In a weird and not entirely pleasant twist of fate, LG has announced a Chrome OS… kiosk. Well, technically it’s an all-in-one PC, but given Chrome OS’s minimal feature set, it is essentially a kiosk. Called the Chromebase, there’s no word on pricing or availability yet, but given its chunky appearance and circa-2005 rounded bezels we’re probably looking at somewhere in the region of $300 to $400.
LG’s Chromebase, which will be shown off at CES 2014, is an all-in-one (AIO) with a 21.5-inch 1920×1080 IPS display, Intel Celeron CPU, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of solid-state storage. A fairly wimpy spec, but it sits firmly within Chrome OS’s minimum hardware requirements. The paltry supply of RAM may be an issue if you like to keep more than a few tabs open, but LG will probably offer a 4GB model for an extra $50 if you think you’ll need it. With a Celeron CPU, the Chromebase won’t exactly blitz through page loads, and you can expect a fair bit of slowdown if you try to do more than one non-basic tasks at the same time.
LG envisions the Chromebase as a secure kiosk-style computer for schools, hotels, call centers, and other settings that don’t require the feature set provided by a full Windows PC. Chrome OS is very secure, and cloud-based profiles — all of your bookmarks, add-ons, and apps are automatically synced when you log in – make it ideal for situations where dozens or hundreds of people might use the same computer. The Chromebase might also make sense as a family computer, though given the wimpy processor and lack of apps and games, your kids probably would be too happy to receive a Chromebase for Christmas.
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