Cooling, Portability, Chrome OS

 

Cooling
 
 
Somewhere in the Series 5, a fan lurks. However, you would be hard pressed to tell this by ear, as it rarely puts much effort into cooling the trimmed-down 1.3 GHz low-voltage Celeron. Any level of ambient noise will drown out whatever sound is being emitted by the Series 5. It seems silent as a result.
 
Temperatures are reasonable. I recorded a maximum temperature of 92.4 degrees Fahrenheit in the right corner of the keyboard. Attempting to load the laptop through the use of Peacekeeper didn’t seem to cause any change. 
 
Bottom temperatures are roughly the same and temperatures decrease towards the front of the laptop, reaching a low point of 82 degrees Fahrenheit around the touchpad and palmrest. 
 
Portability
 
The official specs say that the new Series 5 weighs 3 pounds. In my hands it doesn’t even feel that heavy. The maximum thickness of .83 inches is technically more than the ultrabook standard, but the small width and tapered edges of the laptop make it feels about as thin as any laptop slapped with that label. No one is going to find this computer difficult to carry.
 
Battery life comes courtesy of a surprisingly large 51Wh battery. That’s about the size of the battery in the average ultrabook. However, this laptop uses Chrome OS, which doesn’t have user-configurable power management features.
 
 
Even so, endurance in Peacekeeper isn’t bad. It doesn't match the HP Spectre or the Lenovo ThinkPad X230, but both of those products have particularly good battery life, so coming in about a half-hour behind is not a bad result.
 
I went to a local coffee house to do some writing with the battery at 100%. Four hours later the battery has 58% of its charge left. The battery seems to last forever when the user is not stressing the system. I think the average user will find the Series 5’s endurance to be more than adequate. 
 
Chrome OS
 
 
The new Series 5 ships with the latest version of Chrome OS, but this version has been available from the beta and dev channels of the Chrome OS update application for some time. My conclusions have not changed from my previous review, in which I tested the new version complete with desktop and window support. The operating system is finally starting to shape up into a product that’s not just easy to use, but actually a pleasure.
 
While most of the operating system has not changed much over the last two months, there are two features worth mentioning – Offline Google Docs and Offline Gmail. The purpose of these features is self-explanatory. It’s now possible to access your and edit your documents while you are not connected to the Internet. You can also view emails.
 
Chrome OS also allows web apps to work offline if the app’s developers choose to support it. You can play Angry Birds or edit your Google Calender without an active Internet connection. More recently, Google opened up support for what it is calling “packaged apps.” This feature, which is currently being tested in the developer version of Chrome, will allow apps to run in their own window, the properties of which can be determined by the developer.
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