Google’s Cr-48 prototype helped lay the groundwork for Chromebooks
Google’s Cr-48 was the prototype that introduced the idea behind Chromebooks, though Google did not call it a Chromebook or design it as a retail product. A podcast episode revisits the device and the history of ChromeOS, examining whether Google’s approach to computer hardware was the right one.
The episode features The Verge’s Nilay Patel, Marques Brownlee and host David Pierce. It is part of a season about iconic school technology, which has also covered the One Laptop Per Child XO-1, The Oregon Trail and TI graphing calculators; the podcast has been nominated for a Signal Award.
- The Cr-48 introduced the idea behind Chromebooks.
- A podcast traces ChromeOS and Chromebook history.
- The episode examines Google’s hardware approach.
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Chromebooks are laptops that use Google's ChromeOS, software designed to work primarily with programmes and data stored online rather than on the computer itself. The Cr-48 was an experimental device that Google created to test this concept, though it was never intended as a product for consumers to buy.
The approach behind the Cr-48 and Chromebooks was to make computers simpler and cheaper by relying on internet connectivity rather than storing lots of software and data locally. This was quite different from traditional personal computers, which stored and ran applications directly on the device.
Chromebooks became particularly common in schools, and their origins in the Cr-48 have recently been examined in a podcast series about the history of educational technology. The episode considers whether Google's approach proved successful and what influence it has had on how computers are used today.
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Originally published by The Verge as “The forgotten Chromebook that started it all”.