Bought Chromebooks (and Chromecasts) for all my tech-illiterate family members in order to cut down on having to provide tech support, and it's been amazing. No issues so far, and everything just works.
That's exactly what I did this year too. I bought a Chromebook for my mom and she's loving it. I am loving it because I don't have to worry about the OS becoming bloated over time and malwares creeping in.
I've had the exact opposite experience. I develop on a MacBook Pro Retina, but I know little about the whole Apple ecosystem (ex Windows power user/dell tech). I purchased an Ipad mini for my mother and found it incredibly unintuitive and difficult to use. For one, she is unable to click 70% of the time even after using the device for several months. I thought it was user error, but even I have a hard time with it. From what I've seen observing her and attempting to use the device myself, the main issues I see are:
* All of the actionable UI items are too small
- Simple things like giving focus to the App store "search bar" are difficult for me, very difficult for her
- Clearing App store search bar by clicking the X is very difficult for me, impossible for her
- Install button takes 1-3 attempts for me, maybe 10 for her
* Use of icons instead of simple text
- I purchased the new iPad Air for her, hoping the larger size would make it easier to use. Embarrassingly, I could not even figure out how to install an app. I was searching for the "Install" button for ~30 seconds and even clicked the wrong icon once.
* E-Mail application randomly closes emails
- Once again I thought this was user error. She attempted to open several emails, and each time they would close immediately and return to the inbox. It turned out to be some bug in the mail application. Restarting the device didn't fix it.
On the other hand, she also has a Samsung Chromebook and has had absolutely zero issues with it. To be fair, it's a bit slow playing some facebook games and occasionally I wish I got her a normal windows laptop (for instance, the Optimum app is not supported, nor is the slingbox player).
Interestingly, I just gifted an iPad mini retina to my girlfriend earlier today and just went through the setup a few minutes ago. She attempted to install her first app which is marked "Free" and "iPhone only" (there is no iPad version). Upon clicking it, she had to log into her Apple ID (even though she just entered this information in the setup process). Next it said her ID was never used in the iTunes store (what's that?!?) and she had to register with her credit card (free app!?). After that dialog submit failed with two error messages (because I saw her click the Submit button twice), it returned back to the install screen. She clicked the Install button a second time, it forced her to enter her Apple ID and password AGAIN and then it started downloading. I thought iOS was supposed to be easy to use!? Even she kept commenting how difficult it is to use. She also has a Kindle Fire and never had any issues with it.
having just purchased my first ipad (mini retina) I am amazed that we had 99% similar troubles with it. Did you already find out about swipe (left-right) to delete item in the list? Horrendous. And having to enter creditcard info before installing free apps? arrgh. And password for free app installation...
To make matters worse, I forced my girlfriend recently to start using LastPass. After being forced to enter in a LastPass generated 20+ character password for the 3rd time in 5 minutes just to install a free app, I was worried she would either throw the iPad in frustration or yell at me for making her use LastPass! :)
I do nearly all my work on remote machines, writing code in Vim over SSH. Could chromeOS work for someone like me? Is there a decent terminal app for chromeOS? I don't want a PuTTY-like utility that allows me to open sessions; I'm looking for a tabbed terminal that allows me to run basic linux commands locally and ssh into remote machines...
I use a system called Crouton[1] that installs a full Linux (Ubuntu or Debian currently) in a chroot (so that it still uses the Chromebook's kernel and x11 config). It works extremely well for my development needs. I do Python, JavaScript, Ruby, Python, and Clojure. The only real downside is that my particular Chromebook, an Acer C7 with a new SSD and 16GB of RAM, is still only a dual core Celeron. That makes some things awkward (starting the JVM for leiningen when I do Clojure/ClojureScript takes more seconds (around 20) than I'd like)). Using a jedi integration (Python code introspection, refactoring, execution) for Vim is also really slow when first loading Python into a buffer (the solution, never leave my vim, is acceptable to me). To be fair, neither of these things were exactly instant even on my former i7-based Retina Macbook Pro.
