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Chrome OS has stalled out

androidpolice.com

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Re: Chrome OS has stalled out

#31

Post by teddyc »

I personally like the Chromebook, but it's relegated to fun, not work. It worked well to help me establish a boundary b/t work and home life, as I'd have to pull out my MacBook to do any actual work. I played around with Crostini Linux, but I've had it die on me twice and been forced to do a clean install of Crostini, which would be awful had I used it for anything important.

The Chromebook is also a great way to get out of supporting friends and family with technical issues. It's an affordable device and my tech support has been limited to getting it setup with the printer. (Though cloud printing is being killed later this year IIRC.)

Re: Chrome OS has stalled out

#32

Post by Kipters »

utopian3 wrote: post #26
Kipters wrote: post #25

I often see price being cited as a selling point for Chromebooks, but I have never found them to be really cheap. Maybe it's a regional thing? Looking now on Amazon (.it) I can find a Pixelbook equipped with a measle i5-7Y57, 8 GB of ram and 256 GB SSD for 1999 € . That's crazy. For that kind of money I could get a 10th gen i7 (where applicable) 16 GB ram/512 GB SSD Surface Laptop 3, Surface Pro 7 or Surface Pro X (i…

I've seen some models in the $200-400 USD range, occasionally they have a sale, but their specs are pretty awful, even by smartphone standards. I don't think I've seen a pixelbook priced at 1999 €, I wonder if that's higher due to cost of tax/tariff/import?

I can see the seller is from the UK, according to hocuspocus it's one of the countries where it's officially sold. I'd expect some markup from them, maybe higher shipping fees, but since it's still within the EU there shouldn't be anything else. I forgot to mention that in Italy prices already include taxes, so 1999€ is exactly how much I would pay.

Re: Chrome OS has stalled out

#33

Post by resoluteteeth »

Kipters wrote: post #25

I often see price being cited as a selling point for Chromebooks, but I have never found them to be really cheap. Maybe it's a regional thing? Looking now on Amazon (.it) I can find a Pixelbook equipped with a measle i5-7Y57, 8 GB of ram and 256 GB SSD for 1999 € . That's crazy. For that kind of money I could get a 10th gen i7 (where applicable) 16 GB ram/512 GB SSD Surface Laptop 3, Surface Pro 7 or Surface Pro X (i…

> I often see price being cited as a selling point for Chromebooks, but I have never found them to be really cheap.

Around 2014, cheap ($200) chromebooks seemed impressive compared to low end windows laptops (which didn't have SSDs, enough ram for windows, or good battery life).

After that, the cheap chromebooks completely stagnated, though (in 5 years they have only gone to slightly faster celeron processors and 4 rather than 2 gigs of ram) while cheap windows laptops have gotten much better, and as you have mentioned, the expensive chromebooks certainly aren't competitive, either. I think that somehow the idea that chromebooks are cheap seems to have remained despite the fact that it isn't true anymore.

Re: Chrome OS has stalled out

#34

Post by Pigo »

Kipters wrote: post #25

I often see price being cited as a selling point for Chromebooks, but I have never found them to be really cheap. Maybe it's a regional thing? Looking now on Amazon (.it) I can find a Pixelbook equipped with a measle i5-7Y57, 8 GB of ram and 256 GB SSD for 1999 € . That's crazy. For that kind of money I could get a 10th gen i7 (where applicable) 16 GB ram/512 GB SSD Surface Laptop 3, Surface Pro 7 or Surface Pro X (i…

I knew what I was getting into with my Pixelbook when I bought one in 2015, they are a lot more than every other Chromebook. But I thought it would be fun, and the $900 was less than I'd spend on some of my other devices.

All I would say is that thing still still runs and looks like it did the day I bought it. It's a solid device that runs everything through the usb-c port (which was still new back then). The specs are overboard for what a Chromebook needs. But like most things, I guess it just comes down to what you use it for.

Now that it has a built-in Linux support, I could do things that might push it. I was surprised when it got Crostini support, you run the Linux apps inside the Chrome OS and not some buggy sandbox.

Re: Chrome OS has stalled out

#35

Post by timw4mail »

ramenmeal wrote: post #2

Dumb question: > constant crashes, an insanely slow single-core Intel Atom processor, and questionable build quality would make it clear to anyone that it was very much a product built for dogfooding, not as a replacement for your Windows or Mac notebook This use of "dogfooding" confuses me, wouldn't the chromebook being used for dogfooding mean it was meant as a replacement for your windows/mac notebook? Or if not,…

The build quality of the Cr48 was pretty decent, especially for a machine they were giving away. The only part on mine that really failed was the display hinge, after I dropped it. The keyboard is pretty decent.

