The Cr-48 is what notebooks should be like: spare. There are no residue-streaking stickers. No stamps. No logos, no badges, no labels. Nothing shiny or blinking or twinkling. No swooshes or frivolous textures. It’s pure, unbroken matte black skin.
The most remarkable design is so subtle you don’t realise that it is design. And that’s the Cr-48. There’s nothing unnecessary here (even if it doesn’t have some things that some people might say are necessary). Superfluous keys are deleted to make room for more useful ones, like search and screenshot. The trackpad is buttonless, so there’s more tracking surface. It’s plastic and lightweight, but sturdy. There are curves and edges exactly where they should be. It’s like a ThinkPad designed for someone under the age of 30.
Compare: Rows of laptops at Best Buy, more tattooed than flamed out rockstars. NVIDIA GTX 483958 graphics, INTEL INSIDE, MCAFEE PCONDOM, HP RECOMMENDS WINDOWS 7 HOME PREMIUM ULTIMATE AWESOME EDITION. And it’s worse when you actually turn them on.
A blank slate of a laptop, the Cr-48 makes sense coming from Google, which isn’t trying to sell you a bundle of parts or software. It doesn’t matter who built the laptop, or what’s inside. Just that your eyeballs are firmly affixed to the internet, undistracted, and the ads it serves up.
It’s just unfortunate that Google might be the only company that can give us this kind of laptop, because it’s the kind of machine that people clearly want: One that lets us just focus on what’s in front of us.
Joeyjoejoe
Sunday, December 12, 2010 at 6:46 AMYeah I 2nd that motion, i recently bought a HP lappy and it has this huge white glowing HP logo on the back, that you cannot disable without some hardware hacking. Its driving me crazy. I wouldn’t be so annoyed if it were simple to modify with my own pic, but its a part of the laptop screen backing, and not so easy to fiddle with. What i would do for a nice clean black, instead of a glowing advert for HP.
murple
Sunday, December 12, 2010 at 9:32 AMWow nice brick. Looks like a bad copy of a macbook pro. Gross. No thanks
boc
Monday, December 13, 2010 at 1:05 PMOh my god it’s got buttons. What a cheap knock-off.
Please don’t fanboy so much.
Brock Taffe
Sunday, December 12, 2010 at 2:33 PMPut a white Apple logo on the back and BAM! You have a Macbook. Has anyone else noticed the similar trackpad, the groove to lift the lid.
Steve
Sunday, December 12, 2010 at 3:18 PM-”It’s not because they love the software.”
-”It’s just unfortunate that Google might be the only company that can give us this kind of laptop”
-”your eyeballs are firmly affixed to the internet, undistracted, and the ads it serves up.”
I’m wondering why these were believed to be necessary. It’s to Google’s credit they can boil away the fluff and release a simple, plain and ultimately satisfying piece of hardware to showcase their new OS.
MrTaco
Sunday, December 12, 2010 at 4:16 PM*Looks over at Thinkpad*
I dunno, they kinda fit the description too.
Michael
Sunday, December 12, 2010 at 7:30 PMYeah, all the stickers are really really offputting, and this looks like a nice clean elegant finish. Given it’s google though, I’m surprised the area under the keyboard near the trackpad isn’t a screen that loads google ads.
James Carson
Monday, December 13, 2010 at 4:11 AMthats the thing about google, they dont shove their ads down your throat (at least not until they bought doubleclick) the lack of ‘pushing’ a consumer, makes the consumer more positively inclined towards that company
Hien Ngo
Sunday, December 12, 2010 at 8:05 PMGoogle is kind of smart to do their own OS along with web apps because I suspect going around with a laptop within this browser solely only will boost the advertising revenue way up, easier and faster.