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Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

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Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#31

Post by jonknee »

eggbrain wrote: post #17
jonknee wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, that model is no longer being manufactured. If you weren't wanting to compare what a new computer costs, this already silly argument becomes even sillier.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#32

Post by chc »

Ronkdar wrote: post #13

> 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? Tha…

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?

Are you a programmer? The idea that there is a finish line for optimizing a program (beyond "This seems fast enough") is weird, and not the sort of thing I'd expect to hear from anyone who's ever done it. You do just have to stop at some point and release. Otherwise you'll keep improving things until the heat death of the universe.

IIRC, the Chrome team has a zero-tolerance policy on performance regressions. Since it auto-updates, it should get faster over time.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#33

Post by kenjackson »

onemoreact wrote: post #7
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?

If it's secure, easy to use and browses "the Facebook" I could see giving them to a relative and saivng a fair amount of tech support time. Granted an iPad fills the same nitch but it costs twice as much.

The iPad is only $150 more. A great conditioned used 1st gen iPad you can get for $50 more. I'll take a 1st gen ipad over this Chromebook easy.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#34

Post by nextparadigms »

$350 should be the max pricing point for a higher quality Chromebook, not the starting point. The starting point should be like $200. They should also make them only with ARM chips to cut the cost significantly. Ideally, it should be like $200 wi-fi only with Tegra 2 (or other dual core ARM chip) and $350 for a better built one with 4G and Tegra 3 (or similar).

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#35

Post by MatthewPhillips »

kenjackson wrote: post #30
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until Google deletes your account for no specific reason and refuses to give it back (this has happened to more than one person) Google can delete my Facebook account? My Office Web Apps account? How do they manage this? > Every OS ever has had this feature. It's called "Users" No other OS saves OS settings and apps in the cloud, to my knowledge. > What does this mean? That you designed it to be inefficient so you…

Google can delete my Facebook account? My Office Web Apps account? How do they manage this? If Google deletes your Google/GMail account, can you still login to your Chromebook?

You don't need to login at all.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#36

Post by kenjackson »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #35
kenjackson wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google can delete my Facebook account? My Office Web Apps account? How do they manage this? If Google deletes your Google/GMail account, can you still login to your Chromebook?

You don't need to login at all.

Nice. For some reason I thought you needed a Google account to use it. Now that I know you don't that's a plus. Not enough of a plus, but it's one less thing to worry about.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#37

Post by MatthewPhillips »

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…

This post is referring to the Acer.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#38

Post by jasongullickson »

lftl wrote: post #15
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 O…

What does Windows have to do with it? Couldn't you achieve "Chromebook-level-functionality" with a Linux model (since you'd be living out of the browser)?

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#39

Post by Ronkdar »

chc wrote: post #32
Ronkdar wrote: post #13

> 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? Tha…

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? Are you a programmer? The idea that there is a finish line for optimizing a program (beyond "This seems fast enough") is weird, and not the sort of thing I'd expect to hear from anyone who's ever done it. You do just have to stop at so…

What I meant was "We know there's tons of things we can still optimize, but we're just gonna release now anyways."

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#40

Post by saurik »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #27
Ronkdar wrote: post #13

> 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? Tha…

> Until Google deletes your account for no specific reason and refuses to give it back (this has happened to more than one person) Google can delete my Facebook account? My Office Web Apps account? How do they manage this? > Every OS ever has had this feature. It's called "Users" No other OS saves OS settings and apps in the cloud, to my knowledge. > What does this mean? That you designed it to be inefficient so you…

> Google can delete my Facebook account? My Office Web Apps account? How do they manage this?

You don't use your Facebook account to log into a Chromebook.

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