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$149 Chromebooks

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Re: $149 Chromebooks

#391

Post by tonyblundell »

TheTaO wrote: post #168
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…

> 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…

No, it isn't just about the cost.

If I had a choice between a £150 Chromebook and a £75 Windows laptop, I'd choose the Chromebook.

Windows isn't an 'upgrade' to Chrome OS.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#393

Post by tonyblundell »

aikah wrote: post #263

This thread is being totally astroturfed by Googlers, or people actually like the specs of that thing? I don't get it. People, you can buy machines that have a proper os AND a browser ... but you're ready to spend money on a glorified browser?

That something does more, doesn't make it better for a given task. In fact in some cases the extras make it less suitable.

When you eat a meal, do you use a knife and fork, or two Swiss-army knives?

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#394

Post by kowdermeister »

cwyers wrote: post #305
kowdermeister wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are orders of magnitude more UI kits for HTML/CSS then there are for native.

Is that because HTML/CSS UIs are more robust and advanced than native UI frameworks? Or because native UI framekits solved all the problems that the vast cornucopia of HTML/CSS UI frameworks are still struggling to solve? Or because everybody looks at all the HTML/CSS frameworks, decides none of them solve their problem, and decides to write their own?

It's because it's so easy to create your own. HTML/CSS is very accessible, well tested by lots and lots of small communities.

There are many HTML/CSS frameworks that are doing really great job and not struggling at all. It all depends of course on what you want to do, but finding a good kit that solves your problem is definitely not the bottleneck of creating a modern HTML UI based application.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#395

Post by Mikeb85 »

millstone wrote: post #345
Mikeb85 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can spin it all sorts of ways. Keep in mind the 'PC' market includes all those legacy Windows XP computers which are languishing in peoples homes, businesses, corporations, etc... Chromebook sales are a much bigger part of current PC sales. And vendors do keep expanding their Chromebook lines. If it was a failure they wouldn't.

The "PC market" refers to current sales. "Installed base" is the term for the metric that includes the languishing WinXP machines.

Ah yeah you're right. The 1% came from some guy extrapolating Samsung's sales of Chromebooks to mean the whole Chromebook market...

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#396

Post by tonyblundell »

72deluxe wrote: post #383
aikah wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't bother, this thread is totally astroturfed by paid googlers. What you can read here is just insane. I can't believe HN is alllowing this. This product is crap,but boy they are selling it hard here.

I too was surprised by how positive some of the comments were. Microsoft's Surface tablet seems widely panned here (unless I am looking at the wrong comments) but if Microsoft had released a Chromebook, everyone would have said "HAHA! What a piece of junk! Who'd buy that???" When Apple released the MacBook the other week, everyone had the same reaction ("Only one port? Can't plug in a USB stick and the power adapter…

I've never understood this argument.

You need a connection for web-based use-cases.

You don't need a connection for non web-based use-cases (document editing, etc works offline).

The same is true of any OS.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#397

Post by emidln »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #270
bluedino wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$440? You could get a Lenovo T440 for a few bucks more in the Lenovo outlet

It could end up being better in terms of battery life and portability if OP had bought a C720.

My battery lasts about 9 hours on a charge with normal usage (testing/developing in vim with Python (using python-mode+jedi) and Clojure (using vim-fireplace and nrepl-middleware) against Postgres, Mongo, Elasticsearch, Redis, and Storm. The original battery was somewhere in the 4-5 hour range.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#398

Post by emidln »

bluedino wrote: post #221
emidln wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about modern chromebooks, but I have an Acer C7 that I spent $199 on and then added another $240 for it to have a 128GB SSD, 16GB RAM, a working bluetooth module, and an upgraded battery. $440 total and it's been a solid dev machine running first chrubuntu and now crouton. I've mentioned before that the only issue I've had with it is lack of CPU horsepower for clojure-based work to get into the REPL, whi…

$440? You could get a Lenovo T440 for a few bucks more in the Lenovo outlet

And I'd still need to spend another $300 for the SSD, 16GB ram, and a new battery (batteries on used laptops are miserable, and not up to the 8 hours of usage I demand). It would also be heavier.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#399

Post by 72deluxe »

tonyblundell wrote: post #396
72deluxe wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too was surprised by how positive some of the comments were. Microsoft's Surface tablet seems widely panned here (unless I am looking at the wrong comments) but if Microsoft had released a Chromebook, everyone would have said "HAHA! What a piece of junk! Who'd buy that???" When Apple released the MacBook the other week, everyone had the same reaction ("Only one port? Can't plug in a USB stick and the power adapter…

I've never understood this argument. You need a connection for web-based use-cases. You don't need a connection for non web-based use-cases (document editing, etc works offline). The same is true of any OS.

But it's true that with ChromeOS the entire usability of the product is massively different without Internet access. All of the "apps" don't work as well without an Internet connection. This doesn't happen with an ordinary machine (if you open Word whilst offline, it isn't crippled).

I think storing all of your data online is foolish, basically as it means that offline you're scuppered.

Re: $149 Chromebooks

#400

Post by 72deluxe »

fragmede wrote: post #151
exprL wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think these Chromebooks are sold in Google Store in any country. (Google Store selection varies by country, anyway. Where I live, they don't sell any Chromebooks; I might have considered the new Pixel if it weren't for the hassle.)

FWIW, https://store.google.com/category/chromebooks lists bunch of chromebooks for sale in the US, including the new Pixel.

The list of chromebooks here in the UK is just one: the new Pixel.

Despite all of the pictures showing Acers etc. you can only actually buy one from Google. It's silly.

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