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Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

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Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#11

Post by eggbrain »

shoota wrote: post #10
vnorby wrote: post #5

Don't buy one. I got the Samsung Series 5 3g Chromebook a month ago, and I definitely regret buying even at its low price point. The OS is still very unstable and not performant. The speakers are very bad (but I wouldn't watch video or listen to music anyway - YouTube/Pandora/Turntable.fm tend to crash quite a bit). The screen is not that great. The only upside is the long battery life but you're better off spending…

A couple hundred dollars more? A MacBook Air is $650 more expensive than the price listed on Amazon. For that price you could buy almost 3 Chromebooks.

The Samsung Series 5 3g is $500, the cheapest Macbook Air is $835. So, a little more than a couple hundred dollars more, but a lot less than $650 more (even the cheapest Chromebook at $350 would be tops $485 less).

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#12

Post by Zumzoa »

notatoad wrote: post #8
hollerith wrote: post #2

Is the main market for chrome books (a) people who want to install Linux and other OSes on them and (b) people who do not want the hassle of adminning a traditional OS?

the theoretical market for chromebooks is people who only want a computer for facebook and email and want to buy something simple and cheap. in practice, i think the market is just nerds who want to play with a chromebook because it's new and cool. i appreciate what google is trying to do with chromeOS, and i think it's a good idea, but they have failed miserably at marketing it to non-techies.

In terms of providing simple email, web use and facebook, the Chromebook may be out-performed by most modern mobile phones.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#13

Post by Ronkdar »

> It just works.

Can we stop saying this please?

> "Your apps, documents, and settings are stored safely in the cloud."

Until Google deletes your account for no specific reason and refuses to give it back (this has happened to more than one person)

> Millions of apps.

[citation needed]

> Friends let friends login.

Every OS ever has had this feature. It's called "Users"

>Gets faster over time.

What does this mean? That you designed it to be inefficient so you can speed it up and gather favor from your users? That you just stopped optimizing halfway through and pegged it 1.0?

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#14

Post by jonknee »

eggbrain wrote: post #11
shoota wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple hundred dollars more? A MacBook Air is $650 more expensive than the price listed on Amazon. For that price you could buy almost 3 Chromebooks.

The Samsung Series 5 3g is $500, the cheapest Macbook Air is $835. So, a little more than a couple hundred dollars more, but a lot less than $650 more (even the cheapest Chromebook at $350 would be tops $485 less).

The cheapest MacBook Air is indeed $999:

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo...

Perhaps you saw an older model that's on clearance.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#15

Post by lftl »

eggbrain wrote: post #3

When I first saw the Chromebook, I figured it would be priced around $150, so that it was a no-brainer decision (especially with it's limitations over a normal laptop). But at $349, its still $75 more than an Acer Aspire One. Make it $100-$150, and I'll buy it. As it stands though, its too much money and too little benefits.

To be fair as far as I can tell, there is no directly comparable Windows Acer Aspire One. All the 11.6" Acers I see run on a different chipset, and they're all only $20 cheaper than the Acer Chromebook.

When I first tried out the Chromebook, I thought the same thing about price. But I'm pretty sure Microsoft licenses Windows for these netbooks VERY cheaply, so there's not much price to be shaved by swapping out the OS.

To hit a significant price difference Chromebooks would have to skimp on the hardware compared to their Windows/Linux counterparts. The Chromebook I have already struggles with flash, so without dropping support for that completely I don't think there's much to trim off the CPU end of things. There's a little room to skimp on the HD compared to Windows, but not a ton. So basically I don't see any route other than being ad supported, rentals or some other type of Google subsidy for Chromebooks to actually become cheaper than the low end of the netbook segment.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#16

Post by shoota »

eggbrain wrote: post #11
shoota wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple hundred dollars more? A MacBook Air is $650 more expensive than the price listed on Amazon. For that price you could buy almost 3 Chromebooks.

The Samsung Series 5 3g is $500, the cheapest Macbook Air is $835. So, a little more than a couple hundred dollars more, but a lot less than $650 more (even the cheapest Chromebook at $350 would be tops $485 less).

The Macbook Air starts at $999 according to http://www.apple.com/macbookair/. Looking at the cheapest Chromebook vs. cheapest Macbook Air it is $650. I'm not considering educational pricing here.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#17

Post by eggbrain »

jonknee wrote: post #14
eggbrain wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Samsung Series 5 3g is $500, the cheapest Macbook Air is $835. So, a little more than a couple hundred dollars more, but a lot less than $650 more (even the cheapest Chromebook at $350 would be tops $485 less).

The cheapest MacBook Air is indeed $999: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo... Perhaps you saw an older model that's on clearance.

The model I saw was here:

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MacBook-MC505LL-11-6-Inch-Laptop...

Which could very well be the 2010 model. That being said, the OP never mentioned getting "the latest and greatest" Macbook Air, only a Macbook Air.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#18

Post by ben1040 »

I've been using a Samsung Series 5 for a couple weeks (I have the 3G model which is priced at $499).

After having tried this out, there's no way I would call it worth $499. Maybe I'm just spoiled from my MacBook Air but the Series 5 is heavy and has a cheap/plasticky feel to it. The trackpad has responsiveness problems and in general just feels funny to use. All in all it gives off kind of a "toy computer" impression which is unfortunate.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#19

Post by sahaj »

choko wrote: post #9

Wow, that seems a little pricey for what is offered. I would think they would be able to use an "off the shelf" netbook that already costs ~300 dollars, without Windows, and sell it for ~200. Windows accounts for a nice chunk of the price of a netbook, does it not? I know they don't pay store prices for Windows, but I'm sure they are still paying a decent amount. Does anyone have an insight in to how much Windows add…

From what I understand Windows volume licensing cost is around $30-$40 per copy depending on who the hardware vendor is.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#20

Post by shoota »

choko wrote: post #9

Wow, that seems a little pricey for what is offered. I would think they would be able to use an "off the shelf" netbook that already costs ~300 dollars, without Windows, and sell it for ~200. Windows accounts for a nice chunk of the price of a netbook, does it not? I know they don't pay store prices for Windows, but I'm sure they are still paying a decent amount. Does anyone have an insight in to how much Windows add…

According to this article http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/06/microsoft-curr... which is a bit dated it seems like the cost of windows could be as low as $15-30.
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