Long story short, I can alt+ctrl+shift+f2 and get to an Ubuntu install where I have XFCE installed and access to a real xterm + tmux + Skype. It has all of my dev tools (c compiler, python, jvm) and can even do Android development. I can alt+ctrl+shift+f2 and go back to normal Chromebook stuff. I use Chrome plus a special plugin in ChromeOS that lets ChromeOS and my Crouton/Ubuntu install share a clipboard. Combined with Chrome's normal syncing, I sometimes forget which environment I'm in when browsing the web.
If you can follow some instructions and want a cheap dev laptop that is no fuss for the basics, I'd recommend a similar setup. These days, I'd probably go for the 14" HP, although I haven't checked to make sure I could upgrade the HDD and RAM to acceptable specs.
Look into the SecureShell chrome extension. I use a mac basically like a chromebook, using just chrome+SecureShell, and I do all my real work on a remote linux box through ssh. I do everything through SecureShell now...no more terminal or iterm. Chromoting is useful, too, if for some reason I need to use the GUI on said remote linux box, but this is rare.
I do a lot of remote work with my chromebook, their basic terminal "app" is pretty nice, but I installed crouton (ubuntu) along side chromeOS and it works beautifully for me.
There is, in fact, a terminal app. It's not very advanced though (i.e. doesn't support tabs), but I use tmux and it solves most of the issues (tmux has its own version of "tabs" and even lets you split your window horizontally/vertically)
In the two cases I know of, nothing replaces Office-type docs (as in, they don't use them), and Facebook replaces an over-loaded SD card that never leaves the camera for photo management.
Some users don't need Office-type documents on the laptop -- they have a work-issued computer or it's not a requirement of their day-to-day needs. Similarly with photo management -- maybe they don't have a camera, or they just leave photos on their phone without a copy on the computer.
Other users believe in the Google vision, which is Google Docs and Google+ Photos. (Picasa's web interface is basically dead now.)
I used to support Chromebooks. Not anymore. Having every last bit of your data "in the cloud" has turned out to be a very dangerous concept, especially since Google (and many other cloud providers) don't provide any kind of easy client-side encryption options before uploading the data to the "cloud".
> especially since Google (and many other cloud providers) don't provide any kind of easy client-side encryption options
That's like wishing printer manufacturers would provide an easy way to refill their ink cartridges. It will never happen because no company will knowingly undermine its own business model.
Google's (and others') model is to access and mine as much of your own personal data as possible, so the idea that you're in sole control of it is anathema to their stated mission.
It used to be that one was generally pretty well aware of exactly what data was handed over when using their services, since the interaction with them was carried out in a limited, well understood manner (browser window, gmail/search site). Since they now control the entire stack from the hardware up to the services, and for the most part the workings of the entire system are opaque, it's very easy to leak data you never intended to, which compounds nicely for them (and unfortunately for you) with their goal.
So, in short, your data will never be safe if you hand it over to someone whose goal is to monetize it by being able to read it.
I was under the impression that documents stored under /Downloads/ or elsewhere in the file-system (when using dev-mode) are not uploaded to the "cloud".
In a multi-computer household you may want a computer (or many!) which specifically do not have your important information. (I don't even let my phone know my "real" email address.)
So basically Chrome OS is like Microsoft windows only with less features, less control, less software, hardware dependent and developed by an advertising company? Doesn't Chrome OS resemble an IPad challenger rather than a Windows/MacBook substitute?
It's an incredibly lightweight OS that covers 90% of usage scenarios and runs well on portable ~$200 hardware. That's the promise of a Chromebook.
The thing I think you're missing is that many people are replacing usage of their main computer with tablets and similar devices. So yes ChromeOS/books can be seen as a competitor to an iPad, but the ENTIRE space (e.g. tablets, smartphones, Chromebooks) is competing against the PC as we know it.
My Dell Venue 8 Pro is pretty fantastic at near that price point and is a full desktop OS. Granted its a tablet and not a full Laptop but its a great piece of hardware and Windows 8 really shines on it.
I'm sure it is but how will it run after 6 months of use by a non-technical user. The 'Windows half-life' kicks in and most Windows PC's I've ever seen have been almost unusable after a year or so of such usage.
