming at us fast and furious. It’s pretty awesome that we’re right in the middle of it all.

While Google has a huge horse in the race with Android, they seem to be taking a much bigger risk with Chrome OS, their cloud operating system, and Chromebooks, the computers that will run Chrome OS. I’m about as high as one could be on a browser-only operating system. For one, I’m a web developer so I’d love to see the world running exclusively on web apps. I’ve also been using Chrome OS almost daily with the CR-48 test computer I received for having LockerPulse featured in the Chrome Web App store.

The CR-48 is a great little device. It’s a solid backup computer for me – I can do email and light work – and it’s a great device for quickly looking something up or browsing the web when my primary laptop isn’t booted up. I can also see it being used by schools, in kiosks, and by businesses for certain employees that don’t need much more than email and docs.

Google sees it the same way. Which is why I was baffled at the pricing when it came out. Very few people in their right mind are going to pay $400 – $600 for one of these things (or $28/mo for a subscription). You can get a pretty powerful Windows 7 laptop for that price that can do a ton more. Sure Chrome OS has a few advantages in terms of simplicity and security…but it’s still just a freaking browser. The advantages that Google thinks it has aren’t that big of advantages for most people in most situations, at least not compared to giving up every application on their computer. I think it’s safe to say that most people who use computers somewhat regularly rely on programs outside of the browser.

I look at us as just one example of a company who could consider buying a Chromebook. Our next hire will be spending most of their time answering customer service emails using our new system. Perfect candidate for a Chromebook right? Wrong. They can’t utilize our synchronized text expansion, and they can’t use Skype, two things I consider critical to their job. There are also a few other applications that we prefer everyone has on their computer if they need them. So, even though they’ll be in the browser 95%+ of the time, those other applications are critical to their productivity. Which is why we’d rather spend $500 – $1k on a decent Windows 7 laptop instead of $500 on a Chromebook that can’t run those programs, even if it means I have to spend a day configuring the computer and installing the software.

This OS is largely a bet on how we’ll be computing in 10 or 15 years, that the browser will become so robust that it doesn’t make sense to develop any local applications. That may or may not happen, it may or may not be too late for them to make this push already, but the real important thing that the Chrome OS team doesn’t seem to get is that that time hasn’t come yet. You can listen to music in the browser and edit photos and the like, but it’s not something that everyone is used to doing, or even wants to do.

What I’m really trying to get at is the same thing that I mentioned when I reviewed the CR-48: to get people to adopt this, the price is going to need to be low. Really low. Despite what Google might think, it’s the best advantage they can bring to the table. Back then I said sub-$300, but now I think we’re talking sub-$100. This thing would have to be $99 for it to even have a chance of getting mass adoption. My partners and I might think twice if, all of a sudden, we’d only need to spend $99 for each employee. That might be enough in the long term for us to switch to Google Chat and for me to write a Chrome extension for our text expansion!

Instead of having Samsung and Acer upgrade the CR-48 tech specs, they might have been better off just keeping costs low and selling something basic, simple, and cheap like the CR-48. They might have had to take a loss in the short term if they want the OS to exist in the long term, something I’d think Google could afford to do. Otherwise, I think people are going to continue to buy Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android devices en masse and fail to see why they’d pay $500 for a browser.

Which got me to thinking – is it possible that with all of the technology and content we have available today, it might actually be more difficult to write a biography like this for someone living right now? I mean, I’ve got some 750+ blog posts and a bunch of tweets and Facebook posts and whatnot all scattered throughout the web, so really anyone who wanted to could write a basic biography about me without ever talking to me or anyone who personally knows me. However, if I were to die tomorrow, there is no stack of letters to leave behind. In 1850 people didn’t make phone calls or write emails, they wrote letters. Most of the intimate personal correspondence that I’ve had in my life has happened over the phone or via email (or in person, which is sort of irrelevant to the discussion since that also happened in the 1800′s). The phone calls are lost. The emails aren’t, but that’s not something that’s typically made public these days. I don’t think I’d personally care if my personal and work emails were made public after I died, but I’m probably in the minority, and I’ve never written or done anything juicy enough for a biography to be written about me.

