It's not much, in fact, these screenshots are incredibly easy to fake. Still, a hastily constructed WordPress blog has been setup to host what are claimed to be the world's first screenshots of Google's new Chrome OS -- hailed as both a Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X killer or a Google FUD generator depending upon who you're listening to. As the story is told, a Google representative demonstrated a private beta build of the OS to an anonymous Acer parts supplier yesterday, presumably somewhere in Taiwan. The picture above was grabbed breathlessly while the Google rep was distracted. Highlights of the demonstration break down as follows:

• The "elegant" install on the Acer Extensa 4620Z laptop took about 10 minutes and 1 restart
• Reboots desktop-to-desktop in about 25 seconds
• It was "amazingly fast" in its stripped-down beta form
• The blue orb on the auto-hiding "Chrome Bar" along the bottom of the UI is essentially the start menu
• Navigating the file system can be done in "exploration" (like Windows explorer) or "browser" (search based) modes
• The Chrome Bar can also host a search bar if configured
  
• Future Chrome OS netbooks will feature an iconified Chrome key on the keyboard similar to the Windows flag key

Of course, it's a long, long time before this OS appears on next generation ARM and x86 smartnetbooks -- second half of 2010 according to the Goog -- so who knows what the interface will look like by then. One more image after the break.

[Thanks, Matthew M.]

Update: We just got another set of shots of what is purportedly the boot screen. To be honest, any of these could be faked, but we thought we'd pass along -- hopefully we'll be seeing something a bit more concrete in the coming weeks. Gallery is below.


Update 2: Mr. Chrome OS Leak himself has come forward and confirmed his "screenshots" to be fake. Thanks, buddy. No word on this other set of pics.

Acer's 11.6-inch netbook -- the Aspire One 751h -- has been available Stateside since mid-May, and Laptop's spent some quality time with it, delivering a full review. Overall, they found the nice, large screen to be welcoming, and the battery life (on their 6-cell configuration) was fantastic -- clocking in at over seven hours. They were, however, pretty disappointed in the 1.22-GHz Intel Atom Z520 CPU, finding it to really slow the unit down. They note that other similarly priced models boast better processors, and might be a smarter choice. The Aspire One 751h runs $399 with a 3-cell battery, and $449 for the 6-cell version. Hit up the read link for the full review. One more shot after the break.

Acer's Aspire One 531 has been floating around Europe since April, but it looks like it's finally made its way to a few retailers over here, and in a couple of different versions no less. Those include the AO531h-1791 "Pro" version, and the AO531h-1440 and AO531h-1766 "Normal" versions, the former of which packs 2GB of RAM and XP Professional, while the latter two dial things back to 1GB of RAM and XP Home. Otherwise, you'll get the same 10.1-inch 1,024 x 600 display on each, along with the usual Atom N270 processor, a 160GB hard drive, and built-in 3G, which can bring the price of the normal version down to just $150 if you also sign up for an AT&T service plan. Plan on spending upwards of $450 if you want to go your own way.