New Chromebooks Set To Be Faster

The next generation of Chromebooks will be faster, according to Chrome's senior vice president.

The first generation were poorly received due to a perceived 'sluggishness', with CNET's Stephen Shankland being a particularly vocal critic.

"Google Docs documents grind open. Scrolling can be an excruciatingly laggy affair. My son, trying to play the Flash-based Crush the Castle 2 game, cried out in exasperation when trying to construct his medieval defenses. Keyboard repeat rates aren't adjustable to let me set them fast enough with only a brief delay before kicking in. When I have more than 15 or 20 tabs open, it seems that old tabs must be reloaded from the server when I switch back to them."

Chrome's Sundar Pichai, however, was upbeat about the performances of the new Chromebooks.

"We remain very excited about Chromebooks. We got a lot of positive feedback, and we are really looking forward to the next generation of Chromebooks. We will improve on the dimensions of speed, simplicity, and security."

It is doubtful, however, that the Chromebook will ever be as speedy as the fastest notebooks on the market, since they are built with long battery life, low prices and low power consumption in mind.