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$149 Chromebooks

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Re: $149 Chromebooks

#251

Post by aikah »

eertami wrote: post #241
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…

> 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? Are there really any sub-200$ Windows laptops that have 10 hour battery life on an 8 second boot? I find that pretty hard to believe. Maybe they have similarly specced components but the experience will be much worse.

> 10 hour battery life on an 8 second boot?

8 second boot ,frankly who cares ? my windows machine takes 40 second to boot sure, but I boot it like 2 times a week.

10 hour battery life ? maybe on idle, I bet this thing doesn't last 10 hours with 50 tabs opened or when playing youtube videos ...

I can't believe there are still people defending that stuff, it's netbooks all over again but worse cause it's only a browser ...

Or we are on full astroturfing mode like anytime there is a Chromebook thread on HN i'm not sure.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#252

Post by marssaxman »

Karunamon wrote: post #223
marssaxman wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never understood why "netbook" became a bad word. I loved mine; it was sturdy and simple and cheap and I never worried about throwing it in a bag and taking it wherever I was going. My mindset was "so what if it gets trashed, it only cost $250, I'll buy another one!" - but in fact my one netbook lasted five years, and by then the category had disappeared. That one Eee pc outlasted two macbooks!

I think part of it was that there were so many horribly specced Windows devices sold. As in, the specs were not good enough to handle the OS. 2GB, a single core first gen Atom, and a 5200RPM drive is painful to use even Windows 7 on. Had one of those machines for work. Even after a fresh install, the lag was positively infuriating.

Ah, that makes sense. My Eee came with an SSD, and I installed Linux the day it arrived. I can see how it would have been a different experience with Windows and old-school hard drives.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#253

Post by tdkl »

pjmlp wrote: post #197
glenstein wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's also perhaps that Germans are vary before an OS which is an internet machine and comes from a company where main revenue is ad business.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#254

Post by scholia »

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.

"Chromebooks in Q3 2013 had at best a 1.2 percent share of the PC market and a 0.76 percent share of the combined PC-tablet market."

Latest IDC figures show Chromebooks continue to struggle http://www.zdnet.com/article/latest-idc-figures-show-chromeb...

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#255

Post by VikingCoder »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #246
VikingCoder wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can get a laptop/tablet that can do the same thing that this Chromebook does That's not remotely true. When my grandparents and parents ask me what computer they should get, or my in-laws ask what they should get their kids, I'm going to seriously consider Chromebooks. If they need to run Office, or Minecraft, clearly it's not a fit. But for the tweeting / facebooking / gmailing universe, a Chromebook is a v…

> When my grandparents and parents ask me what computer they should get, or my in-laws ask what they should get their kids, I'm going to seriously consider Chromebooks. If they need to run Office, or Minecraft, clearly it's not a fit. But for the tweeting / facebooking / gmailing universe, a Chromebook is a very nice box. If you really need Office, and not just Google Docs, you can actually run Office on a Chromebook…

Yeah, but Office in the browser is worse than Google Docs, in my opinion.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#256

Post by VikingCoder »

Tloewald wrote: post #229
VikingCoder wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can get a laptop/tablet that can do the same thing that this Chromebook does That's not remotely true. When my grandparents and parents ask me what computer they should get, or my in-laws ask what they should get their kids, I'm going to seriously consider Chromebooks. If they need to run Office, or Minecraft, clearly it's not a fit. But for the tweeting / facebooking / gmailing universe, a Chromebook is a v…

One of the problems I run into when recommending Chromebooks (I tried to convince my 75 year old mother, for example) is that almost every user turns out to have a need for something you can't do on a Chromebook. It ends up being a 90% solution for 90% of people, rather than a 100% solution for 80% of the people.

What was she trying to do?

For me, it's the camera-printer link that keeps messing me up.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#257

Post by Sanddancer »

bobajeff wrote: post #181
Sanddancer wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a $100 tablet and $30 bluetooth keyboard running windows. This means that I have a small form factor machine that I can develop on, and with a usb otg cord, I can connect to near anything I want. Finally, it comes with a real bios, so I can install whatever operating system I want on it, without doing silly things like removing screws.

I would like more details on this. What kind of development are you doing? What was the specific tablet and bluetooth keyboard you got?

Development is mostly using Avr Studio to do embedded stuff. The tablet was the Asus VivoTab8, the non-note version, unfortunately. The bluetooth keyboard was just some generic keyboard and case [1]. My only complaint really is that the meta keys are cranky within putty, but other than that, it's been pretty solid for me.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KCKXIXE/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_d...

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#258

Post by maaku »

jhall1468 wrote: post #243
maaku wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They use it for their own advertising purposes, but they don't sell it to anyone, in any form. Some people wouldn't distinguish those two.

Some people don't distinguish a knife from an elephant, but those people are wrong too.

If I don't want people paying someone else to use my information, I don't care whether that party ever actually sees it or not.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#259

Post by ksk »

Karunamon wrote: post #53
razvanh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

advertising is selling your information to advertisers.

Even that's not accurate. Advertising is selling access to people matching a certain demographic profile to advertisers. They maintain a demographic profile (arguable: how accurate and comprehensive it is) by way of this line of business, but at no point is that profile sold to advertisers. At no point has Google, or any other reputable ad network, had a system whereby you can download the information, personal or ot…

Google has indeed sold information to the NSA.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2013/09/23/attveri...

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#260

Post by Tloewald »

Tloewald wrote: post #229
VikingCoder wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can get a laptop/tablet that can do the same thing that this Chromebook does That's not remotely true. When my grandparents and parents ask me what computer they should get, or my in-laws ask what they should get their kids, I'm going to seriously consider Chromebooks. If they need to run Office, or Minecraft, clearly it's not a fit. But for the tweeting / facebooking / gmailing universe, a Chromebook is a v…

One of the problems I run into when recommending Chromebooks (I tried to convince my 75 year old mother, for example) is that almost every user turns out to have a need for something you can't do on a Chromebook. It ends up being a 90% solution for 90% of people, rather than a 100% solution for 80% of the people.

Trying to reply to sibling post:

She works as an interpreter/translator and needs to be able to write documents in multiple language systems (e.g. non-Latin alphabets) in a way she understands.

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