Although Google’s long-awaited Chromebox wasn’t widely available until recently, a number of units have already been snapped up by early adopters.
Earlier this month, two Chromebox models appeared on TigerDirect before they were quickly pulled offline: one powered by an Intel Celeron processor and the other featuring an Intel Core i5 processor.
Initial reviews have been rather mixed, with the GearWERKZ TechBlog criticizing its “overly plasticky appearance.”
“While Google touts the strengths of ChromeOS’ simplicity, at the end of the day, I feel like I am buying a computer without an embedded, native OS,” Zeuxidamas of GearWERKZ explained.
“For that reason, and the sheer cost-savings the manufacturer is scoring, it would be nice if the hardware had a classy feel to it.”
Still, t The ChromeBox boasts some fairly decent specs, as it is equipped with no less than 6 USB ports, dual DisplayPorts, 4GB of RAM and 16GB of storage.
“The long and short of it is that if you use a web browser for 99 percent of everything you do with a computer, the Samsung Chromebox might meet your needs,” opined Lilliputing’s Brad Linder.
“But if you really do need to be able to run some apps that aren’t available in the cloud, store hundreds of gigabytes of data locally, or do some other old-school PC tasks even some of the time, you might not want to throw out your desktop computer just yet.”
Nevertheless, says Linder, there are an increasing number of web apps that mimic a wide variety of native desktop apps, from editing documents or pictures to even audio.
“So if you have a fast, reliable internet connection and don’t mind finding new online tools to do things you’re using to doing with native apps, the Chromebox might be all you need,” he added.
Google’s Chromebox (1.9 GHz Celeron version) is currently available for $329 here.