Until four months ago I was running windows 8 on my 5 years old laptop with no problem. I upgraded it with 8.1 just because I wanted to try it and still I hadn't seen the first problem, so in my experience that "windows half-life" isn't more than a myth.
As someone who has used Windows (though not solely Windows) for a long time I'd say the "half-life" (like the much joked about instability and constant crashes) is something that used to be true but hasn't been true for quite a long time now.
Despite the terrible reputation it has, Vista is where Microsoft really started turning it around in a big way when it comes to stability, security, etc. (XP/Windows 2000 was obviously good too for moving the consumer OS to the protected NT kernel, but things really picked up in the subsequent releases).
My current Windows desktop system is running Windows 8.1 after in-place upgrades from Win7->Win8->Win8.1 (in place Windows upgrades being another previous no-no that now pretty much Just Works) and it still feels as zippy as the day I first started using it, despite having a hard-drive full of large RAW photos, videos, music, etc, and many dozens of apps installed, uninstalled, reinstalled, etc over the years.
All that being said, I own two different Chromebooks and I use them as mobile development systems running crouton and I really like them a lot and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to anyone who isn't pinned to Windows due to other app constraints like needing Photoshop, Lightroom, games, etc.
It is sadly true. There is cruft accumulating on the OS. Of course with Sandboxie and the likes it is becoming easier to keep your windows install in mint fresh condition.
The problem with Windows is usually third party crapware that people always install. Or comes preinstalled by the vendor. If you keep that in check you could last a long time before doing a re install. But most non tech savy users ... have trouble with that. Malware is getting more and more sophisticated in its ability to trick person to install it.
Only if you're willing to keep your computer well-maintained. Most users don't. The Registry is an outdated piece of junk, but thankfully Microsoft has made it less intrusive in Windows 7, and is making moves away from it with 8/8.1. It gets so clogged and filthy over time – like a vacuum cleaner's air filter - that loading application defaults takes ages. This is, however, less of a problem on newer operating systems.
Yes, ChromeOS is really more of an iOS challenger than a direct windows challenger. But iOS is a windows challenger. It's silly to divide the market into iPad competitors and Windows competitors, and even sillier to dismiss the iPad competitors because they aren't a "real" operating system.
There's a huge market for people who don't want all the complication of windows. Don't think of it as having less features and less software, think of it as having different features and different software.
It's like Windows except it's gratis, more secure, more control (check out crouton [1]), and hardware that runs chromeOS is by definition linux friendly, which encourages more hardware support [2].
"It's like Windows except it's gratis, more secure, more control..."
It's not really like Windows though is it? I could argue ChromeOS has far less privacy and is less capable. Sure, ChromeOS presents a simplified and streamlined experience that fits with what many people want in a computer: surf the web, check email, write simple documents. But there is nothing in ChromeOS that you can't do in Windows or Ubuntu or MacOSX. Importantly, in those OSes, I can run desktop apps without worrying about usage data being recorded and tracked (if usage data is recorded, it's opt-in and usually described as "anonymous" data collection).
I wonder how many people here would be happy if every action they performed or every app they launched on their computer was recorded by Apple or Microsoft? Yet, this is exactly what ChromeOS potentially does. In ChromeOS, running Google apps is only possible by signing into your Google account. So very quickly, Google builds an incredibly detailed picture of your computer usage: from the sites you browse, to the apps you use, to even the docs you print. They are not capturing this data anonymously either. Knowing clearly what Google tracks and records is a perfectly reasonable expectation. I'm amazed how easily Google have escaped any scrutiny on this matter.
There's barely any mention in this thread (and none in the TechCrunch article) of the privacy implications of using ChromeOS. I guess for many in the tech press and the tech community it's a complete non-issue. As someone who cares about privacy, I find that pretty depressing.
If by less privacy you mean: Google has access to a bit more information to make even more money by serving slightly more relevant ads, well, yes the observable truth is that people do not share your concerns.
Very large numbers of people already use Google find stuff they want to know and to manage their intimate e-mail communications. People have had a decade's experience gauging how Google acts when it has this information. They continue to use these services. Today, 81% of people who are buying smartphones in the world are choosing Android.
The most straightforward explanation of these facts would seem to be your concerns about Google knowing things are simply not shared. Not by the tech community, not by the tech press, and not by the overwhelming majority of people.
