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  • JoeyJoJo123 - Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - link

    Dead on arrival.

    Worthless OS which will lead to a device with no sales.

    It might get bought in bulk by school districts or other institutions that want to offer "loaner" type laptops at a fraction of the cost of a standard Windows laptop, but consumer sales show that there's little demand for chromebooks.
  • T1beriu - Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - link

    Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
  • Samus - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link

    He's probably never even used a Chromebook, so he doesn't even understand how useful they actually are to average people. I recommend them to the aging population all the time and they are always happy with them. Perfect with Netflix, web surfing, emailing, etc, you know, what 95% of retired people do on a PC.

    The icing on the cake isn't even the fact they cost very little, but that they are virtually uninfectable (is that a word? I'm making it a word.)
  • forgot2yield28 - Sunday, April 3, 2016 - link

    95% of what most people do with a PC at home, for that matter. My brother has one at college, and I asked him if he wanted help buying a more capable laptop, and he said he was 100% happy with his Chromebook. You can definitely argue that they aren't ready to tackle the productivity needs of everyone, but they're anything but dead on arrival.
  • lmcd - Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - link

    Yea it doesn't look like Chromebooks have much further to grow beyond education. The lack of hardware support and painfully-slow adoption of HTML standards that would remedy this (in addition to no Linux CUPS for no apparent reason) mean that there's not a lot of value here.
  • kupfernigk - Sunday, April 3, 2016 - link

    Why bother with the weight of CUPS when there's Google Cloud Print or the proprietary options from Epson, HP and the like? A Chromebook is designed to be part of the Google infrastructure, and gcp works fine - I currently have two Epsons and an HP, two of which are business printers, connected .
    And what hardware support do I need for a lightweight laptop for use when out, and around the house?
    This one will probably replace my Samsung 550, which so far has survived three years of something approaching abuse and still works perfectly despite the dents and scratches, but I would like a bigger screen.
  • extide - Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - link

    Any actual stats to back that up or is it just some useless jabber?
  • T1beriu - Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - link

    I guess the 10K+ reviews of Chromebooks on Amazon are written just by school and other institutions' admins?
  • damianrobertjones - Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - link

    Or google themselves.
  • name99 - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link

    Ah, the conspiracy theory. The last refuge when the facts (or should I say "facts"?) go against you.
  • famfam - Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - link

    My sister bought me a chromebook. Asus C100P.. Never would have went there myself. But, it's an amazing machine. I'm totally hooked. Such a lightweight OS, that battery lasts longer, and start up is amazingly fast. There are a mad amount of apps, which I can also access from any machine with Chrome. I'm sold! Can't be beat for 90% of my use!
  • auerbach - Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - link

    We have three Chromebooks in a household with four people. So "no sales" might be a slight exaggeration.
  • mporter88 - Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - link

    I run a chromebook and use it as the front end for two remote dual monitor towers. One in my garage and one at my office. Just a tremendous change to how I work and web. The dual monitor deal is that you just mouse over to the other monitor. There is no boundary between the displays. Just slick as hell. Key is to have your monitors match the screen of your chromebook. 1080P in my case as I bought the Chromebook 15.

    The Chrome Remote Desktop app is just rock solid. I can access the same two machines as easily from a hotel room in vegas as I can from my living room.

    Great battery life. Solid build and form factor.

    Cannot say enough good things about the Chromebook 15 and the ChromeOS.

    the tool does it's job. What else is needed?
  • noelburke - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link

    Great examples of how to properly utilize Chromebook capabilities... I do the same for our data center remote access - and back to my home office laptop. I often kid associates - that I run Win7 on my Chromebook - and of course what I really mean is - I don't care to lug around a boat anchor with poor battery life - so if and when I DO need the full experience - I'll remote to it with my Chromebook (Toshiba 14") and not require rotator cuff surgery from hauling it around everywhere I go. Even my OpenVPN works well on Chrome OS. LOVE this thing
  • BrokenCrayons - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link

    There are lots of inexpensive Windows devices that can compete with hardware specs, weight, and battery life. They also can compete on cost quite easily. In fact some of the recent premium Chromebooks are cost prohibitive compared to conventional laptops so I think it might be a bit of an exaggeration when a person argues that they'd have to carry around a boat anchor, suffer injuries, and get poor battery life with a Windows system.
  • KeithR - Friday, April 1, 2016 - link

    And not one of those "comparable" Win devices will get within a country mile of the performance of a CB, performing similar tasks.
  • BrokenCrayons - Friday, April 1, 2016 - link

    While certainly there are some people who would happily make purchase decisions based on "a country mile" of additional performance without any supporting evidence, may others may prefer more specific terminology. Is there a conversion formula you can share with the rest of the readers so we can calculate compute workload outcomes in different terms?
  • JamesU - Saturday, April 2, 2016 - link

