Second Google Books PDF Test: Samsung Chromebook Plus

Reminder: Bands or stripes that appear in photos are the screen refresh interval interfering with the camera sensor. The screen is absolutely clear, sharp, and doesn’t strobe in person. Click any image to enlarge.

Because I absolutely had to know as soon as possible, I went to a Best Buy yesterday to see if I could get SmartQ Reader running under Android on the Samsung Chromebook Plus.

And here we go, with it downloaded from my Google Drive:

I took that as a good sign.

I was an idiot!

Close-up:

It didn’t know what to do with the file. I have to chalk this up to the locked-down demo mode the unit is in.

Because someone else did give it a try. And he owns the Chromebook. So no demo mode interference.

And the news was bad.

Twitter:

“Frustration” isn’t the only word that begins with “F” that comes to mind.

So for the time being, Android on a Chromebook is like a saucy tease who refuses to actually put out. (Oh, I’ll get hell for that remark. Too bad.)

Since I was finally awake this time, I went to my Google Books PDF Test page and grabbed some files to view in the Chrome browser. To torment myself over what might be.

Comic books look absolutely spectacular on it.

Viewing PDFs in the Chrome browser can be sheer hell because this can happen with some:

It takes too damn long to render the page.

The small type of Surface Japan is rendered bigly:

The original hardcover is about the size of a mass-market paperback so seeing it this big is a joy:

I’ve sent an email to the maker of SmartQ Reader, letting them know about the Asus ZenPad S3 10 file manager problem and my desire to have their app run on a Chromebook under Android. At post time, no reply yet. An added complication is that they’re in China and the Great Firewall can’t be counted on to let messages pass through in a timely manner — or at all.

As if dealing with China wasn’t bad enough, just how finished has Google gotten Android for Chrome anyway? Will it take several more months before any PDFs apps can run reliably on it?

And, finally, what CPU is inside this thing? When it comes to ARM, the world turns to Charbax.

Twitter:

Now we know for sure.

Previously here:

Google Books PDF Test: Samsung Chromebook Plus