Fortune Magazine Names the New Samsung Chromebook Best Device of 2012

Fortune Magazine asked five of its writers for things like best device, best acquisition, best news blog, etc. One of those writers picked the Chromebook. The others picked the iPad Mini, Samsung Galaxy S3, MacBook Pro Retina 15", and Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite.<p>In the absence of a print version, increment the 2.html by 5 (2, 7, 12, 17, 22.html) to reach each review independently.

I honestly think the Chromebook is one of the best products out there, even though I'd never buy one for myself. It's the first web-only device that isn't "ahead of its time" - it just works for everything you need.<p>Its major downfall is performance on Flash-heavy sites (or even JS-heavy sites, such as The Verge), but honestly I don't think that's the device's fault as much as it's the desktop web's. It took developers a while to learn to optimize their sites for less-powerful tablets and phones, and hopefully they'll bring some of those lessons to the desktop for lower-powered devices like this.<p>Plus, I think a lot of people just don't understand that the device has more than just web access. Chrome apps give it potential for powerful offline capabilities. This article has a good overview: <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/yes-you-can-use-the-new-chromebook-offline-7000006103/" rel="nofollow">http://www.zdnet.com/yes-you-can-use-the-new-chromebook-offl...</a><p>(the only thing I don't like is that all of the Chromebooks have been a bit ugly. I know that you're dealing with cheap plastic, but I actually thought my slate CR-48 looked nicer than the fat Samsung &#38; Acer Chromebooks!)

From what I can tell it's like having an android tablet with chrome as the only app, a fixed keyboard and poor battery life.<p>It seems like the worse of both worlds when compared against a tablet and a thin laptop...

One interesting factoid about the Chromebook is that it's actually FREE if you take into account the extras. Gogo inflight internet + 1tb Google Drive is $300 dollars of freebies, not bad for a $250 device.

&#62; It starts up fast and never needs upgrades.<p>Its "window on the Web" is the Chrome browser and it never needs upgrades?

I love my Samsung ARM Chromebook. I've already used it while creating materials for a talk on Javascript. I am able to use the browser to test Javascript code, and I already use Google docs for the slides so it was a natural fit. It doesn't replace my MacBook Air - I carry both. So no I don't <i>need</i> it but I enjoy the idea of it.