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Google Hardware makes cuts to laptop and tablet development, cancels products

arstechnica.com

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Re: Google Hardware makes cuts to laptop and tablet development, cancels products

#131

Post by ahmedalsudani »

robocat wrote: post #87

Please build me a Linux laptop for software engineering, Google. For engineers only. No software support beyond ensuring the BIOS and the drivers work and are updated. I hate Dell, but I got a Dell XPS 15 because it was the only laptop I knew would: boot Linux reliably; last two Ubuntu LTS upgrades (4 years); have a high spec (i9 etc); and was reasonably priced (Apple tax was 50% higher for worse hardware). Is it imp…

If you don't like Dell, three options are Lenovo, Purism, and System76. I'm personally quite happy with my thinkpad.

Re: Google Hardware makes cuts to laptop and tablet development, cancels products

#132

Post by 0815test »

bsder wrote: post #130
spectramax wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked at Thinkpad? You could run linux on Carbon X1 and have ultra-mobile package with i7. $1500 but you have one of the best laptops in the market in my view - keyboard, screen, size, weight, feel, specs, battery life, etc. I own the latest Macbook Pro 15 and Carbon X1 6th gen. I want to pick up my thinkpad more than the MacBook. I find Aluminum not a good material for laptops - it is uninviting, heavy and…

You are overstating the price differential. I'm seeing $2182 Thinkpad vs $2599 MacBook Pro--choices driven by WQHD display, 16GB of RAM and 1TB SSD. Processor on the Pro is significantly faster, the display on the Mac has slightly higher resolution. Maybe not $400 worth of difference, but certainly almost $200 or so. And I still can't buy an i5 laptop with 32GB of RAM.

> And I still can't buy an i5 laptop with 32GB of RAM.

Sure you can. Just buy a slightly older gen that's on par with an i5 on benchmarks, and max out the RAM on it. It's silly to limit yourself to new devices, when the best deals by far are found on the market for used/refurb ones.

Re: Google Hardware makes cuts to laptop and tablet development, cancels products

#133

Post by pgeorgi »

ringaroll wrote: post #17

Sounds like a good reason not to buy new hardware from Google. They discontinue products too fast.

> They discontinue products too fast.

Fashionable trope, but apparently this is more about unreleased products not being released? Every company has these, software, hardware or otherwise.

Re: Google Hardware makes cuts to laptop and tablet development, cancels products

#134

Post by bsder »

readittwice wrote: post #90
Izkata wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube at least was already well on in that direction - Google had a competing product that was a total flop, and only afterwards did they buy YouTube.

They bought YouTube for a billion dollar - which was back then a crazy number. I still remember all that people arguing (including me) that Google would never make so much money back from YouTube. YouTube even had the reputation for being a huge loss for Google for multiple years.

The YouTube deal was a boardroom backscratch to the Sand Hill Road VCs. YouTube was hemorrhaging money on bandwidth with zero possibility of ever being profitable.

Re: Google Hardware makes cuts to laptop and tablet development, cancels products

#135

Post by 0815test »

balls187 wrote: post #104
robocat wrote: post #87

Please build me a Linux laptop for software engineering, Google. For engineers only. No software support beyond ensuring the BIOS and the drivers work and are updated. I hate Dell, but I got a Dell XPS 15 because it was the only laptop I knew would: boot Linux reliably; last two Ubuntu LTS upgrades (4 years); have a high spec (i9 etc); and was reasonably priced (Apple tax was 50% higher for worse hardware). Is it imp…

Not to start the flame war, but whats the appeal of Linux for software engineering, if you want the "it just works" approach of designed from the ground up experience? Don't Chrome books provide you what you need for software engineering?

> whats the appeal of Linux for software engineering, if you want the "it just works" approach

For one thing, Linux-based OS's like Debian GNU/Linux absolutely follow the "it just works" mantra - if the OS installs properly in the first place and does what you need it to, you can expect it to be rock solid with few or no future issues. Plus, they tend to work for a lot more time than the 5 years max that Chrome OS does (or Mac OS, for that matter). That's simply invaluable in this day and age.