A better example, since I doubt there will ever be a biography about me, is Barack Obama. We’ve got YouTube videos galore, countless TV and print interviews, speeches, Tweets, and more. But 40-ish years from now when he passes away, will The White House create an online archive of all of his emails? Will his family do the same with his personal emails? That doesn’t seem like something that would be very likely. So when I contemplate whether an author will ever have a way to access Obama’s inner thoughts in the way that Ronald C. White Jr. and others have been able to access Lincoln’s, my guess, as of right now, is probably not. Ironically, in this case, technology – or, more precisely, how our culture uses that technology – may be an inhibitor to future learning. And that kind of sucks.

Back in 2008 we migrated all of our email to Google Apps. Along with email, we also moved all of our documents and wikis. It’s almost impossible to quantify how well this has worked, between the time-savings, cost-savings, and collaborative features. I almost can’t imagine running an organization without it. Over the past few years the Google Apps Blog has done countless stories on large companies and organizations, including many governments and municipalities, who have ditched all of the costs of hosting their own email and documents in favor of Google.

For a long time we’ve been planning to upgrade from the free version to the Permiere version, which costs $50 per year per user, and offers features like more email storage, more business security features like forced SSL, a 99% uptime guarantee, and 24×7 support. These things aren’t necessary when you’re first starting out, but there comes a point where $50/year/user is a ridiculously cheap price to pay for those things. I’m a big believer in “you get what you pay for”, especially in business. You can only get just so mad when a free service goes down or temporarily loses a little of your data or doesn’t respond to a question you have. We’re at the point now though where we can’t afford to have those things happen. A day without email would be close to catastrophic, which is why we’ve now upgraded.

We also upgraded because we’re in the middle of a massive overhaul of how we do email, particularly how we handle customer service, in preparation for hiring a customer service employee soon. We’re planning on using even more of the Google Apps functionality in our day-to-day workflow, which just heightens the need for all of those things that the Premiere account offers.

Of course, Google and Gmail have had their fair share of outages and data loss, so we’ve also signed up for Backupify, which automatically backs up everything in our Google Apps (and Flickr and other services) for $19.99/month. In an absolute worst case scenario, like if Google ceased to exist, we could be back up and running in less than a day with very little data lost. Another no brainer for us at this stage in the game.

When I was completing the sign up process, I had a moment where I thought “I’m also happy that we’re paying because this is a way to pay Google back for all of the great free stuff they’ve made available to our business”. Of course, then I thought about all of those services and realized that over the years we’ve paid G a boatload of money for AdWords…so maybe I’ll just stick with all of those other reasons for upgrading.

March 2011 Wired Magazine Cover

That’s the cover of last month’s Wired magazine. The corresponding piece by Joel Johnson, 1 Million Workers. 90 Million iPhones. 17 Suicides. Who’s to Blame? is a really thought provoking read about the Foxconn plant in China where iPhones are manufactured…and where 17 people have killed themselves in the past five years. It probably would be more if they didn’t install “suicide nets” to safely catch anyone who tries to jump:

Foxconn Suicide Nets, via Wired.com

The sister piece, Made in America: Small Businesses Buck the Offshoring Trend discusses a trend of American businesses who are choosing to manufacture in the US to cut down on mistakes, save on shipping costs, and stop intellectual property theft. A lot of this is made possible by using automation to counter cheap overseas labor.

But what if there’s another option? What if consumers would just pay more for an American-made iPad?

Do we care? My personal opinion is that people do, just that they don’t have a choice. If I want an iPad my only choice is one made in China by Foxconn. Now, if I walked into a store and saw two iPad’s, one made in South Carolina selling for $599 and one identical one made in China selling for $499, that’s how you’d figure out if consumers care or not.

