You do not have to restart your web browser or your computer after you enable JavaScript. Open your browser preferences, and enable JavaScript. You need to turn JavaScript on in order to control this web page. Keyboard fans also should learn that Page Down and Page Up keys can be simulated with the Alt-down-arrow and Alt-up-arrow combinations, and you can move the cursor to the beginning or end of a line of text by using Ctrl-Alt-up arrow and Ctrl-Alt-down arrow.Video Tutorials Learn about CrystalMaker X in these detailed audio-visual tutorials
And for a company as global as Google, it's a shame there's no way to get accented characters through a long press, a feature I love in OS X or using the SwiftKey Android keyboard. I also wish there were a way to set the keyboard repeat rate and the delay (too long for my tastes) before a key held down will start repeating. I certainly type text more than the average person, so maybe I feel this pain more acutely, but even with e-mails and Facebook posts it's very handy not to have to position your cursor exactly right to delete text.
Perhaps I'm a relic from a bygone age, but I really miss the right Delete button so common on Windows keyboards but missing from Chromebooks and MacBooks. I'd like to share a couple of comments here on Chromebooks in general, which I generally use for more than 10 hours a week for work and personal tasks. (Its Wi-Fi is very fast to reconnect, too.) Its fast startup speed is conducive to flipping it open for a few moments and then plopping it down on the counter or coffee table again when you're done. There are plenty of times when all you need to do is check e-mail, read some news, load a recipe, make a bank payment, click around YouTube, or spend time on Facebook. But you can't run several popular programs - iTunes, Skype, Portal 2, Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Spotify, or the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search program, to name a few.Īiming the Chromebook at people who want another device around the house, though, makes those shortcomings not necessarily be major drawbacks. That's huge, since you can do more and more on the Web. Where Linux PCs run Linux apps, though, Chrome OS devices run browser apps. Those who don't spend the bulk of their computing life in reach of Internet access - wireless or wired - should think twice, too.Ĭhrome OS, for the uninitiated, puts a version of Google's Chrome browser on top of a Linux foundation. The Chromebook is great for a $249 device, and it shows what an ARM-based system can do, but if you're not OK with Chrome OS, you should steer clear. Hardware is only half the story here, though.
As Google claims, this Chromebook can play 1080p video, but the screen resolution is only 1,366x768 pixels, so it's not displaying full HD. It's not terribly vivid, though, and doesn't have a very wide viewing angle. The screen is OK, with pretty good resolution, adequate brightness, and a matte coating to cut down on glare. Samsung's battery life claims hold up, too (assuming you're not doing anything too terribly taxing). It's got a chiclet keyboard, a generously large touch pad, and a scalloped groove where you can use your thumb to flip up the screen. The design is very compact - a bit narrower than Apple's 11-inch MacBook Air, but deeper and thicker. The Samsung Chromebook uses a low-power processor, Samsung's Exynos 5 Dual, which is built on ARM's new dual-core system-on-a-chip Cortex A15 design (prior versions used Intel Atom and Celeron processors). The big differences between Samsung's XE303C12 and earlier Chromebooks are that the XE303C12 is smaller, with a 11.6-inch screen lighter and thinner and very different under the hood.