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Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

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Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#71

Post by pharrington »

klbarry wrote: post #26

The biggest Chromebook advantage, in my opinion, is that it never slows down because you never change the software in any meaningful way. For the average person who bloats their computer over time until it isn't usable, that is huge.

Unfortunately adware/malware Chrome extensions already exist. Granted removing that is much easier than removing some nasty software installed on a traditional OS, but the type of user that's not savvy enough to avoid malware wouldn't know how to remove a Chrome extension :\

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#72

Post by yason »

The price is astronomical. I can turn my EeePC into a homemade chromebook with $0 and I paid much less for that years ago. I would assume that you could strip the chromebook down to $150-200 precisely because the hardware specs required for a glorified browser ought to be considerably lower than for running a full-fledged OS. Perhaps I'll have to wait for some Tegra chromebook to get the price/perf figure to a more sensitive level: even the latest smartphones should be able to match the requirements for a chromebook.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#73

Post by saraid216 »

kenjackson wrote: post #36
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a plus, but is it a Google plus? /rimshot

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#74

Post by erikpukinskis »

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…

The Chromebook I have already struggles with flash

A little off topic, but I find it interesting to note that what Apple has gotten in exchange for the flak they got for not including Flash on the iPad is that they don't have any reviews like this. People consider the iPad to have good performance.

If Google had taken the same route and left out Flash, not only might they have more room to trim the CPU, it might be a better value proposition performance-wise.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#75

Post by listic »

tedunangst wrote: post #55
nextparadigms wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't really need to skimp on hardware. They just need to use the inexpensive ARM chips over the expensive Intel chips. That should cut at least $100 from the retail price. I can't believe they did the same mistake as with Google TV.

The Atom N570 costs $86, so unless ARM is literally paying people to use its chips, dropping $100 seems unlikely.

I think Atom N570 needs a chipset, too (maybe it's a single chip now, but still.)

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#76

Post by streeter »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #74
lftl wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The Chromebook I have already struggles with flash A little off topic, but I find it interesting to note that what Apple has gotten in exchange for the flak they got for not including Flash on the iPad is that they don't have any reviews like this. People consider the iPad to have good performance. If Google had taken the same route and left out Flash, not only might they have more room to trim the CPU, it might be a…

The fact that Google owns the most popular flash site on the internet (YouTube), probably helped with their decision to include Flash.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#77

Post by krishna2 »

Imagine you have a chromebook, and imagine Google deleted your account, now do you have a very expensive paper-weight? (or is there some salvation?). I see some opportunity for two ideas: 1. insurance against the event that a company will delete your account. 2. a backup-for-orig-company.com (browser plug-in? desktop-background-app?), that backs up (and keeps track of) everything you do with company X - so you can retrieve it all someday if the need be.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#78

Post by e1ven »

krishna2 wrote: post #77

Imagine you have a chromebook, and imagine Google deleted your account, now do you have a very expensive paper-weight? (or is there some salvation?). I see some opportunity for two ideas: 1. insurance against the event that a company will delete your account. 2. a backup-for-orig-company.com (browser plug-in? desktop-background-app?), that backs up (and keeps track of) everything you do with company X - so you can re…

At least for the CR-48's, you could flip the dev switch and wipe them, or install Ubuntu. I had to use the dev-switch to get a terminal.. Web online just doesn't cut it when you need to SSH to your servers ;)

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#79

Post by esrauch »

streeter wrote: post #76
erikpukinskis wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chromebook I have already struggles with flash A little off topic, but I find it interesting to note that what Apple has gotten in exchange for the flak they got for not including Flash on the iPad is that they don't have any reviews like this. People consider the iPad to have good performance. If Google had taken the same route and left out Flash, not only might they have more room to trim the CPU, it might be a…

The fact that Google owns the most popular flash site on the internet (YouTube), probably helped with their decision to include Flash.

I assume the chromebooks support html5 video, which youtube also supports. Apple was able to have iPhones still work with youtube without supporting flash, so Google could have found a similar workaround even without including html5 video tags.

Re: Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

#80

Post by streeter »

esrauch wrote: post #79
streeter wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that Google owns the most popular flash site on the internet (YouTube), probably helped with their decision to include Flash.

I assume the chromebooks support html5 video, which youtube also supports. Apple was able to have iPhones still work with youtube without supporting flash, so Google could have found a similar workaround even without including html5 video tags.

Though the iPhone uses a YouTube app, which isn't the web. The allure of the Chromebook is that it can play the whole web, and YouTube is a big part of that. YouTube does have html5 video, but it is still in beta and isn't available for all videos. And it is opt-in.

In addition, with the focus on enterprise and education, I believe that Chromebooks had to support flash as a requirement.

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