It’s hard to say how I’d react in that situation, but I think there’s a decent chance that I’d pay extra for that iPad with a “Made in USA” sticker on it, and the label explaining how this iPad was “made close to home with environmentally friendly manufacturing processes by American workers in a safe and modern manufacturing environment”…or whatever other advantages they could place on a US-made iPad.

And before you say, “Adam, that would never work!”, consider the one good example of this that’s succeeding right before our eyes: organic foods (and other organic products). People are willing to pay huge premiums – 10%, 25%, 100%, even more – to buy vegetables that don’t contain pesticides or meat from cattle that was grass-fed. Many times the sources of your organic food are local farms and not some farm on the other side of the world. Even during a recession, even at price-conscious chains like Walmart, organic food sales continue to grow at ridiculous rates.

Why? Because ultimately I think people care about where their stuff comes from. You just have to make the choice easy. When I’m standing in the super market and I see two packages of chicken, one from an organic farm and one not, it’s hard not to buy the organic chicken even if it’s a few dollars more. Part of it is that I think it’s a healthier choice, but I also like supporting local companies with good, safe, sustainable practices. I almost feel cheap/guilty if I don’t buy organic when the choice is so simple! Clearly I’m not alone.

So while it might not be an apples-to-apples comparison (no pun intended), I think that there’s a decent chance that given a fair opportunity, people would choose a slightly more expensive product to know that it was made in a place where workers weren’t killing themselves with regularity.

Update 4/23/2011 – I was driving home today listening to TWiT when Leo Laporte and Kevin Rose brought up literally the same idea. A few minutes of interesting discussion ensued. Here’s the video on YouTube (I linked to the correct time in the video, but there’s a minute or two of backstory).

Update 5/7/2011 – This Wired.com article from yesterday, New Report Details Onerous, Illegal Working Conditions At Foxconn, depicts some of the poor working conditions at Foxconn, including working up to 100 hours of overtime per month (36 is the legal limit in China).

Update 5/22/2011 – a deadly explosion at Foxconn this week killed two and injured 16, and is also threatening to create an iPad shortage.

Mark Cuban professes to read three hours a day. [He points out] that one great idea he gets from a magazine he spends hours reading will pay off a thousand times over for his business. The challenge then is to limit the crap you consume and focus on what’s actually going to help you. You know, so you can actually make progress with your company. I might not spend three hours a day like Mark Cuban, but I’d say I read close to two a day.

I stand by that quote I wrote in 2008. Since writing that post about what I read, and the follow-up post in 2009, there has only been one major thing that I’ve changed about the way I consume news: I listen to Podcasts.

I listen to an array of shows, but my favorites are TWiT podcasts “This Week in Tech” and “This Week in Google”. Each are weekly, over an hour long, and jam packed with the important tech news I want to know about. The hosts, led by Leo Laporte, are some of the most intelligent, knowledgeable people in tech. Often times I feel like I’m sitting at a coffee shop listening in on their conversations. The shows feel that authentic.

Which has led me to ponder the question: do I still need to read TechCrunch? The answer I’ve come to is no. 190.6 posts per week is too much. It’s not that they don’t produce good content or interesting content, it’s that there are probably only 5-10 really important tech stories per week that I want to see. It’s not worth the effort to scan close to 200 stories to find a handful to read.

To compensate, I’ve subscribed to Wired Epicenter (15.4 posts/week) and ars technia web (8.9 posts/week) to keep some tech news in my reader, and anything else I’m sure I’ll hear about on the podcasts or through Twitter. I also trimmed down my Lifehacker reading from the full feed (125.3 posts/week) to the top stories feed (31.5 posts/week).

There’s nothing like not reading your feeds for a few days, and then opening up Google Reader to find 200+ unread Lifehacker + TechCrunch stories. It begins to feel like a chore, and that’s not the way I want it to be. Picking up my CR-48 and opening up Google Reader is one of my favorite things to do after a long day. Hopefully this will cut down the time spent reading and scanning hundreds of headlines, freeing up more time to read more of the really great long-form articles on the blogs I follow, keeping up better with the magazines I subscribe to (Inc., Fast Company, Wired), reading a few more books, and, you know, having more time to do a few other enjoyable things with my free time.

