Leaked Specs Describe Lustrous Google Chrome Netbook

hen Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) opened up the source code for its Chrome operating system last month, third-party hardware manufacturers lined up plans to build Chrome-based netbooks, with availability expected in late 2010. Could Google also be cooking up plans to sell its own, Google-branded Chrome netbook at around the same time?

The blogosphere's rumor mill is humming with purported hardware details of such a Google netbook, which were first listed by IBTimes.

Google remains elusive on the issue. "We can't comment on hardware specifics at this point," spokesperson Nate Tyler told TechNewsWorld. Everything Google has stated on the subject in its blog and Chromium Web site is "still accurate," he added

Visions of Google Netbooks' Guts

The Google netbook will reportedly have a chipset from Nvidia's (Nasdaq: NVDA) Tegra line and be powered by an ARM (Nasdaq: ARMHY) CPU, which consumes less power than Intel's (Nasdaq: INTC) Atom line.

The netbook will have a 10.1-inch TFT (thin-film transistor) HD-ready multi-touch display, according to the leaked specs. It will come with a 64 GB solid state drive, 2 GB of RAM, and the usual ancillary features such as WiFi, 3G, Bluetooth, Ethernet and USB ports, a webcam and a multi-card reader, the report states.

Pricing will reportedly fall below US$300, and the laptop's price will be subsidized. It will be sold in two ways: directly to the consumer by Google and bundled with a wireless plan.

A Dose of Reality

Closer examination of the reported specs raise some questions. For example, if the netbook is using an Nvidia Tegra chipset, it might not actually need a separate CPU.

"Tegra is our low-power HD processor for mobile devices such as tablets, smartphones and smartbooks," Nvidia spokesperson Bruce Chan told TechNewsWorld. "It has eight separate processors, including an ARM CPU and separate graphics and HD video processors."

On the other hand, speculation about the hard drive and the screen size sound right on the money, judging from past Google statements. Announcing the upcoming Chrome netbooks in November, Sunder Pichai, Google's vice president of product management, said that they'd have solid state drives (SSDs) and wireless cards, and that the netbooks would have large keyboards and screens.

How likely is Google to settle for 64 GB SSDs? Very likely, Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, told TechNewsWorld. "It's all about the price point, and SSDs with 64 GB capacity or less are vastly more affordable than those with 128 GB or more," he explained. While SSD prices will inevitably fall, "a good 128 GB SSD will likely cost more than Google can sell the netbook for," Enderle pointed out.