Santa brought me an early Christmas present yesterday - a Chromebook! Chromebooks have been around since the summer, but this was the first time I'd actually seen one, so of course I had to stop what I was doing to play with it.
What is a Chromebook?
A Chromebook is a laptop running Google's minimalist operating system, Chrome OS, which is optimised for web use. Google claims three main benefits:
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Simplicity - it only works with web applications through an interface that is very similar to the Chrome web browser, so there's very little to learn or go wrong.
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Speed - because there's so little software, it takes only eight seconds to boot up, and web pages load extremely quickly.
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Security - all your apps and files are cloud-based, so if you lose your Chromebook, you don't lose any of them. There's little software on the device to become infected, and the Chromebook has malware and virus protection built in.
There are four models - two from Samsung and two from Acer. Each manufacturer does a Wi-Fi only model and one with both Wi-Fi and 3G. In all other respects, they're identical. Santa brought me the Samsung Wi-Fi.
Is it accessible?
When I first heard of Chrome OS, which says it's fast because it's got rid of everything that isn't essential, I wondered what accessibility would be included? There's a screen reader available for Chrome OS called Chrome Vox, but would that allow me to set a Chromebook up from scratch like a Mac, or would I have to add it later like a Windows computer?
Google's offerings have a mixed history in terms of accessibility, although our Beginner's guide to cloud computing does point out that Google have started to improved Google Docs and Google Calendar.
3… 2… 1… go!
All the box contained was the Chromebook, a two part power pack, some paper documentation and a VGA connector.
It's a surprisingly heavy beast, with a 12.1 inch screen and a keyboard that's very reminiscent of the Apple wireless keyboard in the layout and shape of the keys.
Once I'd charged it for a couple of hours, I opened the lid and it immediately started up. After a short while the first set-up screen appeared. The text was very small, with some being white on black and some being black on pale blue. I could see no options for changing this, but while it was charging I had done some research and found out that once the computer is set-up, pressing Ctrl + Alt + Z at the sign-in screen should start ChromeVox. I tried it here and got speech!
There are only two set-up screens; one for selecting a language and network, and one for accepting the license. I couldn't get the speech to tell me which language the computer was set to (English UK), but I could select a Wi-Fi network and enter the password, and then move to the next screen. I wasn't able to read the license, but I was able to move to and press the "accept and continue" button.
This opened a third screen which said there was a system update available, and the computer would reboot when the update was complete. There were no options on this screen, and I got no speech feedback at all to tell me what was going on. It took about 7 minutes before the computer rebooted and I was presented with the main sign-in screen - at which Chrome Vox spoke. I suppose the fact that I had been using speech previously had been remembered, but it was disconcerting to hear nothing at all while the update was downloaded and installed.
Sign-in
As I mentioned, Chrome Vox was on when I got to this screen; if it hadn't been, I could have pressed Ctrl + Alt + Z to turn it on. There don't seem to be any magnification or screen colour options at this stage.
The sign-in screen has username and password edits, and some other links and buttons; there's also some general information like time, network and battery status. I could fill in the edits OK, but not get Chrome Vox to read out most of the other information on the screen. Also, Chrome Vox lagged on what I typed, and I had to wait for it to catch up on both my username and password.
Once I had signed in I was given the opportunity to change my account picture, which I ignored, and then the set-up was complete and I was put into the Chrome browser showing the Chrome Vox tutorial. Unfortunately, you need to read the first paragraph to know how to get Chrome Vox to move to the second paragraph! This is done with Shift + Search + DownArrow (the Search button is where CapsLock is on most keyboards), and if you're not using a Chromebook, you'd press Ctrl + Alt + DownArrow.
I went through the first few pages of the tutorial and found it a bit hard-going, but this may be just because it's a different system to the screen readers I'm familiar with. Every few seconds there was a bleep - I don't know what this was for, so I just ignored it.
More troublingly, some of the keyboard shortcuts didn't work as the tutorial said. The most annoying of these was the one to raise the pitch of the voice - I could lower it, but not raise it again, so I've now got a very deep-voiced Chrome Vox!
This was my first experience of a Chromebook, so it's not surprising that there were some things I didn't understand. I hope to play with it some more over the coming weeks and see how it deals with Google Docs and other web apps, and maybe work out how to raise the pitch of Chrome Vox.
Conclusion
Overall then, it seems you can take a Chromebook home from the shop and set it up yourself with speech if you know the Ctrl + Alt + Z keystroke and don't mind a few funnies along the way. The on-screen text is very small and there are no facilities to change either the size or colour of this that I am aware of.