The Hardware

So supposedly Google doesn’t want anyone to critique the Cr-48 hardware. It’s simply just a shell to house Chrome OS, the real devices won’t necessarily be anything like it, they say. That would be fine if they just sent me a clunky 15.6″ laptop that weighed 8 lbs.

But they didn’t. The Cr-48 is light (only 3.8 lbs) and tiny (11.8″ x 8.6″ x .9″) with a 12.1″ screen (1200 x 800 resolution), full keyboard, very responsive trackpad (similar to the Macbook’s), and a sleek matte finish. There isn’t much else – a webcam, a mic, a USB port, a headphone jack, a memory card reader, and a VGA out. Under the hood, you’re looking at a 1.66 GHz Atom processor, 2 GB of RAM, and a 16 GB SSD. Here are the full specs if you’re interested in more.

Before I booted it up I was taken back by the form factor of the computer. It’s absolutely beautiful. The unbranded, unmarked, matte finish makes it the coolest looking computer I’ve ever used. From a size standpoint, it’s everything a netbook should be but fails at. It’s as light and tiny as possible without compromising usability. One can only hope that the manufacturers of the real Chrome OS devices take note.

Here’s a look at the size. As you can see it’s not much bigger than a magazine:

They keyboard is also pretty cool. Gone are the function keys, replaced with more useful keys, and gone is the caps lock key, replaced with a search key.

The Software

On to what I actually should be reviewing. Considering we probably won’t see any of these devices on the market until mid-2011, I was pretty impressed with how well the OS worked.

It boots up really fast, less than 10 seconds from being shut off and almost instantly out of sleep mode. The first time you flip the lid open it starts booting up. I though to myself “why don’t all computers do this?” I’ve found myself almost never shutting the system down – I simply close the lid whenever I’m done and then open it when I need it again. Whether you shut down or not, you resume your session exactly where you left off, which I love.

Once you’re in, it’s basically a Chrome browser, with a few exceptions. My favorite “feature” is how it handles new windows. They’re essentially the same as “workspaces” in Linux or Mac. The button above the number 6 key switches windows. I immediately set up one “personal” window with Google Reader, Twitter, and LockerPulse tabs, and then one “work” window with my Pure Adapt Google Apps Start Page. Right now I’m writing this in the “work” window, but it’s easy to slide over and check Twitter and then slide back to work. Remember, since your session never “expires” these two windows will always be set up like this for me. It’s very subtle but very important – I was expecting to just have a slew of tabs open.

“Panels” are pop-up windows that tuck away in the lower-right corner of your screen. They’re used by applications like scratchpad (basically notepad) and Google Talk, and to show you the “file system”, which is my main gripe with the OS at this point.

There is a file system that sort of works with the USB drive and memory card reader, but I couldn’t get it to function. Plug a USB mouse in and it works. Put anything else in the USB drive and nothing happens. Same with the memory card reader. Most of the time when you browse for a file you just get your downloads folder. Occasionally you’ll actually get a linux-like file menu that lets you browse everything, including attached devices. Unfortunately it never worked when I wanted it to and I had to upload the pictures in this post using my laptop and then go back to the Cr-48 to write the content. I’m assuming this is something that will be worked out in future OS releases prior to the commercial launch. A simple file panel when you plug in a USB device or put in a memory card would be perfect.

The other big issue is video playback. With 2 GB of RAM, this device should have no problem playing video, but it does. Hulu skips noticeably. NBA.com highlights were unwatchable. Now, in fairness to Chrome OS, I suspect that this is more of an issue with Adobe Flash for Linux than it is with anything else. Anyone who has used a linux OS in the past can attest to how poor Flash runs compared to it’s Windows and Mac versions. YouTube videos play great, so I suspect that this is something that they’ll be able to work out.

