Well, in all honesty, netbooks are dying. They had their moment in the Sun in 2009 but netbook sales have been drastically decreasing ever since 2010. Even companies such as Asus, which lead the netbook market back in the day, have shifted focus to other products (ie tablets and ultra portable notebooks). What you are seeing is a last ditch effort for netbook manufacturers to push our their hardware using different software.
Essentially they are turning to Google's Chrome OS instead of Windows as Chrome OS offers features that are more energy friendly and less processor intensive. It isn't a full fledged desktop OS like Windows and essentially relies on apps to function (much like Android and iOS). That is the main problem with Chrome as it has yet to prove itself as a viable means of consuming apps. Chrome OS is, for lack of better words, a tablet OS running on a netbook form factor. This is Google's answer to people who don't want to run an Android tablet and like to stick with the traditional way of computing (ie keyboard and mouse).
Does it work? Well, nobody knows yet as nothing has really come out for it that either pushes it beyond apps available for iOS (ie the iPad/iPad 2) or isn't already available for iOS. Google has been selling a Chromebook for a while now (maybe a year) and it essentially hasn't gone anywhere.
Another issue is that Chrome relies heavily on Cloud storage. This means that it expects you to be connected to the internet 24/7 in order to access your purchased apps, documents, videos, music, etc. I suggest you read through a new article on Cnet that talks about Samsung's Chromebook model. It varies from Acer's model by just a little bit but it gives you an idea of how Chrome performs.
Either way, I wouldn't gamble now with Google's OS especially since netbooks are dying and falling off of the map and tablets are now taking their position.
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