It's not fundamentally different though. I had the cr48 too and it was just a toy compared to a normal Linux distribution. It didn't displace my similarly underpowered Asus netbook, since the later ran Debian (I think that's the distro I ran back then).
Chromebooks of today are more powerful, which they need to be because web developers of today waste more memory and CPU cycles than ever. But fundamentally the concept and limitations of these "online first" devices are similar. The ability to run Android apps is certainly a step forward, but these things are really designed to lock people into Google's cloud products first and foremost.
It is so, so fundamentally different. It has been over a decade. Chromebooks today run debian. I've got a debian shell right now where I'm working with intellij.
Chromebooks of today are more powerful, which they need to be because web developers of today waste more memory and CPU cycles than ever. But fundamentally the concept and limitations of these "online first" devices are similar. The ability to run Android apps is certainly a step forward, but these things are really designed to lock people into Google's cloud products first and foremost.