It doesn't seem likely that Google potentially knowing that one is using a Chromebook to play Angry Birds or watch Netflix will be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
They are really Netbook challengers. For OEMs it is a race to the bottom. But it is a smart play for Google.
But like Netbooks I think it'll have a short run. In the same way it is hard for WinPhone to compete against Android in the long tail of apps, I think the long tail of Win apps is tough to compete with when you can get a Windows PC at almost the same price.
Web apps run on PCs too. The long tail is Visual Studio, SPSS, Excel, Illustrator, Photoshop, Audyssey, Matlab, Emacs, Call of Duty, VLC, etc...
Tablets are a great secondary device. I think Chromebooks are too bulky and not feature rich enough as a secondary device. And simply can't replace a laptop as a primary.
And with virtually no price delta, I just don't see the story.
> And [Chromebooks] simply can't replace a laptop as a primary
I now know two people with Chromebooks. Both also have an (older) desktop. By any reasonable measure, it's the Chromebooks which are the primary. It's almost as if the desktop provides an it's-there-if-I-really-need-it fallback in case any of the long-tail apps are needed, but both are finding them not needed. (Note that neither are office workers.)
Both knew going in that the device would not run their PC software, so I think perhaps the correct messaging is out there.
Still, two is a very small number, even in the personal anecdote space. So, we'll see.
> And with virtually no price delta, I just don't see the story.
What do you mean? I just bought a $199 Chromebook (Acer C720) with 9+ hours of battery life and weighing under 3lbs. It performs well for all day-to-day tasks (email, news/HN/reddit, Facebook, etc). I don't know of any well-performing Windows laptops at that price point, and Windows laptops come with the added complexity of using Windows: I like the minimal simplicity of ChromeOS (no pre-installed bloatware, no useless extra features complicating the UI, everything safely backed up in the cloud, and automatic updates).
And my Chromebook is absolutely my primary device: I rarely touch my Windows 7 / Ubuntu (dual-booted) laptop.
My girlfriend and I won a Google sponsored hackathon this year that got us flights and tix to I/O and we both got the Pixel there. She then decided to make an experiment and sold her Macbook, to proceed using only the Pixel and an iPad. She wrote her entire dissertation with it and loves it. The three things she misses are Illustrator, Photoshop and Lightroom.
I doubt she would have done the same thing with a lesser Chromebook, so it was the Pixel's quality that won her over. She now is an embassador for it and recently a friend of ours got one for his wife for Xmas instead of a W8 laptop.
Touchscreen and the touchpad on the Pixel are simply state of the art - so much better than on my Asus Zenbook, much more precise and simply a joy to use. The speed-up time is very good, too, of course. It has to be said that her Mac was quite old and she was intending to replace it soon, anyway.
I got a Chromebook (XE500C21) as a gift and I didn't think it'd see much use. I set up crouton on it and I'm using it for browsing, IRC and some (very light) programming. I've come to use it far more than I thought I would.
My primary reasons for reaching for it rather than a "real" laptop (got a couple of Thinkpads around as well) is that it's got great battery life and that it's so cheap that I don't care if it gets wrecked. It's been beaten, stepped on, splashed on.
It sits somewhere between a tablet and a normal laptop. It doesn't replace any of them, but it's a great complement.
It's been beaten, stepped on, splashed on.
Stepped on by a baby? I'd be surprised if it could survive being stepped on by an adult. Especially the screen.
While I don't have any interest in shifting to Chrome OS entirely, I do think Google has made quite a leap in their recent Chromebook offerings.
I, for one, was one of the original pundits that lambasted the Chromebook movement in the beginning, but I am starting to warm up to the idea of owning one in the coming year. It surely will not replace my MBA, but there is room for it to serve as a secondary machine to people like myself.
Lastly, Microsoft should feel threatened by the recent uptick in adoption, because this kind of exodus towards ChromeOS will only eat more into their once massive share of the OS market. If Google continues to make progress in this space, $MSFT will most definitely have start paying attention and counter their growth. The new CEO in Redmond has a lot cut out for him upon taking the reins from Ballmer.