The atom processor and the 2GB max of ram is what really was the problem with it.

All that said, they supported the Cr48 for a long time after it was sent to people, especially considering it was basically public beta test hardware.

Re: Chrome OS has stalled out

#36

Post by pgrote »

tytso wrote: post #8
pgrote wrote: post #6

Since 2013 the main computer I used was the Acer C720. i3, 4 gig of RAM chromebook. Never had an issue with it. Runs as fast now as it did then. It quit receiving updates in June of 2019. Never understood the thought process behind this as supporting the machine is probably negligible given the platform. I looked at other chromebook solutions, but unless I wanted to spend close to $1000 there was nothing close perfor…

The Acer C720 used a 3.8 Linux kernel, as documented at [1]. Updating to a new kernel would have required a full QA of the hardware to make sure that the device drivers in a newer kernel still worked correctly with that hardware. [1] https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-f... Support costs aren't too bad so long as you don't have to update the kernel and requal everything. But newer userspace sta…

>The Acer C720 used a 3.8 Linux kernel, as documented at [1]. Updating to a new kernel would have required a full QA of the hardware to make sure that the device drivers in a newer kernel still worked correctly with that hardware.

Thanks for taking the time to explain.

Re: Chrome OS has stalled out

#37

Post by ajross »

Kipters wrote: post #30
lllr_finger wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably more directed towards the sub-$300 market, which has at least a handful of options. I've got my wife, kids, and parents all on these devices because they're cheap and easy to use. I'd prefer spending $300 on something like a refurbished Thinkpad for myself, but realize that might not serve my family's desires.

Yep, I can see some Acer, Lenovo or HP options in that range, but all of them are equipped with Celeron N4xxx CPUs, 4 GB of ram and 64 GB eMMC, not exactly stellar... I would consider a 500-600€ device with a decent screen, 8 GB and a (swappable?) disk to try ChromeOS out, I feel I'd be wasting money if I were to get a sub-300 one

So... you want a high end laptop? Those are available, even with ChromeOS installed. But they're not any cheaper. Hardware is hardware.

When people talk about price being an advantage for Chromebooks, they mean at the low end, where the OS can operate well on hardware that Windows doesn't tolerate, and where the windows license fees become a significant part of the selling price.

Try a comparison of devices around $300US, that's the sweet spot for ChromeOS.

Re: Chrome OS has stalled out

#38

Post by pjmlp »

zamadatix wrote: post #20
pjmlp wrote: post #11

Technically Chrome OS has some interesting bits, like its use of virtualization, containers, based on Rust and Go. As general purpose OS, I never got the point of it. Any OS other OS is able to offer browser juggling support alongside the benefits of having a proper OS, better hardware that a Web browser is capable of (does not matter how good is the GPU, Web GL 2.0 can only do so much). And the security story is kin…

It's not targeting the general purpose OS market it's purpose built for specific kinds of customer use cases. Once you get past that it makes a lot of sense. Well not as in "it makes a lot of sense for you personally to go out and by" but it makes a lot of sense why it exists and sells so much.

That is the thing, it doesn't sell at all outside US School system, as the article points out.

Re: Chrome OS has stalled out

#39

Post by pjmlp »

ailideex wrote: post #24
pjmlp wrote: post #11

Technically Chrome OS has some interesting bits, like its use of virtualization, containers, based on Rust and Go. As general purpose OS, I never got the point of it. Any OS other OS is able to offer browser juggling support alongside the benefits of having a proper OS, better hardware that a Web browser is capable of (does not matter how good is the GPU, Web GL 2.0 can only do so much). And the security story is kin…

I got one for my mom and I'm very happy with how low maintenance it is.

Are you also happy that your mum's stuff lives on Google servers?

'Cause I steer my folks away from such stuff.

Re: Chrome OS has stalled out

#40

Post by ailideex »

pjmlp wrote: post #39
ailideex wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got one for my mom and I'm very happy with how low maintenance it is.

Are you also happy that your mum's stuff lives on Google servers? 'Cause I steer my folks away from such stuff.

> Are you also happy that your mum's stuff lives on Google servers?

Incredibly.

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