Google reveals Chrome OS laptop

Google has unveiled its first laptop running its own Chrome operating system. The laptop is not actually available for sale yet, but is part of a pilot testing program. If you live in the U.S., Google has a form you may submit to “Test drive a Chrome notebook” so that you may apply to receive one of these laptops as a pilot tester.

The laptops, built by Samsung and Acer, are expected to be available for sale in mid-2011. A single battery charge provides 8 hours of “active” use and 7 days of standby. They have a 12.1″ screen and no hard drive. For U.S. customer they will come with 100 MB of free wireless data transfer per month for two years, supplied by Verizon.

The Chrome laptop is built around the concept of “cloud computing”, wherein most of the applications and services run on Google’s servers (the cloud) accessible over the Internet.

At 3.8 pounds, it seems a little heavy to me. That’s less than most conventional laptops, but it seems to me that they are really competing with much lighter netbooks. This is a prototype though, so perhaps specs will change by time of release.