> Lastly, Microsoft should feel threatened by the recent uptick in adoption, because this kind of exodus towards ChromeOS will only eat more into their once massive share of the OS market. If Google continues to make progress in this space, $MSFT will most definitely have start paying attention and counter their growth. The new CEO in Redmond has a lot cut out for him upon taking the reins from Ballmer.
Wow, didn't have a clue that their terrible ads had already begun targeting Chromebooks. Seriously, someone over there really need to find a better way of trying to separate from the competition.
I got one just for surfing the web in the living room for the most part, doing a little bit of coding sometimes, and taking it to meetup groups. There is an app called Caret which satisfies my editor needs. Anyways, I'm pretty satisfied with it and it wasn't very expensive.
Exactly. Our Chromebook is a convenient living-room computer that my wife and I (and guests) can easily share. It does 80% of what we need there, easily more than enough to justify its purchase price.
Over the last few days, I was looking at building an IDE as a Chrome Packaged App, but went with node-webkit due to the file I/O limitations of Chrome. However, for many apps, the combination of ease of building a Chrome Packaged App and the automatic cross-platform capabilities (anything that runs Chrome) will further strengthen the Chromebook market.
The one thing I think is missing is more drool-worthy mid-priced machines. There are some very nice Windows 8 devices in the sub-$1000, and it seems Chromebooks jump from $400 right to the Pixel $1200+, which is a large gap in the market.
Sure, I wanted to allow the user to select a folder, and for the app to read all the sub-folders and files. Unfortunately, from my experiments, I can open a file, but opening a folder using webkitdirectory hides the path to the folder, so I can't read the folder and it's sub-directories.
As I understand it, I could copy the files to the sandboxed filesystem API, but there are a few issues with working in an IDE environment which would break that usability, for example, grunt creating new files, etc. etc.
Please correct me if I'm wrong. Happy to take this question to SA if that is a better venue where people would more likely look for the answer as well, if you've got a better solution.
As I said, I'm keen to do this as a Chrome Packaged App, though there are a few things like Grunt that I'll want to be running within the app, so node-webkit isn't a bad solution for the prototype.
Or you want to work with the underlying forms rather than the "wizard" mode (essential when seeking advice from sources other than TurboTax online help), file/amend prior-year or late (after October 15) returns, file a business return, or prepare multiple returns without paying multiple e-filing fees.
Like most other Web versions of existing desktop apps, TurboTax Online is not a complete replacement for the desktop version.
I've always predicted that the focus of ChromeOS is the future for mass market end-user OS:
A hassle-free OS that works like an appliance that's easy enough for everyone to use (since everyone already knows how to use a browser).
Turn it on and become instantly productive, automatically save to the cloud so users no longer have to worry about Files/Directories/Backups/etc. Computer dies? no problem, sign-in into a new ChromeOS and regain access to your entire environment.
Whilst it's still not useful for power users/developers, I'm predicting it will be the preferred managed OS for many corporate office users.
The shift towards a more affordable machine that can meet the most basic productivity needs will attract businesses, especially since we now live in world with more mobile workforces.Bloated OS's are a thing of the past and no longer needed as much now as they were 10, 15 years ago.
Wow, really thought that would be the last safe haven, due to MS Office entrenchment.
I guess it's not clear what businesses, or how they use the machines, but... if enterprises get comfy with Google Docs, we could be on the edge of a huge destructive shift.
Nobody wants to hand out Windows laptops to everyone in their business. Maybe a core of your company are Office power users, and maybe this is even half of your company, but the other half are idiots. These are people in your organization who need to be contacted via email, need to read documentation, but simply cannot be trusted with an actual computer. To these people, you give a Chromebook.
Having seen inside a company that hands out Chromebooks to everyone, even if they already have a "real" computer, I think Microsoft is going to lose a lot of ground to them. They are cheap enough to just throw them away when broken. If a user is having problems, they can just drop their Chromebook in a drop box and walk out with another one in 10 seconds flat. And again, they are cheap enough to just have them on a shelf outside your IT office or tech support desk.
I really wanted to go all in on Google Apps and have been using them exclusively for the last year, but at the start of december I started negotiating a large contract and I had a solicitor drawing up some documents for me.
