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Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't possibly be serious. There's a tiny little thing called the operating system which makes significantly more of a difference to the overall experience, performance and value of a computer than a few GHz.
Only for those that need it.
Newegg's Chromebox page states: Processor: Intel Celeron B840 1.9GHz RAM: 2GB DDR3 1333
Amazon's Chromebox page states: Processor: 1.9 GHz Celeron B840 RAM: 4 GB
Who is this aimed at?
Looks like there's major spin on this on that page. Whats a Intel Core(TM) processor? Dig deeper and it's an anemic Celeron, not a Core i3 or i5 or i7 as the name implies. Why is there no mention of storage AT ALL? Because it's a 16GB(!) SSD. The Amazon page says "No Blue Screens"? What happens to ChromeOS if RAM gets corrupt? It doesn't crash and magically keeps running? Most BSoDs nowadays are due to hardware issue…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Celeron_microproc...
However, I question who would get a Chromebox though, because the portability + battery life + instant on are no longer relevant in this case, and those were by far the biggest benefits for the Chromebook. For a little more (~400), you could get a very respectable machine running a more powerful OS.
Some general thoughts on my experiences with the Chromebook: As a general computing device, I thought it was more or less completely sufficient. I used it to take notes (google docs / evernote) in class and it was awesome for that (light and portable).
With more than 7-8 tabs, things can get slightly sluggish (read: not instantaneous). Running more than 15 or so and you start getting serious performance issues. This is less of a problem than I thought because it forces me to maintain focus (I regularly can have >100 tabs when using my desktop). Full screen 1080p video also was sluggish.
It has a shell, so you can SSH and code also.
Frequently less technical friends would ask "but ... it only runs chrome?" to which I respond "well what can you not do in chrome?" and they have a very hard time giving an example. With gmail / calendar / docs / evernote / your music web app service of choice / etc, almost everything can be done in the browser.
To be fair, I also use a powerful desktop for more intense tasks (photo editing, coding, and occasional gaming). I doubt I would use the chromebook/box as my primary computer.
While definitely an interesting development in computing, I find the advertising used disingenuous. They advertise "built-in anti virus" all over, when the truth probably is that there is no anti-virus at all. You can argue that there is a lack of need for this and as such advertising for a device without mentioning anti virus at all would make it seem "unsafe" or confusing for the less technically inclined. But stil…
Raspberry Pi makes products like this completely obsolete. I see nothing here worth paying an order of magnitude more money for. Google seems to have a really bad habit lately of building products that nobody wants.
The Raspberry Pi is targeted squarely at enthusiasts (which, granted, is probably most people here). It comes without an operating system, any storage, a case, or even a power supply. This is a huge, if not insurmountable, barrier to entry for a large portion of the population. The Chromebox is a turnkey, plug in power, plug in TV, surf the web product. They couldn't be more dissimilar.
Just a quick note: The biggest piece of feedback I got from a journo friend of mine who just reviewed this chromebox is actually that out of the box it won't do HDMI or VGA (without buying an adapter separately that is), which seemed odd to me (and to him) given being easy to connect to a TV seems like a big use case for the chromebox.
edit: In case anyone wants to see his hands-on piece, it's at http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-mac-desktops/sams...
Looks fun, but $329 isn't throw-away money. Given that I don't need another computer, the price just isn't cheap enough to say "yeh, why not:.
I installed ChromeOS on my old VAIO recently. It is definitely not bad in the sense that things it cannot do don't fall in the 99%. I would be happier if Google manages to bring the Play store and run android apps on it. Anything I could imagine the machine couldn't do, there's an app on Android that does it. If this could run Android apps too, $329 would appear to be a bargain.
Eventually there's going to have to be some merger. I think it could be Chrome OS becoming a variant of Android, considering there's now Chrome for Android. That said, personally, I'd rather see Chrome OS on phones and tablets, and Android die off, since Chrome OS is the most web-first platform out there.
Right now Android has the massive advantage in being able to work reasonably well while offline, something you can just forget with most web apps run on top of Chrome OS.
For a "desktop PC" I'm sure Chrome OS will be more than sufficient, since internet connectivity is not going to be an issue. For mobile devices however, you must always assume connectivity is missing, flaky or slow.
When web-apps finally get the whole offline thingie working a web-first option will become much more of a real option also for mobile, but it's the web which will need to drive it, not the other way around.