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$149 Chromebooks

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Re: $149 Chromebooks

#191

Post by jolan »

green7ea wrote: post #74
discardorama wrote: post #14

Can one wipe out a Chromebook and install Linux?

Yes you can but it's not a straightforward process. I did it for my chromebox which follows the same procedure as doing it for a chromebook. Basically you have to open the machine and remove a screw to enable write access to the bios. After that you have to replace the coreboot bios that came with the computer with a newer coreboot version and install SeaBios (old bios emulation on top of coreboot) as a payload. You…

These are ARM Chromebooks though so there is no conventional bios to flash.

They have u-boot with support for booting external media turned off so all you need to do is turn that on and make bootable media.

http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv7/samsung/samsung-chro...

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#192

Post by shasheene »

jdietrich wrote: post #94

This is a colossal, market-moving play from Google. Look at the brand names. TRUE, XOLO, Nexian. Recognise them? Consumers in Thailand, India and Indonesia do - they are local smartphone brands. Look at the promo video. Notice how many Asian faces there are? This isn't about cheap Chromebooks, it's about a major strategic effort to court the global middle class. As with the Android One initiative, Google are seeking…

I hope you're right, but past Google initiatives into the developing economy markets (like Android One) haven't been too successful (so far)

There's better options in the $50 - $150 price range for smartphones than Android One. The same with laptops - a $150-$200 x86 laptop running Windows is much better than the equivalent ARM Chromebook right now.

And that's just for new sales. Another reason is the large market for used products - which provide better performance per dollar than most products which needs to be manufactured (and maintain the same 'expensive western brand' status-orientated in cultures, and income unequal economies (which is strongly correlated to consumption of luxury goods).

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#194

Post by bduerst »

pmelendez wrote: post #98
patmcc wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's completely untrue. Advertisers come to Google and say "we want to sell this, people in these demographics would like it" and Google shows it to me or you based on what it knows about us. Google knows lots about me; people who buy adwords don't.

Google does help them (google's advertisers) to track you indirectly. Not throught the adwords networks but throught the RTB network (DoubleClick). You can easily validate this by checking all the "pixels" (in the RTB sense) that are being deployed by Google. In their defense, they do mask a lot of things so stuff like the full IP address are not available (last time I worked on that they just give you the three firs…

Tracking pixels are pretty standard for the web analytics industry, and are a tool to aggregate information, not sell. Google, Facebook, Optimizely, Marketo, etc. all use them.

If you really want to learn more, you can read the wikipedia page on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/tracking_pixel

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#195

Post by ntakasaki »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #180
TheTaO wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a colossal, market-moving play from Google. Is it that or is it just an effort to stay relevant? If you can get a laptop/tablet that can do the same thing that this Chromebook does and has a full OS for a few bucks more, would you do it? There are tons of tablets from HP/Dell that cost 100-200$ and run full windows OS and have comparable specs to the Chromebooks. As far as I know they are selling quite well…

Chromebook sales are constantly rising. With the eventual capability that they'll be able to run Android programs, as well as PNaCl and Emscripten borrowing from each other and getting better offering opportunity for tons of apps to be ported to the web, and then of course HTML5 and Js becoming the technology of choice for all sorts of apps, Chromebooks are the eventual future. Maybe they're not the present, but they…

>Chromebook sales are constantly rising

Where are the real shipping numbers from Google then? Surely they must know the numbers? Why won't they release it then? The only reason I can think of could be that they aren't all that great.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#196

Post by grok2 »

dpcan wrote: post #6

Where is the $149 Windows-Based laptop with SSD, 2-4GB RAM, and moderate graphics, that can run your usual Office to Minecraft software? The Chromebook-killer from Microsoft should be here, but all I hear about are the Surfaces. Honestly, the only reason my kids don't have Chromebooks is because they don't easily run Minecraft or downloadable games. Sure they can do their school work on them, but they also like to pl…

HP Stream comes pretty close (I think they are better than the Chromebooks though a bit pricier) -- http://store.hp.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ContentView?eS...

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#197

Post by pjmlp »

glenstein wrote: post #95
raesene9 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.amazon.com/HP-Stream-Laptop-Personal-Horizon/dp/B... HP Stream 11 is likely the closest to what you're looking for $199 so slightly more expensive, but a year of Office365 included...

I was going to post this if somebody else didn't. To add one important detail: the HP Stream you linked doesn't just exist as a proof of concept or whatever, which would be one thing, but it's currently outselling all the Chromebooks (and every other laptop for that matter) on Amazon. Chromebooks dominated in 2014, but they've been bumped and I'm not sure they'll ever be back at the top. Rather than a sea change, it…

Actually that was a USA only phenomenon, I never saw Chromebooks live in Europe.

Here in Germany, some chain stores do have a few of them at their little corner being ignored by everyone.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#198

Post by spb »

not-much-io wrote: post #24

I own a Acer c720p Chromebook and I have to say it is a wonderful machine. I now only use my main PC for programming, and I even do that sometimes by SSH from my chromebook. Main point: * Great battery life * Lightning fast * Small/Thin For me it is a perfect cheap laptop to use as a goto for all my less resource intensive activities. (reading, youtube, chat etc.) I might get a bigger 15 inch one so I am happy to see…

I use an Acer C720P as well, for everything including programming, via Cloud9 (https://c9.io/). Cloud9 has been almost exclusively the platform for all my development since 2013. Having my entire workspace state synchronized across machines, saved whenever I'm not using it to be resumed precisely as it was, sandboxed from causing or falling victim to issues with my desktop, is invaluable.

I switch off between my desktop and my Chromebook whenever I go out, or even just when I want to lie down instead of hunching over at my desk. I experience no disruptions from doing so.

The only real complaint that I have is that ChromeOS's use of alt+arrows to emulate Page Up/Down keys interferes with a few important default C9 key combinations (alt+shift+down to copy a line getting converted to shift+pagedn).

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#199

Post by spb »

ostyn wrote: post #144

Just not the greatest for programmers... But cool for everyone else!

I disagree. If you're not doing hardware-level hacking, a cloud IDE like Cloud9 (https://c9.io) beats any fragile client-side workspace I've ever used.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#200

Post by ntakasaki »

ef4 wrote: post #112
mariusmg wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The middle class can afford to pluck down a few more bucks and get a device with a real OS...

An awful lot of people pluck down premium-level bucks for iOS, which is even more neutered than ChromeOS. Consumers have spoken, they do not care.

> iOS, which is even more neutered than ChromeOS

I disagree, developers can develop native apps for iOS even if they need to go through the App Store. Only crippled web apps are allowed on Chrome OS and only Google can develop really native apps.

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