Both the solicitor and the large company I was negotiating with were sending me .docx files and Google docs was failing to number the paragraph correctly.
This let to quite a bit of embarrassment and was forced to go out and buy Office for mac. If I was using a Cromebook I would have to buy a whole other laptop.
I'm conflicted here. Handling MS Office formats correctly is so essential to so many people that Google Docs really needs to do better here.
On the other hand it's such a shitty format that getting it right is a gargantuan task. LibreOffice doesn't get much credit here either and I'm not aware of any other 3rd party clients that do much better (correct me if I'm wrong).
I wonder if MS was to rewrite their binary file format reader/writer in MS Office (to for example be secure from the beginning) how long would it take for them to get it correct.
Has anyone tried QuickOffice? Google bought the company/app to bulk up its office doc editing abilities. It's been on android for years and from what I can see, it's now built in to ChromeOS. Perhaps this covers the more complex documents.
This. The Chrome store is ridden with lame and/or spammy apps that haven't met the bar I was expecting, and therefore you pretty much _have_ to use Google Apps for everything. For most individual use cases it seems ok, but enterprise-level adoption requires good substitutes for apps like Powerpoint, Word, and Excel. (Hell even as a contractor I wouldn't trust my work in Google Apps, as I've been burned before as well.)
QuickOffice reads .doc and .docx fine but borks on formatting and forget heavy editing. There are enough conversion and UX hassles that i'd say ChromeOS/Google Docs has a long haul to crack MS stack heavy enterprise. Funny thing is iOS and Android have better "apps" that handle MS formats.
When Chrome OS was first announced, I wanted to try it out. Unfortunately every time I try, I can't get it to run in VirtualBox. The hexxeh builds are old (April 2013) and there's no ISO I can download. Has anyone else had success in running a recent, stable build in VirtualBox?
The easiest way to try the ChromeOS UI on another platform is currently on Windows 8, where if your regular Chrome build is set as the default browser it will run the ChromeOS desktop environment/window manager in Metro mode (you have to close all the desktop windows for this to work).
Likely way more work than you're interested in but on Linux:
export GYP_DEFINES=chromeos=1
gclient runhooks
ninja -C out/Release chrome # May take a while!
./out/Release/chrome
... this produces a build of Chrome very similar to the one run in ChromeOS (we use it for 99% of UI development & testing on our Linux workstations). You can run this and get a feel for the desktop environment, window manager, etc. Similar steps will work on Windows but with use_aura=1 defined in GYP_DEFINES, and chrome run with --open-ash on the command line.
Last December, I played with building ChromeOS from source for a $449 touchscreen Asus laptop from Microsoft Store. It's easy enough if you just follow the directions on the ChromiumOS website. But I found keeping builds updated was a bigger hardship, and didn't want to make my own continuous build system. So I returned the laptop and this month bought an Acer C720P. Much happier.
Booting Chrome OS in a VM will likely disappoint, since you won't have graphics acceleration (Aura will be slow) and you'll be using the BIOS boot method (which chainloads to one of the GPT partitions containing the kernel and is generally slow compared to a direct uBoot (ARM) or Core Boot (x86_64) boot).
If you're in America, I'd recommend trying a Chromebook out at a local Best Buy. Failing that, throwing an old Hexxeh USB build on a USB key and booting it will give you a first approximation, but you'll miss out on things like the proprietary EME extensions that enable Netflix and other little details that make Chromebooks usable.
I'd love a Chromebook equivalent of an iPad. All I do on my tablet at this point is surf the web (okay, and a little Candy Crush/King of Dragon Pass), and if Google could bring that level of build quality and polish to the tablet space it'd be incredibly interesting.
The genius of Chromebook is that the sweet spot for Web apps is a bigger screen with a high-resolution pointing device that can pick out small targets (like links), NOT a finger-touch tablet.
Tablets like iPad and Android tablets rely on UI stacks that are designed for finger-touch UIs, with big targets, gestures, sensors, etc.
Why does it matter if all you're doing is surfing the web? What doesn't Android provide as an analogue? Why is Chrome OS important to you in this instance?
