The $499 Google thought experiment

Using a solid state flash drive to put it more exactly than a traditional hard disk, the machine boots in about a ten seconds. It instantly goes to sleep and instantly revives when you close and open the display. And its security model makes an awful lot of sense. Nevertheless if you're a consumer, this isn't a machine that can replace your primary laptop. And if you're a business, it's suited to only a portion of your workforce.

What's more, shuttling files between web applications is for all that a painful process, and this is eased only marginally by Google's file manager. However the primary problem is that a Chromebook is all yet unuseable if you don't have an internet connection. Even Google's centerpiece web applications don't but work offline.