Chromebook: The World's First Web-Only Laptop Computer Coming Soon

It's been about five months since Google first unveiled their prototype future computers running Chrome OS, and the time is nearly here for the Chromebooks to be unleashed on the public. But there are a lot of qualms over the release of Chromebooks, with most criticism coming from their lack of traditional laptop-based features such as an optical drive, storage space and the ability to run comprehensive software programs like Adobe Photoshop.

The recent advertisement shown at Google I/O made by Buck actually makes everything a little clearer—they aren't really computers at all—they're the web in a computer-like object, with web apps in lieu of programs and your content stored on a data cloud.

The music from Antfood sets the mood with pizzicato strings, doing a much better job than whoever's responsible for Samsung's new commercial, which uses sound effects taken straight from Sonic the Hedgehog to highlight their Chromebook 5 Series models.

Samsung's version sports a 12.1-inch screen, 2GB flash memory and 16GB solid state drive, costing $429 for the Wi-Fi only version and $499 for the Wi-Fi+3G model. Preorders will start June 15, 2011 at Amazon and Best Buy.

Acer has a smaller Wi-Fi only model coming out with 11.6-inch screen and an HDMI output, costing $349, which you can also preorder at Amazon on June 15th.

Google also has a rental option for businesses and schools, which cost $28 per machine each month, requiring a three-year service agreement that includes a warranty, support, service and hardware replacements when necessary. With limited functionality compared to laptop computers, this may be the key to the Chromebook's success.