Google Chrome came out of its beta stage a couple of days ago. It is working great on the notebooks and other latest netbooks with 1024 x 600 resolution. But, how does it work on the UMPCs and netbooks with WVGA (800 x 480) resolution.
Installation
The installation was painless. I just pointed my browser to http://chrome.google.com and it took me to the download page. The installation was done over the air and didn’t involve any user interaction at all, which is a nice thing. However, this means that you cannot install it on the driver of your choice.
Web-Browsing
The EEE 701 and other UMPCs and netbooks that sport a 800 x 480 display often struggle to provide decent web-browsing experience out-of-box. This is mainly due to the fact they come with IE6 or IE7. The linux version of EEE 700 series comes with Firefox 2 and it is not simple to upgrade to the Firefox 3 if you are on Xandros (default OS that comes with the 701 series).
Stories aside, lets me give you some comparison pictures. Pictures say a thousand words by itself. Right? You can click on any screenshot to see the actual resolution screenshot.
Firefox 3 was like a god-sent gift for the WVGA resolution devices. The reason is simple. It provides full-page zoom in which all elements together with the text are either zoomed-in or zoomed-out depending on the function you perform.
Unfortunately, zooming out function in Chrome still does not zooms out all the elements of the web-page. Just the text is zoomed out (just like IE).
Browsing-speed
Browsing speed is similar to firefox. It may be slightly faster than the firefox, but I cannot see the difference on EEE 701 which by-default runs @ 630mHz.
The chrome does brings in a lot of nice features and also promises secure browsing, but I don’t recommend using it on ASUS EEE 700 series or any netbook or UMPC with similar resolution.
Also, I have not found an easier way to configure it to use RAMdisk, which reduces the SSD use and also prevents wearing-out of the SSD.
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