![]() ![]() “Unapologetically plastic” is apparently not just an Apple thing. (Or by balloon.) The Chromebook 11 is our end of the wire. Google’s on a mission to connect the world to the internet, by hook or by crook. And if it’s “just a web browser,” it’s a beautiful one. At $279, this 11.6-inch laptop is priced to move. The new head of the lineup, the device designed to unseat last year’s Samsung Chromebook at the top of the Amazon best-seller list, is the HP Chromebook 11. ![]() And don’t look now, but the industry is noticing: Toshiba, Acer, Lenovo, and other manufacturers are announcing devices running Google’s Chrome OS, and Chromebooks are now used in 22 percent of US school districts and in countries around the world. This new order is one in which a Chromebook, an always-connected laptop that is explicitly designed to be used online, might actually make sense. If I have no Wi-Fi, my MacBook Air feels pointless, empty. Even PC games are meant to be played online. ![]() I use Word and Outlook and Photoshop, but even those apps are designed to be perpetually connected and intertwined - and browser-based approximations of those apps are ever improving. Meanwhile, my computer is increasingly becoming just a portal to the internet. The only time I can’t get online now is underground on the subway - and even that may not be true for long. I have Wi-Fi at home and at the office, nearly every hotel or coffee shop on the planet offers connectivity, and for the rare in-between times, my phone serves as a perfectly usable (if slightly awkward) mechanism for getting on the internet.
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