Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also, you didn't address things like downloading pictures from a camera, syncing with an MP3 player (not necessarily iTunes/iPod), or any of the other local, non-browser stuff that a normal person does all the time. Plug in a camera and it offers to upload them to Picasa. With Google Music there is no need to sync anything. Anytime you want to listen to music on your Android phone it just plays from the cloud.
> Plug in a camera and it offers to upload them to Picasa. I'm on a 3-day trip to Paris, with my wife. At the end of day one we go back to our cheap 3-star hotel room, and we want to upload the day's pictures. All 200 of them (that's about 700MB on my photo camera). What do I do? Do I use my Internet roaming? That would be ~700 euro, so no. Do I rely on my hotel's crappy and expensive Internet connection to upload th…
You should be able to download all the photos locally to the Chromebook. Granted I don't have a one but on the Cr-48 it simulates a local filesystem for downloaded files/etc.
Ultimately though it comes down to get the tool that works for you.