Chromebook available for pre-order

The world's first Chromebook is available to pre-order from today, but customers may be disappointed with delivery dates.

The Samsung Chromebook Series 5 netbooks were announced back in May as the first products to run on Google's Chrome operating system. The Silicon Valley giant claimed on its official blog they would be available from the 15 June in the UK as well as in the US, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.

However, when customers go searching for the devices to buy online, the dates look very different.

PC World is advertising both the Wi-Fi and 3G models for 349 and 399 respectively but only for pre-order, saying the netbooks won't be released for shipping until 24 June.

Amazon in the US is selling the Series 5, but the UK version is only offering pre-orders, with delivery dates stated as 1 July for the Wi-Fi version and 1 August for 3G.

Mobile provider 3 was named the UK partner for the netbooks, but there is no details of sales on its website.

We contacted Google to ask where this confusion had come from and why UK customers cannot go and get their hands on a Chromebook today, but it had not returned our request at the time of publication.

The Chrome OS is different from traditional software as it is based on the web, storing little on the actual machine. Although this should lead to faster boot up times and longer battery life, it does mean a user will require an internet connection to make the most of the netbook.

Samsung is the first to launch a netbook based on the cloud-based OS but Acer is geared up to release its own and Google is in discussions with other hardware providers for more products in the future.