Chromebook: Not just a laptop with Google Chrome OS

Today many think that Google will announce a new Chrome OS-based laptop today at their I/O conference, we have heard rumors which suggest that it will be manufactured by Samsung and called the Chromebook.

Google Chrome OS is completely different to Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and even Linux, this is because everything resides on the cloud, you do not install applications on your notebook, instead you access webapps, also you do not store files locally, they are stored online.

Buy buying a Chromebook you will be taking a huge leap in terms of computing, you will no longer install local printers, no longer copy camera photos directly to your notebook, instead you will be able to print to ePrint-capable printers and rather than copy photos from your camera to your notebook they will be stored online, which means they will be accessible from any device which can access the internet.

It does not look like the Chromebook will replace a laptop, instead it will be used like a tablet for on the go usages, the more people that use Chrome OS the better it will become, but will people be patient enough to buy a Chrome OS-based device while developers improve the cloud-based OS?

We have heard that web apps are not as good as “real” apps, you can find out a little bit more about this over at InfoWorld, to cut a long story short Google Docs (and similar web apps) are great for editing docs on the go, however not as great as a locally installed office suite.

Do you think that there is a need for a cloud-centric OS? Are Google unnecessarily re-inventing the wheel? Share your thoughts in the comments section below…