Time for some bad stuff

Ok, I've been very supportive and constructive so far about this new Chromebook.  Time for some criticism.

I really like the keyboard.  It's almost exactly like my MacBook keyboard.  It's a bit rubbery feeling but the tactile feedback is very good to me and the layout is very efficient if a bit smaller that a full keyboard.  I don't have any trouble typing on this keyboard at all.  One thing though, is that if you leave the mouse in the middle of a paragraph and accidentally forget about the track pad and bump it while typing, your cursor will jump to the middle of paragraph and begin inserting what ever you type.  This took a little getting use to because what I have figured out is to be careful where you leave your cursor while typing.  I have learned to plant the cursor in the lower right hand corner of a window when I am typing, like now, and then I don't have any trouble.

Another thing about the keyboard is the lack/loss of all the function keys along the top row.  I almost never used them so I won't miss them because they always seemed out of place for a normal computer user and since you can't add a program like Photoshop that uses those keys you just don't need them hanging around cluttering up the landscape.  I have found that I like navigating with the forward/back buttons that replace the function keys so I expect that I will come to rely on the other keys that live on the top of the keyboard in the same way.

The cover, base, keys, and the entire unit has this rubbery feel to it.  While this texture can provide a sense of security when you are carrying your Chromebook, it may have some draw backs also: my wife had a similar finish on a motorcycle helmet that she purchased.  After about six months of heavy use, the rubber stuff started peeling off her helmet and it was ugly.  It was like her helmet had some kind of skin rash infection stuff and look dirty all the time. If this happens to the Chromebook it will be very ugly as well.  I let you know.  The initial report of this surface treatment is good, but time will tell.

I feel...weird...about not being able to install another application or look at a jump drive.  This unit has a port for an external monitor as well as a USB port for a USB device like an external mouse/pointer but if you plug a jump/thumb drive into the USB port the system will not recognize that anything has changed and you can't see the drive.  I know that you really don't need an external drive for transporting files from this machine, since everything lives in the cloud, and if I sign onto my Google Chrome account on another machine that all of my documents will be there waiting for me, but it makes me feel weird.  Almost a weird as weird as that run on sentence.  But that's how I feel.  It doesn't affect the function of the machine and I expect that this is something that I'll be able to get use to as time passes and I become more confident in my use of the cloud, but, it's just,...weird.

An update on the power comsumption: I ran this thing pretty hard yesterday and plugged it up to recharge last night at about 9:30 pm.  At that time I still had 43% of the battery remaining.  Pretty good overall.