Battery life is fantastic. I’ve been using it on and off all day long today, probably for 3 hours total, and I still have 72% remaining, and I’ve been using the display on the maximum brightness. Official specs say up to 8 hours, which sounds about right. I’ve also noticed that no matter how long I keep it on my lap it doesn’t heat up and the fan never kicks on, something unlike any other laptop I’ve ever used.

Of course, I have to mention the Web App Store. All of a sudden, once you use Chrome OS, it makes total sense. It’s a great discovery tool. Let’s say I need a photo-editing web app. Why search Google for a website when I can find something in the app store that, at a minimum works well in Chrome, and potentially has deeper integration with the OS?

When I first booted up, I installed LockerPulse. Since I had previously connected my Google Account to my LockerPulse Account on my laptop, I was instantly logged in to LP and the first time I launched the app I was brought right to My News. That’s just one tiny integration. Over time as more developers utilize HTML5 and integrate their sites deeper with the OS, the App Store will become more and more valuable.

The Connectivity

Right now, Chrome OS is useless without being connected to the web. There is a Settings tab where you can manage basic settings including your connections. I’ve only connected via wi-fi, but the computer comes with a 3G modem and bluetooth. As far as I know, there’s no way to connect with bluetooth yet, but you can connect via 3G using Verizon. The service plan is absolutely brilliant: 100 MB free per month for everyone, $9.99 unlimited day passes, and several other monthly plans starting at $20/month. I wouldn’t need it often, but I could totally see myself snagging a day pass a few times per year when traveling.

Most people think of this need for connectivity as a downside. I think that’s short-sighted. With HTML5 local storage, the majority of apps that can be used offline will be available to be used offline pretty soon. I’d imagine that all Google products will have this prior to the commercial launch, so you’ll be able to use Gmail and work on Google Docs without being connected to the web.

My Usage

Right now this is immediately my #2 machine. I didn’t know what to expect when I heard I was getting one, but after using it I’m certain that I could work for a day or two using it if I had to. Despite what Google says, not everything can be done well in the browser, so for Skype and web development and photo editing to name a few, I need a fully-functional PC. It will likely be a long time before everything I do can be done inside of the browser.

That said, this is a perfect second computer. I didn’t have to do anything to set it up. It boots up quickly. It’s small and light. The OS updates itself so there’s no maintenance. I envision myself using it primarily as a consumption device, the computer I use to read LockerPulse, Twitter, and Google Reader while I’m sitting on the couch with the TV on. I also see myself using it to write blog posts and do some light work. I’ll probably also take it with me in situations where I might not take my laptop for fear of losing it or breaking it. The example that comes to mind is on the train to NYC, something I do a few times each year.

I can’t wait to see how the OS improves itself and how my Cr-48 gets better over time. I absolutely love using this thing.

The Market

I think there’s a market for these right now. There are a lot of jobs that only require email access, light document editing, and some web-based software. For those people, these are perfect devices. They’re secure, they update themselves, and they’re easily swappable or replaceable. It’s also the perfect devices for public places, like libraries, hotels, and coffee shops. It might even be an attractive option for schools.

I could see us buying a few of these for our employees. Someone like Charlie who manages our warehouse doesn’t need a full-fledged Windows computer. He only uses email, Google Docs, and our web based admin system. When we hired him we gave him Greg’s old laptop. I spent probably 8 hours wiping out the system, installing Windows 7, and installing and configuring software for him. I had to write it all down in our wiki so that next time I knew exactly what to do. Most of that could have been avoided if we just handed him one of these. This might not work for a programmer or designer, but it could work for Charlie or for a customer service employee, and for the rest of us it would be cool to have a few of these around for travel or as backups.

Long term, like 10+ years long term, this very well might be the OS that the majority of people use. It makes everything so damn simple. Give the web and Google time to catch up to desktop software, and factor in that most kids now a days don’t do much more than email, web browsing, and Facebook, and it’s not all that far-fetched. I applaud Google for trying. Worst case it ends up being a successful niche product. After using it I can’t see it falling flat all together.