    We get it Keith, you really love your Chromebook.
  • eebrah - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link

    I don't know .... Windows PCs with 1080p, 4GB of RAM and an Aluminium chasis for $300? Haven't come across any of those so far unless it is some sort of clearance sale
  • kaidenshi - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link

    It's actually a pretty good OS these days, and if you're not satisfied you can convert it to a full blown Linux distro with a few commands. Or you could go back to your more expensive, less refined Windows laptop with the perpetual alpha stage OS Microsoft expects you to test 24/7 for them.
  • ctbdp - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link

    The thing I like about the Chrome book are : price tag & weight & battery life - there is very little downside unless you need something very specific (ok you need to know a few things about Google Apps and a decent SD card to be able to work offline the same way you would on a windows machine) - but ultimately windows and chrome OS are headed in the same direction (same as windows and Mac OS have been headed down same road) Chrome OS adding more and more offline capabilities and windows adding more web based things the differences are fading away.
  • BrokenCrayons - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link

    I wouldn't accuse Chrome of being worthless, but I do agree that this won't land many sales in a manner similar to other limited functionality devices. While a Chrome device can handle "some" of the average person's computing tasks, it often can't perform "all" of them which makes it easy to put down an additional $50 - 100 to purchase a more capable computer that operates in a more familiar manner.

    What might give Chrome some legs is that the current version of Windows is just as invasive with respect to end user data mining. Oddly enough, data collection is a mainstream concern with a lot of people who are surprisingly non-technical aware of and concerned about what their devices are doing. Since the playing field has been leveled between Google and Microsoft, this may play favorably for Google's (is it actually Alphabet now...or was that Umbrella...?) favor when it comes to landing sales.

    Chrome laptops are also good candidates for Linux which might appeal to a small number of tinkerers who enjoy that sort of thing. I'd prefer traditional PC hardware for a Linux install, but I admit that doing so has become painful in a world of UEFI and Secure BIOS (which isn't secure at all really since it's been exploited regularly despite efforts to close the gaps) and will likely remain so in many budget computer systems.

    As always, I continue to be baffled by the idea of developing Android and Chrome OS in a manner that keeps them from reaching a unified state. Certainly there's risks in attempting to unify operating systems with different interface methods and usage models, but I think it can be done effectively. Simply make Chrome into another Android variant with a different window manager and walk away from the current, rather broken Chrome computing model.
  • uhuznaa - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link

    I think you totally underestimate how many people are willing to pay good money to NOT have to deal with a "full computer". Chromebooks are basically just a disembodied browser with most of the "familiar computer" kicked out under it, and for a lot of use cases this may be nothing but a relieve.

    Personally I could live better with a computer that offers nothing but a terminal and Emacs than with something that offers just a browser, but something that is just a browser AND a terminal and Emacs may fit the bill just fine...
  • BrokenCrayons - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link

    Check in on Slackware or if you're a fairly advanced Linux user maybe Arch. After initial install Arch leaves you with just a shell after the initial install. It takes a bit of elbow grease to add a GUI and that process isn't necessary really. The Arch Linux documentation on their Wiki is top-notch too.

    Slackware I've been using on and off for the last 16 years. The installer will let you easily unselect X windows and window managers so you can easily build a system that's CLI-only yet perfectly usable. There's even the option of Lynx or Links as text mode web browsers, CLI MP3 players and a variety of other tools (all of which you'd see during the install) that can get you a lot of capability without having Chrome's GUI or browser laying atop the OS.

    As for people willing to move to a limited function device like Chrome, I have no doubt that there are lots of them out there, but I do believe that much of that potential market has already purchased tablets or phones that serve them well for those needs which leaves Chrome out in the cold seeking customers that already have their needs met by more commonplace alternatives.
  • KeithR - Friday, April 1, 2016 - link

    "but I do believe that much of that potential market has already purchased tablets or phones that serve them well for those needs which leaves Chrome out in the cold seeking customers that already have their needs met by more commonplace alternatives."

    You're demonstrating a STAGGERING lack of understanding of the potential Chromebook userbase.
  • name99 - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link

    "but I do agree that this won't land many sales in a manner similar to other limited functionality devices."

    You mean limited functionality devices like the smartphones whose sales now exceed PCs?
    I think you have a massively distorted view of the actual computing marketplace...
  • BrokenCrayons - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link

    Above your post my comments read as follows: "As for people willing to move to a limited function device like Chrome, I have no doubt that there are lots of them out there, but I do believe that much of that potential market has already purchased tablets or phones that serve them well for those needs which leaves Chrome out in the cold seeking customers that already have their needs met by more commonplace alternatives."
  • KeithR - Friday, April 1, 2016 - link

    " it often can't perform "all" of them which makes it easy to put down an additional $50 - 100 to purchase a more capable computer that operates in a more familiar manner."

