The Gadget Wisdom labs has recently acquired an Acer C7 Chromebook for testing purposes. The C7 has a list price of $199 and offers an 11.6″ screen, a Celeron processor. The hard drive and memory are upgradeable.
It’s competition in the Chromebook space is the $249 ARM-based Samsung Chromebook. Â But, while the Samsung is sleeker than the Acer C7, it lacks the possible benefits of a x86 processor and upgradable components if you want to hack the thing.
But, why buy a Chromebook(other than the compelling price for a secondary system), even if you want to hack it to pieces? Many people live in their browser anyway, so why not have a computer that lives entirely in the browser?
So, that is a challenge we’re prepared to try. We’ve been setting up web-based equivalents of our standard daily programs, and will be trying to live with ChromeOS only while our primary machine gets a clean install of the latest version of its OS.
Will we last a whole week, which is the goal? Or is ChromeOS only good for trips where all you want is a browser? How does it compare to our experiments with the Asus Transformer, which is Android with a keyboard dock.
Last time on Gadget Wisdom, we were asking the question of whether a tablet can be your primary computer.
After we wrote this, we headed off on a long weekend with only an Asus Transformer. This is the original Asus Transformer TF101, not the newer Transformer Prime, but the concept is basically the same. If you want the benefits of a tablet, with the option to produce longer form content as needed, this is a perfect choice.
The tablet is wonderful for consumption of content. There are not enough tablet apps for Android, but there are enough to make us optimistic for the future.
Let’s go over a few of the apps we’ve started to use…
 News Reading
Reader HD (Free Version, Ad Free Version) – The best Google Reader app for Android tablets, in our opinion. The developer is very responsive with bug and feature requestss
There are a variety of magazine style news readers that draw from a variety of sources. Even Reader HD offers a magazine mode. We hope the promised version of ReadItLater Pro for tablets arrives soon, but the current version is adequate.
Word Processing/Document Creation
We have yet to find the best document suite for Android tablets. The Transformer comes with Polaris Office, which is not offered in the market. We also have copies of QuickOffice HD and DocumentsToGO.
We’ve actually been using a simple text editor, DB Text Editor, which is built into the Dropbox Android client.
We blog, and use WordPress, and WordPress for Android (Market Link) was recently updated and now supports tablets. It is still, like many things, not perfect. Nor is using WordPress in the browsers, but these things continue to get better..
Browsers
There is a build-target for a full build of Chrome for Android, but so far, there isn’t a full browser for Android. But the choice of browsers is not bad. While there is a tablet version of the popular Dolphin Browser, it is still in beta and has not been updated in a while. The HD version works fine for now, as does the Android version of Firefox. We hope to see more in this category in the future.
Email
Gmail is an example of what a good tablet app can be. It works nicely, efficiently, and it is a reference for many other apps.
Finance
Mint’s Android app(Market Link) just updated this week to support tablets. It shows that any app can become an indispensable part of one’s productivity if properly designed.
In the end, the market for tablet apps on Android is expanding. There are many good apps so far, including many we haven’t mentioned. There will be more, and the ones we have will only continue to improve. So, what is the conclusion?
An Android tablet is one of the best options out there for content consumption and simple productivity. For word processing, with the addition of the Transformer’s keyboard dock, it means you can handle your on-the-go and travel word processing. We wouldn’t use it as our primary computer, but having it around means you can use your primary computer less and be more mobile around your house.
Asus, the creator of the EeePC, which launched the netbook craze, wants to break into the E-Book market with a product that could be at least $100 less expensive than current offerings. A proposed model would have two screens, more closely resembling a regular book, as well as many more features than the current offerings, including Skype and such.
This isn’t really outside of the realm of possibility. Take the EeePC versus the proposed Eee-book a step further. Picture a device the size of the original netbook at 7 inches, or even the 10 inch size, turn it on its side, replace the keyboard with a second screen, add in an orientation sensor, a few buttons, possibly a touchscreen, and the ability to plug in a USB keyboard, and it would become a small system that could double as a nettop device. Give it a Linux-based OS, with SD expansion, and 3G or Wi-FI options, and it can do anything.
Technology continues to advance. We’ll see what happens.
For those of you following the netbook craze, there is new Asus Eee out there.
Engadget has a roundup of various reviews. The HE is built around a new six-cell battery and offers over seven hours of battery life, and offers the standard compliment of features. PC Magazine declared it as dethroning the MSI Wind as the leading netbook, with a list price of $400.
In a related story, Eee PCs are expected in Walmart by years end.
In reading reports of all the new technology unveiled at CES, we located images of the Asus Eee Keyboard, which is, like the old Commodore 64s, an entire computer system built into a keyboard. We used to love our Commodore 64, and still have it in a box somewhere.
The Eee Keyboard will have a full set of multimedia outputs, including wireless HDMI, which would allow it to avoid being tethered to its monitor. It includes a touchscreen that looks similar to an iPhone built in. There is no word on the price or release date of this item.
If the price is low enough, as it might be considering that is the goal of the Eee line of products, to be Eeeconomical, then this would make for a good multimedia PC option
Rise of the Chromebook: Lenovo is the latest to challenge Windows laptops(theverge.com)
First look at the $199 Acer C7 Chromebook (Video)(liliputing.com)
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