[Graham]

When I first saw this device my reactions were pretty much as most of you above. But it's been sinking in, and I'm prepared to give this one a chance.

Taking the objections in turn:

No onboard storage

Well, 32 GB isn't none, and for those who embrace cloud computing it will be sufficient. For those who want more storage the machine has an SD card slot.

It's just a browser

Well, yes. That's the point.

There are no apps

Google and Microsoft both have the main business applications covered with web offerings. Social media is already rife on the web, and there are already plenty of HTML5 sites out there, growing all the time.

The key point here is that a lot of us have key legacy applications that we won't be able to run on a Chromebook. But Google are betting that there's a sizeable market already of people for whom browser, email, calendar, image editor, word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software are all that's needed, and as long as there are plenty of games it doesn't really matter which ones.

It's so expensive

Cheaper machines are also available. This is an ultrabook equivalent with a world-beating screen.

And that terabyte of cloud storage for three years is a significant part of that price. Three years is a reasonable lifetime for a laptop. Google are saying that the cloud storage is key to using this top-end machine effectively, so pay for it up front and then let us take care of all your backup and storage woes.

That price will come down. I agree with those who are saying this is a flagship device, designed to be eye-catching and to make people think seriously about cloud computing.

Sure it has its constraints, but I've been mulling the benefits myself for the last few weeks (particularly after having to sort out several people's machines for malware and general messiness).

Graham