No doubt you've heard of the big announcement today as part of day two of the Google I/O conference. That's correct, the magical and revolutionary Chromebooks have made their debut and I have a few thoughts on them. I wasn't able to report the news as it happened but if you are unaware of what a Chromebook is at this point, a quick Google search might settle your confusion. Or read on.

Chromebooks, put simply, are what the original netbooks should have been. As of now, netbooks aree just cheap laptops. They run the powerful operating systems that laptops do but with more portability and much less power. Chromebooks on the other hand run Google's own Chrome OS. It's pretty much just Google Chrome running as an entire operating system instead of just a browser -- one measly program on your vigorous machine.

Some killer features: an eight second boot time, portable, web apps galore (if you are into that sort of thing), cloud storage so if your Chromebook is damaged in any way your data isn't lost, and fantastic education and enterprise pricing. It's $20 per month per user for an education subscription that covers both hardware and software, and $28 per month per user for business and enterprise subscriptions. Both include unique features that allow for programs to run on Chrome OS that are necessary to certain education and business needs among other things.

Speaking of programs, the regular consumer will not run any programs. It's all web apps all the time. And if you don't like it, guess what? Your money is best invested elsewhere. This is a major setback because many offline programs are still crucial in many of our lives. Google is obviously aware of this setback, but Chromebooks are not made for those who need those types of offline programs. While there are a substantial amount of adequate productivity apps on the web, web apps really just aren't on the same level as real applications right now.

Chromebooks will be available starting June 15th. There are currently two announced models: a Samsung and an Acer. I suspect that people in the market for a Chromebook will not be choosing between a Chromebook and a laptop or even a netbook, but between a Chromebook and a tablet. From what I have gathered, Chromebooks really aren't much more powerful than a tablet because again, they are limited to what the web offers. Since tablets are new, they too cannot yet provide the power found in many laptops and desktops. It's really going to come down to the needs of that particular consumer ready to make a purchase. It will be interesting to see how Chromebooks sell.

By the way, isn't that a great name? Chromebooks. Unique.