A mysterious package showed up the other day. I was on the road, but my wife called me up to ask if she should open it. When she reported that it was a unmarked laptop, I feigned ignorance to further the ruse that I work for the CIA.

Now I’ve got the sleek little Cr-48 Chrome Notebook in my hands. The understated Safety Notices/Instructions read “please please connect the power cable and fully charge the battery before using the device for the first time.”

So the thing is plugged in. The orange light indicates still charging. Will it take an hour? A day? Should I wake up throughout the night to check on it? Standing by …

**Update: ** Charged! I came back to see the indicator light was white about four hours after starting the charge. I fired up the Cr-48, chose the hotel’s wifi network, and found I couldn’t get much farther. Since the network requires that I enter an authorization code through the hotel’s website, I couldn’t complete the remaining setup tasks (sign in with Google Account). I can sign in as Guest, but still Chrome isn’t properly getting redirected to the hotel’s authorization page. The same happens on a few other nearby networks. Alas, I can’t send a bug report without a connection to google.com.