Editor’s Note: Because the Cr-48 netbook is a test product that is not for sale Sony VGP-BPS13 Battery commercially (and never will be), we’re not giving it a star rating.

Design of the Cr-48
The Cr-48 won’t be available to consumers Sony VGP-BPS13A/B Battery and Google has already stated the systems its partners launch in mid-2011 will not use this exact design or hardware. However, there are several things about this test system we found interesting, because they may inspire the final Sony VGP-BPS9/S Battery products.

First, we were amazed at how MacBook-like the Cr-48 is in its design. The chassis is rounded Sony VGP-BPS9A/B Battery and shaped like a last-generation plastic MacBook, its keyboard has the same size, shape, and nearly identical layout to a MacBook’s, and even Sony VGP-BPS9/B Battery the hinge, which sites in the middle of the chassis, takes its cues from a MacBook.
We love the black, soft-touch rubberized material that is used throughout the chassis and wish more products were made out of it. Laying Sony VGP-BPS9 Battery your wrists on the soft touch palmrest is a pleasant experience.

Though the official release of its cloud-based Chrome OS is months away, Google has begun a massive pilot Sony VGP-BPS8 Battery program, offering specially-chosen end users, Google employees, and journalists their own prototype Chrome netbooks. Known as the Sony VGP-BPS8A Battery Cr-48 (for the element Chromium 48), these particular 12.1-inch laptops will never be sold commercially, but they offer a very detailed preview of what we can expect from the first Chrome systems when they launch by Sony VGP-BPS2 Battery mid-2011. So what’s it like living in a browser-only PC?

There are numerous keyboard shortcuts which match those you would find in the Windows version Sony VGP-BPS2A Battery of Chrome. These include such as CTRL + H to see the history, CTRL + W to close a tab, and CTRL +/- to zoom in and out. You can see a Sony VGP-BPS2B Battery complete list of these by hitting CTRL + ALT + ?.

The touchpad does not have built-in buttons, but like many notebooks these days, is itself a button. In our experience most clickpad Sony VGP-BPS2C Battery designs, apart from the MacBooks, are unpleasant to use particularly if you like to navigate with one finger and click with another. The Cr-48’s Sony VGP-BPS13A/Q Battery clickpad alternated between making our cursor jump and stopping it mid-movement. Pinch-to-zoom didn’t work either. As we expected, Sony VGP-BPS13/B Battery right-clicking doesn’t do anything. To finish the review, we had to plug-in an external mouse.

Screen
The 12.1-inch screen has a 1280 x 800 resolution, which is extremely rare on notebooks these days but a welcome improvement Sony VGP-BPS13B/B Battery over the nearly-ubiquitous 1366 x 768 panels we see every day, because it allows plenty of vertical screen real estate for viewing web pages. Sony VGP-BPS13B/Q Battery The screen’s matte surface allowed it to provide really strong viewing angles to the left and right.

At 11.8 x 8.6 x 0.9 inches the Cr-48 is a very comfortable size for your Sony VGP-BPS13A/S Battery bag or holding on your lap, but its 3.8-pound weight seems a bit heavy for a system this size.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The very isolated keyboard layout provided good tactile feedback and key placement that makes typing on it a breeze. However, Sony VGP-BPS13/Q Battery you will notice that the keyboard has no function keys, but instead has dedicated keys for forward, back, refresh, full screen mode, change Sony VGP-BPS21A/B Battery windows, brightness up, brightness down, mute, audio up, audio down, and power on/off. The caps lock key has been replaced a search button, Sony VGP-BPS21/S Battery because Google says it wants to discourage all-caps typing.

Ports
There are very few ports on the device. On the right side is an SD card reader, an audio-out jack, and a USB port. On the left is a Sony VGP-BPS21 Battery VGA port. As stated above, storage devices and memory cards work for uploading files to the cloud, but do nothing else. We were able to Sony VGP-BPS21A Battery attach both a wired and a wireless mouse to the USB port and both worked pretty well.

If you don’t have a valid Gmail account already, you hit a bit of a wall at Sony VGP-BPS21B Battery the login prompt, because there’s no way to create one during setup. If you don’t already have a valid Google account, your best bet is to walk over to your nearest non-Chrome OS device, visit Google.com, and create your Sony VGP-BPS22 Battery account there before continuing.

The iPad Bluetooth keyboard/case race is starting to heat up. The newest entrant, the Zaggmate, features a Sony VGP-BPS22A Battery sturdy aircraft-grade aluminum shell, responsive keys, and a thin and light design. But is this $99 accessory worth the effort it takes good battery to use?

True to Google’s word, initial set up takes only a minute or so. After you power on the Cr-48 for the first time, you’re asked to Sony Laptop Battery configure your Internet connection by selecting a Wi-Fi network, then you’re asked to agree to the Google EULA, and finally asked to login with a fujitsu notebook battery Google account and given the option to take your picture with the webcam so the picture can accompany your login.