Re: Google Hardware makes cuts to laptop and tablet development, cancels products

#136

Post by cwyers »

robocat wrote: post #87

Please build me a Linux laptop for software engineering, Google. For engineers only. No software support beyond ensuring the BIOS and the drivers work and are updated. I hate Dell, but I got a Dell XPS 15 because it was the only laptop I knew would: boot Linux reliably; last two Ubuntu LTS upgrades (4 years); have a high spec (i9 etc); and was reasonably priced (Apple tax was 50% higher for worse hardware). Is it imp…

> Is it impossible to make a laptop better than Dell or Apple?

I don't know about impossible, but they've both been building laptops for a long time and they have large market shares, so if it was easy to build better laptops than theirs someone probably would have done it by now so it's probably really hard.

Re: Google Hardware makes cuts to laptop and tablet development, cancels products

#137

Post by ralmidani »

mav3rick wrote: post #112
ralmidani wrote: post #91

I used a Samsung Chromebook 2 (Exynos processor, 4GB RAM, 13 in. screen) as my primary laptop for a couple years. It was fast and quiet, but getting GNU/Linux running via Crouton meant jumping through hoops every time it powered off and back on. I now use a Macbook, and really wonder why any developer would buy a Pixelbook vs. a Macbook. If you want to run GNU/Linux, you can install a VM, and otherwise you still have…

Chrome OS comes with Linux VMs now. You can do most dev work with it

Do you have to enable developer mode, and if so, does it stay enabled between boots?

Re: Google Hardware makes cuts to laptop and tablet development, cancels products

#138

Post by netinstructions »

vondur wrote: post #68
ChuckMcM wrote: post #35

The move comes after the group received pressure to turn Google Hardware into "a real business" from higher-ups at Google/Alphabet -- the squeeze continues unabated :-) Its too bad, since the Pixelbook is pretty nice and with actual investment it could have been something much more than it is, but alas it would not have the margins search advertising does. Back in the 90's I met the head of Xerox's PARC after he had…

Too bad they never had a fully supported way to install Linxu on it. I vaguely remember reading that google internally used a heavily modified Ubuntu for themselves. (or maybe just some custom repos)

You can go into the Chrome OS settings and click the button for Linux... after a few minutes of downloading/installation you're ready to go. I use it for development.

https://www.aboutchromebooks.com/news/chrome-os-69-stable-re...

https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/master/c...

Re: Google Hardware makes cuts to laptop and tablet development, cancels products

#139

Post by mc32 »

kamarg wrote: post #122
broknbottle wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All 3 of these issues appear to be related to one common variable.. Windows. I have a Dell XPS 13 9360 8th Gen i5-8250u running Fedora 29 and I've never experienced any of these issues. Why don't you try another OS instead of blaming the hardware. If it continues with Ubuntu 18.04/18.10/Fedora 29 then contact Dell for support..

It's almost certainly a driver issue. Drivers that are provided by Dell. I'm not at all blaming the hardware for the issues. I'm blaming Dell. To answer your question, I don't switch OS because the machine belongs to my employer and they set the rules. They say everyone runs Windows so I run Windows. It's actually a very usable OS. You also seem to have missed the part where I spent 4 hours on the phone with Dell sup…

In the thunderbolt docks the issue is firmware updates.

Re: Google Hardware makes cuts to laptop and tablet development, cancels products

#140

Post by mooman219 »

stevenjohns wrote: post #118
spectramax wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked at Thinkpad? You could run linux on Carbon X1 and have ultra-mobile package with i7. $1500 but you have one of the best laptops in the market in my view - keyboard, screen, size, weight, feel, specs, battery life, etc. I own the latest Macbook Pro 15 and Carbon X1 6th gen. I want to pick up my thinkpad more than the MacBook. I find Aluminum not a good material for laptops - it is uninviting, heavy and…

How do you compare the battery life against the two?

If you're willing to afford some depth to your laptop, a dual battery T400 series will get you 12+ hours of video.
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