The Bottom Line

Price. I haven’t mentioned it to this point, but that’s really what it comes down to. If these devices are $500 they won’t be very successful when you pit them up against comparably priced Windows computers, and Chrome OS may never get off the ground. I think $300 is the magic number for us to consider it for our employees, and I think if it’s less than that they’ll fly off the shelves. Schools, libraries, companies, grandmas all will see these as a “good enough” option for the price. If Google can get any sort of mass adoption, the whole thing – the devices, the OS, the Apps – could really start to take off.

Last month I finally decided to upgrade my laptop. I’d been running the old Toshiba since 2007. At the time it was a powerhouse. It still served me well right up to the end, when a BSOD finally forced my hand. I probably would have upgraded in the next few months anyway.

I’d been window shopping for a new laptop for quite some time. What stopped me from pulling the trigger was that I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted. First and foremost, I wanted a laptop that was light and small and had long battery life. I also wanted it to be as powerful as possible. It’s like saying you want a Hummer with the gas mileage of a Prius. It aint gonna happen. You have to compromise somewhere.

I initially was pretty set on buying a souped up HP Envy 15. Total cost would have been just over $2,000, but I would have gotten a quad core processor with 6GB of RAM and a 1080P LED screen in a relatively sleek laptop. Of course, the battery life wouldn’t have exactly been stellar and I was hoping to be smaller than 15″. My old laptop was a 15.1″ and it just felt a little too big and bulky to cart around with me.

Once I got the BSOD, I researched a ton of laptops. I like a lot of the Sony models, but each one I liked was missing a feature here or a feature there that was a deal breaker. During my search, HP came out with their new line of laptops. Initially this threw me for a loop because I had this massive spreadsheet with models that no longer existed, but after doing some more research I eventually settled on one of their new Ultra Portable HP dm4t laptops.

I added quite a bit to the base price of $729. My eventual cost was just over $1200, but boy was it worth it. I upgraded to an i5 dual core, 6 GB of RAM, and a 7200 RPM hard drive. It’s not exactly equivalent to a top-of-the-line desktop, but it more than suits my needs. The portability really sold me. 14.1″ LED screen, 4.4lbs, and only 1″ thick. The estimated battery life is 6.5hrs, which is way more than the other comparable laptops (even though I take those estimates with a huge grain of salt).

I used the laptop for 2 hours of legit work the other day and still had 71% battery left. This is a HUGE deal for me. I love to work out and about at coffee shops and I absolutely hate hunting for outlets.

The laptop also has HDMI out, which is pretty standard these days. To compliment it, I picked up a Acer P235Hbmid Black 23″ 5ms HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor. At the time it was on sale for $179.99.

When I’m home, I’ve moved to using a 2 monitor setup. I primarily like using one monitor (you know, because you can only focus on one thing at a time and I hate distractions), however having the laptop monitor available for smaller secondary things like Skype conversations is convenient. My old setup had a 1280 x 800 laptop resolution with a 1680 x 1050 monitor resolution. The new setup has a 1366 x 768 laptop resolution and a 1920 x 1080 monitor resolution. It’s a 12% increase in total screen area, which might not seem like a lot but every little bit helps when you’re programming.

It’s only been a few weeks, but I’m extremely happy with the purchase. This has been my first extensive use of Windows 7. I personally didn’t hate Vista with a passion like the rest of the free world, but I am very impressed by the interface improvements and some of the under-the-hood improvements in networking and device recognition.

The keyboard is amazing. I love typing on it. The one downside is the touch pad, which I think is a major step backwards (I may be in the minority who thinks this, but the red button was the best touch pad ever, used it on my laptop all through college). This new HP one is all one big button for both scrolling and clicking, which seemingly should work, but I have a ton of trouble trying to click and drag. Mike has 2 computers with this same new touch pad and he hates it too. Thankfully I carry a wireless mouse with me so it’s not something I’ll ever use regularly.