When it came to logging in, we noticed two interesting flaws. First, saus notebook battery the system did not recognize any Google account we used with a username that did not end in @gmail.com. When we tried to login with our laptopmag.com address, which is a registered Google Apps user account, or with another sony notebook battery Yahoo address that’s registered with Google, the system said our account could not be located.

Keyboard Features
Like the Kensington Keyfolio, we liked that the Zaggmate reversed the function keys and let us ibm notebook battey perform tasks, such as controlling the volume, without having to press the Fn key first. Other useful shortcuts include buttons to launch a slideshow, apple notebook battery Search, and return to the Home screen.

Typing Experience
Unlike the KeyFolio, the Zaggmate's keys are not covered in a rubber membrane. It's more like a traditional keyboard, acer notebook battery which made this layout easier to type on. The keys were responsive and snappy, not to mention in the right place. However, the keys are smaller than those dell laptop battery found on a typical netbook.

Unfortunately, our fingers brushed up against the metal case when toshiba laptop battery pressing keys positioned on the outer edges of the keyboard (such as the Fn, Control, and arrow keys). You'll definitely make some errors until you get the hand of the fujitsu laptop battery layout.

Design and Setup
The Zaggmate is barely larger than the iPad itself, and at 12.8 ounces, is about 4 ounces lighter than the KeyFolio. You'd be saus laptop battery surprised, but that makes a lot of difference. The device has a power switch and a Bluetooth button for easy pairing. A small microUSB port on the left side is sony laptop battery used to recharge the device.

Instead of completely enveloping the iPad, the Zaggmate is designed to ibm laptop battey cover just the screen when stowed. When traveling, simply insert the iPad, face-down into the case. As it's the same color as the iPad, it looks like you're carrying around a hunk of aluminum. Just keep in mind that this case doesn't protect apple laptop battery the back of Apple's tablet.

In order to use the keyboard, you must pry the iPad out of the case, lift open the plastic tab and bring acer laptop battery it forward, then rest the iPad vertically in a slot above the keyboard. That's a pretty lengthy process just to use a physical keyboard. You can use dell battery this accessory in your lap, but the whole thing bounced around as we typed; the Zaggmate just doesn't feel secure when not being used on a toshiba battery desk.

Zagg says that the Zaggmate should last several weeks without fujitsu battery charging.

Verdict
Like the tablet category itself, the tablet accessory market is in its nascent stages, and companies are asus battery apt to get as much right as they do wrong. The $99 Zaggmate, like the similarly priced Kensington KeyFolio, is a perfect example. While we like sony battery the Zaggmate's sleek and sturdy design, not to mention its responsive keys, we were put off by the fact that you can't use this combo securely in your lap, and that the layout feels cramped. Although our hunt for the ideal iPad keyboard continues, the hp battery Zaggmate gets the job done.

The Nook's user interface has gone through some minor facelifts since its initial release, but ibm battery it remains essentially the same. It's based on Google's Android operating system, but heavily modified. The home screen offers nine icons: The Daily, My apple battery Library, Shop, Reading Now, Games, Wi-Fi, Audio, Web, and Settings. With this, Barnes & Noble brought to the forefront functions and settings that previously were two or more taps away. We definitely approve, particularly when it comes to acer battery Reading Now and accessing Wi-Fi controls.

Still, controlling the Nook isn't as intuitive as we'd like. It takes time to get used to moving the cursor dell notebook akku and making selections on the electronic paper display by using touch buttons on the LCD. Our eyes were drawn to the LCD when we toshiba notebook akku needed to look to the EPD to see our options.

When the Nook was first announced a year ago, Barnes & Noble promised that it would push over-the-air updates to enhance fujitsu notebook akku the eReader's functionality. Since that time there have been at least three major firmware updates that have not only added new apps and asus notebook akku upgrades, but have also significantly improved the Nook's speed. On top of improving performance, the bookseller also dropped the device's price to sony notebook akku $199 (from $259) and released an even less expensive Wi-Fi only version ($149). In our original review, we praised the hardware but wished for speedier software. Now that we have both and a lower price, we've decided to revisit the hp notebook akku Nook and give it a second look.

We're mostly fans of the Nook's dual-display concept--a standard 6-inch E Ink screen above a 3.5 x ibm notebook akku 1-inch LCD­--as it allows for a more robust feature set. The half-inch thick white plastic bezel that frames the two displays is slick apple notebook akku and smooth except for slightly matte areas where the Next/Previous page turn buttons are. The only other physical button on the Nook is the power/sleep control on top. The stylized n between the two displays serves as a capacitive Home button. acer notebook akku Two small speakers flank the headphone jack and miniUSB port on the bottom. The back of the device feels slightly rubbery and keeps the Nook dell laptop akku from sliding too much on smooth surfaces.

At 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.5 inches, the Nook is fairly slim and sleek and toshiba laptop akku not much bigger than the Kindle 3G (7.5 x 4.8 x 0.34 inches). At 12.1 ounces, it's almost 50 percent heavier than the Kindle (8.7). Still, even after reading with it for hours, we never experienced major fujitsu laptop akku wrist fatigue.