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$149 Chromebooks

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Re: $149 Chromebooks

#201

Post by have_humility »

munificent wrote: post #150
ef4 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Consumers do care, they just care about different things that some of us do.

This is not a particularly insightful comment.

The implicit context for the comment you're replying to, made explicit, is clearly "Consumers have spoken, they do not care [about whether their devices have a 'real' OS or not]." Given that this is the case, your rebuttal is a fairly empty one. It's essentially in the same realm as tautological-ish, no-impact statements, as far its role in this discussion goes...

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#202

Post by bduerst »

vially wrote: post #30
philip1209 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a good alternative to raspberry pis. We use these types of small computers to power dashboards, and frankly the Pis are a pain to set up for this purpose. I hope the Chromebit works well for just loading a website.

That's exactly why I was considering buying a raspberry pi for. Have you also considered the chromecast for this (maybe by creating a custom app/plugin for your dashboard)?

We dropped using the pi for chromecast. Much more responsive and less maintenance, though the Pis are great learning tools.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#203

Post by Mikeb85 »

ntakasaki wrote: post #195
Mikeb85 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You do realise that Asus, Lenovo, HP, etc... sell Chromebooks, right? Google sells very few branded as a 'Google' product.

The numbers are out there, but Google isn't releasing numbers because they're a tiny vendor.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#204

Post by okaram »

rsync wrote: post #143
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...

Is it possible to install Linux on the HP Stream ?

I'm running ubuntu on it :)

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#205

Post by voltagex_ »

Sanddancer wrote: post #148
rsync wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to install Linux on the HP Stream ?

Almost certainly so. It's got a real bios, so you should be able to change how it boots.

If it's anything like the other devices in that series it will be 32 bit UEFI, which not many distros have out of the box. You can certainly build 32 bit GRUB. http://askubuntu.com/questions/392719/32-bit-uefi-boot-suppo...

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#206

Post by ntakasaki »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #203
ntakasaki wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

You do realise that Asus, Lenovo, HP, etc... sell Chromebooks, right? Google sells very few branded as a 'Google' product. The numbers are out there, but Google isn't releasing numbers because they're a tiny vendor.

You mean Google does not know exactly how many Chromebooks are being sold by Asus, Lenovo, HP, etc?

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#207

Post by towelguy »

Karunamon wrote: post #103
jboy55 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is the advertiser. Just replace the word 'Google' with 'Doubleclick'. It starts to make sense. When you use mail.doubleclick.com for your email, and www.doubleclick.com to search the web, all from your DoubleClick based phone, its pretty easy to understand the situation.

Nobody here is under any misconceptions that Google doesn't get most of their money from advertising - where we diverge is what their overall mission is and how good or bad those ad tactics are, and if they represent a good tradeoff for the services they provide. Personally, I've got no issues letting them build a better profile in return for some of the best web services out there. I owe my career to the excellence…

I find duckduckgo equally effective and they don't need to build a profile on me to do it.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#208

Post by freehunter »

munificent wrote: post #150
ef4 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Consumers do care, they just care about different things that some of us do.

I liken it to techies running out and buying a Tesla. You can't put your own turbo on it, you can't do much to improve the performance or customize it, you can't repair the engine in your garage, you can't drop in a new transmission when yours goes out, and it's not a manual transmission, so you're giving up a lot of control in driving it.

That's what an automotive-minded person might believe. Why would you buy an electric car that you can't control when you could have a 1989 Volkwagen Golf getting 30mpg that would last you forever with just a little bit of maintenance? You would make that choice because you don't want to have the responsibility of doing something that makes the car unreliable or unsafe. You don't have the knowledge or the tools to fix it when it does. And you can't be late for work, or fail to pick up your daughter from school because your car wouldn't start. So even though you could get a car perfectly tailored to you and controlled by you for just $5,000, you buy a $60,000 electric car knowing that there's hardly any moving parts, so all you need to do is turn the car on and put your foot down and it will work. You plug it in when you get home, and unplug it when you leave for work. That's all you need to know.

That's how I liken the debate between Android and iOS, or Linux and Windows. People say to me "look at all the customization I can do!" and all I see is a maintenance nightmare. I use Linux at work because that's what it's best at. When I get home, I'm playing video games on my Windows desktop. On the weekends, I'm driving down two-track roads in my custom-built 1998 Toyota 4Runner, but my daily driver is a Fiat 500. When I'm playing around with developing apps, I'll sideload them onto my Nexus 4. But when someone calls my phone number, it rings to my iPhone, which I know will always ring no matter what software I manage to install.

As a consumer, it's not that I don't care. It's that I don't even want it. I know it's there. I know it's cheaper and I know it's more powerful and I know it can be customized. But none of those things are at the top of my list. Reliability, compatibility, and simplicity are my three biggest requirements.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#209

Post by asuffield »

dsl wrote: post #52
daeken wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft isn't as good at collecting and reselling all of your personal information, so have to charge the actual cost of the hardware. Google does not sell your personal information in any way. They use it for their own advertising purposes, but they don't sell it to anyone, in any form.

It is a derivitative product, you're just splitting hairs. As squeaky clean as everyone in the valley believes Google to be, even most Googlers would be surprised with the type of work and contacts taken on by Google Federal (hint: it's not just Google Apps for the military). Here is a list of their current unclassified military contracts: https://www.fpds.gov/ezsearch/fpdsportal?indexName=awardfull...

(Standard disclaimer: my opinions, not my employer's. Not representing anybody else. I work at Google, not on these projects.)

Most googlers who are also engineers can find out what most of these things are, and I would expect many are already aware of what those projects are likely to be. It is a core part of our culture that we share information openly within engineering, and don't leak it.

We can't tell you what's happening. That doesn't mean we don't know.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#210

Post by have_humility »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #187
na85 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone lives in a first-world country where ubiquitous internet access via wifi hotspots has been implemented, and not everyone can afford a 3G plan.

In the third world, internet access is more common than you think... My wife's family gets more reliable internet and wireless coverage than they do electricity or plumbing. When I went down there, you could go to a textile shop or open air market and I'd pick up open WiFi hotspots..m

Not to mention that "first-world country where ubiquitous internet access via wifi hotspots has been implemented" doesn't particularly describe, say, the US very well. The picture painted to try to make these contrasts tends to itself stand in contrast to the picture that is real life.

Not that the over-arching sentiment of "you shouldn't take the existence of an always-available network connection for granted" is a bad one. It's just that saying, basically, "These devices aren't suitable everywhere; consider market segments that may be less mature than the big, contemporary Western one you're most familiar with, for example" is a little bit of a weird and not terribly convincing way to express it.

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