When tech pundits first revealed the Chrome Cr-48 notebook, undoubtedly the first words typed on their keyboards were "MacBook-like" and "minimalist design." Minimalist design is the holy grail of sexy technology, and Apple is squarely to blame for this trend. Just witness the Apple iPad, iPhone, and virtually every other Apple product.
Thankfully, there are no stickers on the Cr-48. Do you really want a half-dozen brightly colored stickers announcing to the world what is in your notebook? The major manufacturers seem to think you want to crow to the world that you have an Intel/AMD/ATI/Nvidia/Windows PC. They tend to stick out like neon lights on the sleek black wrist rest. Almost as bad are the "shelf talker" stickers crowing about every capacity: Once I get home, I don't care that my camera has 12.47 gibbopixels and a SDHZ card. Am I the only one that peels these off when I get a new tech toy?
The trackpad and keyboard are a dead giveaway that this is a minimalist product: no mouse buttons, and an "island-style" keyboard. While the design on the island-style keyboard has been associated with Apple, Sony and HP have used the island-style keyboard for years as well. While tech curmudgeons may scoff and tout the ability to quickly DIY reconfigure their old-school keyboard, the rest of us can be assured that their keys will never fall out of their keyboard.
No optical, no Ethernet: The MacBook Air and the Chrome Cr-48 are designed to connect to the Web wirelessly, so optical drives and even wired Ethernet are not necessary. You really should only ever have to plug in the power adapter: that's minimal.
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