    A more familiar manner - but not REMOTELY as well...
  • noelburke - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link

    Maybe you should consider letting go of WindowsXP... what planet have you been residing on the last couple years friend? Chromebooks are flying off shelves for consumers and I'm in education - combine with Google Apps for Education and other cloud based resources/sites - it's been a game changer for cash strapped budgets... and?... AND?... OMG!!.... they WORK! Really ignorant remark to make in the face of all the data on Chromebooks. Get with it...
  • name99 - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link

    6.2 Million Chromebooks sold last year.
    (This is around a third of the Macs sold. So small, but not negligible.)
    I suspect that longer-term (say over the next five years) there is more scope for growth here than in Windows as the OS grows, as ARM CPUs overtake x86 at this low-end Celeron/Pentium level, and as ever more people realize that they just don't need Windows backward compatibility.

    Of course there are specialized segments that NEED Windows, and these people would not buy a Chromebook, just like they would not buy an iPad (and likely not a Mac). But to obsess over them and to imagine that they represent the entire (or even a substantial fraction) of the entire computing population is just silly.
  • JoeyJoJo123 - Friday, April 1, 2016 - link

    You do also realize that Chromebooks have razor thin margins, right? They are bulk-sold commodity item and only provide marginal value to the companies selling them in enough volume.

    They're literally in the same place right now as Android tablets. Yeah, people buy them. But nobody's really making much money by making them. For the most part it's a race to the bottom for those who do buy them.

    Google would do better by combining their development efforts on a united Android/ChromeOS offering, one that works well for phones, tablets, miniPCs, and light laptops. Right now Android really only works well enough for phones as tablet UI and larger is a disaster. ChromeOS only sees usage on thin-margin, high-volume light laptops, but compared to having a Windows based miniPC-on-a-stick or some flavor of Unix/Linux (Ubuntu, for example), ChromeOS and ChromeCast-like stuff falls out.
  • kupfernigk - Sunday, April 3, 2016 - link

    You don't get it. Android is a phone OS with a touch UI and has to run large numbers of services. Chrome is a very lightweight OS that runs minimal services and the smallest possible UI, with a lot of attention paid to keyboard and trackpad, to get really fast performance with low power dissipation. Microsoft tried to merge a phone OS and a desktop OS and the result has been a bit of a disaster with the phone OS heading for the skip. You are asking Google to do the equivalent of merging a car and a boat. This does not work well.
  • KeithR - Friday, April 1, 2016 - link

    Must be really dark under that rock, eh?
  • mgl888 - Saturday, April 2, 2016 - link

    I'm using a chromebook 15 with crouton/ubuntu as an ssh terminal for coding. It's perfect. High res screen, long battery life, good wifi. MS office also runs well on Playonlinux. Everything I need for.... $150.
  • BobbySmith - Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - link

    Our business uses hundreds of them and they rock.
  • T1beriu - Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - link

    Typos in the chart - FHD switched with HD.
  • qlum - Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - link

    I personally may end up getting a chromebook somewhere along the line. Even though I don't use my laptop that much my current laptop still runs on a e350 which does start to show its age even under a light weight linux distro.
  • uhuznaa - Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - link

    This thing will live or die by its keyboard. If it has a good keyboard I may buy one just for the kicks. A ChromeOS/Linux machine with 12 or 14 hours battery life and a nice display for $300 definitely is a good thing.
  • kaidenshi - Thursday, March 31, 2016 - link

    If not for the (huge) Acer logo, one could easily mistake this for a MacBook of some sort. Can we not come up with a better or at least different design language for laptops? I'm not saying MacBook design is bad, but it's pretty stale at this point.
  • JoeyJoJo123 - Friday, April 1, 2016 - link

    There's only so many ways one can design a 5" screen on a slab device, and when this device uses some semblance of aluminum, it's gotta be an iPhone rip-off. It's a touch-screen-on-a-slab-device-thingy, they all look the same. And the design isn't what matters, so long as it's ergonomic and intuitive to use, it's the functionality and performance.

    There's only so many ways one can design a 12" ~ 17" screen hinged on a keyboard surface, and when this device uses some semblance of aluminum, it's gotta be a MacBook ripoff. It's a screen-hinged-to-a-keyboard-and-touchpad-device-thingy, they all look the same. And the design isn't really what matters, so long as it's ergonomic and intuitive to use, it's the functionality and performance.

    Tell me, do you believe Apple(tm) invented aluminum, too?
  • KeithR - Friday, April 1, 2016 - link

    "If not for the (huge) Acer logo, one could easily mistake this for a MacBook of some sort"

    In which case - thank God for the Acer logo...
  • KNKLHEAD - Friday, April 1, 2016 - link

    And the one thing it does well is run Office 365. YIKES! Nice machine.

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