Here are a few quick pics as compared to my old laptop. You’ll see just how much thinner and smaller it is. I picked up a new case to reflect that. It’s over 2lbs lighter, almost a 33% difference, which is very noticeable when I’m out and about all day long.

I also picked up some Moleskine notebooks. I always carry my laptop, charger, mouse, and a notebook for doodling ideas or wireframing new projects. Most of the time I program I’m working off of a wireframe or some pseudo code that I hand wrote.

As an aside, getting set up was super easy. When you base almost everything in the cloud, it’s a matter of downloading Firefox, syncing Xmarks, and setting up Thunderbird, Skype and a few other programs, and everything is exactly the way it was on the old computer. Gotta love it.

I’m in the process of setting up a sweet new home office in my apartment. Once that’s complete I’ll post some pictures of the entire set up.

Which got me to thinking: since everyone carries a cell phone now a days, have wrist watch sales plummeted? If so, I’d say people wore watches primarily to tell time and now don’t need them anymore. If not, I’d say people wear watches for style, and therefore are independent of cell phone use.

I did a quick Google search and found an ABC News article from 2006 entitled In the iPod and Cell Phone Age, Who Needs a Watch?. It seemed to support my theory:

Statistics bear this out. In the price category most frequently purchased by teens and young adults, watch sales have fallen by 10 percent in the last year. Sales of teen watches have as well, according to the Donegar Group of New York. And the decline accelerated in the last quarter of 2005, which included the Christmas shopping season.

At the same time, Pew Internet Project reports that 45 percent of all teens have a cell phone, and that a bigger percentage of young adults carry either a cell phone or a digital assistant, or both, all of which display the time digitally.

Side note: gotta love 45% and “digital assistant”. I think the number is more like 90% now, and no one under 21 has heard of a PDA…

Anyway, I thought my hypothesis might have legs, so I decided to dig a little deeper. I came up with the idea of looking a two trends for several well known watch companies: their stock price and their search volume. The idea being that both of those should have decreased over the last several years. If cell phones are replacing watches as people’s primary time-telling device, there will be less sales of watches (decreasing stock price) and less interest in finding watches online (decreasing search volume). Neither is completely reliable, but I thought there might be a chance to spot an overall trend.

I started with a Google Shopping search for “watches” to figure out which brands to look at. I came up with:

• Fossil
• Citizen
• Rolex
• Timex
• Movado

Each of those names is synonymous with “wrist watches” in my mind. Some do other things, but they’re primarily about watches. I also liked the fact that there were some average priced brands (Fossil, Citizens, and Timex) and some luxury brands (Rolex, Movado). The stock price is reflective of a lot of things, but I thought the search volume for those names would especially be indicative of the trend.

Here are the graphs of both the stock price and search trends for the last five years.

Fossil

Quick analysis: increasing stock price, flat search demand

Citizen

Quick analysis: decreasing stock price, slightly decreasing search demand

Rolex

Quick analysis: N/A stock price (private company), slightly decreasing search demand

Timex

Quick analysis: decreasing stock price, flat search demand

Movado

Quick analysis: decreasing stock price, slightly decreasing search demand

I also looked at the overall search trend for “wrist watches” (“watches” was too general and had too many other search results about things like “neighborhood watch” and “crisis watch” mixed in to be valuable). This too was down:

At a quick glance, I’d say that the watch industry is in decline, although maybe not as much as I originally suspected. I do think there is a correlation between increased cell phone usage and decreased interest in watches, and that the increased cell usage is at least partially responsible for the decline (i.e. there’s both correlation and causation). I also think that the only reason that interest in watches hasn’t fallen completely off a cliff is that there is still demand for watches as a style accessory first and a time-telling device second.

If I really wanted to go further, I would probably look at each company’s quarterly income statements and try to pull actual sale numbers for watches (way too much work though). Also, the lack of media coverage on the topic is a little surprising. I would have thought that more people would have picked up on this potential trend.

Your thoughts?