So Google tell us that the Chromebooks will be fast. It all hinges on the apps (again!)
I took the newly released Angry Birds for Chrome and tested it on a desktop, a tablet and a netbook. I also took a beta version of Chrome and tested it on that. Then I took a native version downloaded via AppUp (Yes, Angry Birds is already available for your Windows desktop!)
The results – I’m not impressed with the Chrome version at all. Windowed and running slowly on Chrome. The Native version runs flawlessly.
This, of course, isn’t a Chromebook test but remember, Chromebooks will run in Intel Atom N570 (at least the first devices) so the CPU and GPU power is limited. The Chrome OS is likely to be faster and WebGL will get better and as we go forward, the platforms will obviously get better but based on what I’ve seen this evening, I’m a little wary of performance. It’s not going to stop me from buying an Acer Chromebook for testing but this test gave me a good reality kick.
Update: Feeback from others in my circle that have tested isn’t that positive either.
Note: We’re not sponsored by AppUp or Intel. The ads you see are agency sales.
I don’t like the fact that Chrome books will need to have high speed internet all the time to operate. Although we have high speed internet most of the time but sometimes we’ll need to be offline and that’s where Chrome OS fails in my opinion.
That’s my initial worry. The cloud isn’t mobile. But I’m looking forward to testing it out!
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Web_Storage
Just make sure that you have the latest graphics drivers from Intel. Older versions of the Intel driver do not support 3D graphics acceleration of WebGL.
Also, the angry birds does run on Firefox4 so perhaps you can try that as well.
Finally, maybe you can try monitoring the CPU usage using the task manager to see if things are CPU limited?
Can you try it out on IE9 as well?