ChromeOS Update

By Chuck Hajdu

This morning I did something that I only do once a month or so, I restarted my Samsung ChromeBook 5. Normally I just leave it running all the time and let it go to sleep when I’m finished using it. But occasionally the browser-only Chrome OS starts to slow down a bit and I’ll reboot in order to clean out the memory. It’s a routine I settled on a long time ago when I started using the ChromeBook regularly.

Since I have the ChromeBook set to automatically download updates I was prepared for the system to install any updates it had found since my last reboot. What I was not prepared for was the totally revised system that I was greeted with!

All of my books were still there and all of my browser settings were still exactly as I’d left them but now I had a desktop and a Launch Bar at the bottom of my screen! There were icons to start the Chrome browser (which used to be the only interface used at all), a Gmail icon, a Google Search icon, one for my Google Drive, one for YouTube and one for all my apps that looks just like the icon on my Android Phablets. There was also a section that had my internet connection status, battery status and clock that looked exactly like an Android Tablet.

Google had just turned my ChromeBook into something that looked a heck of a lot like a Phablet. That means I have a consistent look and feel no matter what product I’m working with. Well done Google. Except for the fact that the roller wheel on my Genius Key mouse isn’t working, I couldn’t be happier. Strangely enough, other mice roller wheels, even those from MSFT, work just fine.