Windows 7: Chrome OS: Will the real (potential) user please stand up?

Along with 59,999 or so other lucky folks, I’ve gotten a chance to play with the Cr-48 Chromebook prototype from Google.

(I’m not sure how a Microsoft watcher like me got on the short list. Maybe my “straying” from the Windows fold with an iPad earned me Google points? Regardless, thanks for the loaner, Google.)

The Cr-48 test machines shipped to us are brand-less black notebook/netbooks. (The name is a play on words, with “Cr” representing the element Chromium and Cr48 an isotype of that element.) I know my ZDNet colleague Chris Dawson doesn’t think the Cr-48 a netbook, but that seems to be the category it fits best, in my opinion.

I am not a netbook hater. In fact, when Windows 7 was released to market a year ago, I was leaning toward getting a Windows 7 netbook as my first new Windows PC in three years. (I ended up buying a “thin and light” laptop, but did get to play extensively with the Toshiba mini NB205 netbook and liked it a lot.)