As expected, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) demonstrated its ambitious browser-centric Chrome Operating System (OS) in a press briefing held earlier this week, even as it announced that netbooks based on it will not arrive until 2011. Google did, however, unveil its Cr-48 Chrome OS netbook pilot, giving out thousands of the machines to media, friends of Google and business partners.

Various unboxing and first impressions have been published, and you can access a couple of them here and here. In a nutshell though, users seem to be impressed by how fast the Atom-powered netbook seems capable of rendering web pages. While nobody gave it kudos for blistering responsiveness, the agreement is that it is snappy. Of course, the key issue has to do with the paradigm shift of working with cloud-hosted applications, and whether HTML5 can provide an acceptable level of off-line usage.

Anyway, it is still early days yet for the Chrome OS. In the meantime, you might be interested to know that it is possible for mere mortals to apply to be a part of the test group over at Google's Cr-48 Pilot Program page here.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Computerworld blogs
- check out this article at eWeek
- check out this article at Ars Technica

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