Pichai declined to speculate what Chrome OS devices will cost when they appear a year from now, and he said Google had not suggested a target price for its manufacturing partners. Lacking hard drives, however, and with limited onboard storage and low processor power, Chrome OS devices could cost considerably less than today's Windows- and Linux-based netbooks.

In addition, Papakipos reiterated that Chrome OS will run on so-called smartbooks based on the , which could drive prices even lower.

Papakipos emphasized that the most important goal of Chrome OS was to create devices that were fast, easy, and enjoyable for the average person to use. "We want to make it a very fast, delightful system to use. We want you to be able to push the On button, it immediately comes on, and you're on the Web as quickly as possible," Papakipos said.

Because Chrome OS applications will be Web-based, users will not need to install or maintain any software. What's more, the system will boot and applications will launch more quickly. "We don't run conventional applications, so we don't need to start up background services for them," Papakipos said.

Papakipos acknowledged that security exploits would inevitably appear for Chrome OS as they do for other platforms, but said Chrome OS will be inherently more secure than traditional operating systems because the latest software updates and security patches would be installed automatically over the Web. Chrome OS devices will be able to detect whether the latest security patches have been installed, Papakipos said, and will even be able to re-image the system while preserving user settings.