Not trying to contradict you -- just trying to understand your position.
Chrome OS is a desktop-style browser, not a mobile one. That means desktop versions of sites work best, multiple window support, full Flash and a few other things. Over time these differences will fade (e.g. post-Pixel touch support has become comparable), especially as Android gets Chrome packaged app support, but in the meantime...
I was in Starbucks the other day and a couple of late-middle age Librarians were sat at an adjacent table (I couldn't tell if they were from the local library, or the local university), both with the 11 inch Samsung Chromebook (2012). These were clearly issued by their employer (and quite recently by the sounds of it), although one had been decked out with a bright pink rubberised skin.
After a few minutes of negotiation they were both connected to the free wi-fi and proceeded with a meeting where they collaboratively edited a set of Google Docs and Spreadsheets, whilst sat on opposite sides of same the table (the docs were the focus of their meeting).
There are many use-cases for Chromebooks (I also have the same Samsung which I use for testing), but one is certainly employers managing large portfolios of standardised desktops used by 'information workers', and which are primarily used for editing spreadsheets and text documents, and surfing the web & using web apps (one might argue that these are largely indistinguishable from students, which is a another sector that Google has targeted).
It may have been that they would have been using Google Drive on their old (presumably) Windows machines, but I suspect that what was likely an economic decision for their employer (the Samsungs are £200 in the UK when bought through Amazon, likely much cheaper when bought in bulk), is also driving uptake of Drive (and web apps in general).
What was interesting from my point of view - as a developer - was that here were two reasonably tech-savvy 'civilians' using what is a relatively limited (by design) technology, and doing so in a very natural and fluid way. There was no mention of either the hardware or the OS and its limitations, they just went about their business without any hiccups or stumbles over the tools they were using.
People who question the Chromebook programme - they're just a browser, you can already do the same on any desktop, etc - are all making very valid points. But in many situations the question isn't what magical things can we make this device do, but rather what is the least (both in terms of cost, but also the scope of things that can go wrong) we can provide and still have our people function effectively. Google appear to be taking a bottom up approach to answering this question: slowly adding functionality to ChromeOS until it meets the majority of use cases the majority of the time. The grey area between Chrome the OS and Chrome the Browser is by design: If you find that you are increasingly living in Chrome on the desktop, maybe your next machine will be a Chromebook.
How are Chromebooks for use with other Linux distributions? Would be nice to have hardware which was made for use with the Linux kernel (and therefore, presumably, guaranteed to have near-perfect hardware support).
It's hit-and-miss, as with any other Linux-based mass-market device.
For example, the ARM-based Samsung Chromebook used a Mali graphics chip that only had a binary blob graphics driver (maybe an Android one?) that had a ugly nonfree license on it.
IIRC, custom code for each device can be found in the main chromium tree somewhere; extracting those bits and using them with a standard Linux distro is painful at best; e.g. locking you to specific kernel revisions for binary driver compatibility. It reminds me of the win/softmodem shenigans we saw in the late 90s.
Virtually every Chromebook has a hardware or software developer mode that lets you boot an unsigned operating system. Developer mode is rather intrusive (sad face; full screen message; beeps if you don't dismiss it early enough so that you can't do it to install malware on a lay user's laptop without them noticing) but usually can be quickly dismissed with Ctrl-D on each boot-up.
There exists some very nice hardware that is built from standard components and/or will run well on standard drivers. As a starting point, prefer x86_64-based Chromebooks over ARM based ones if you're going to run a Linux distro on them.
> Not very good. Asus chromebook has a locked boot loader, so it seems to only boots Google signed OS.
If this is true, then "Not very good" would still be specific to the ASUS model (I don't know much about the ASUS); other chromebook models do better. Even if true, of course, the solution is obvious: don't buy the ASUS chromebook; it has few distinguishing features anyway, and then the problem becomes self-correcting over time.
Linus himself, for instance, uses a Chromebook Pixel as his laptop, and he most certainly cares about which kernel it runs... :]
The Pixel allows you to boot unsigned OSes. I wiped ChromeOS from my Pixel and now have Debian Wheezy on it (though I build my own kernels for it. The Pixel is supported in recent kernel versions but not the version that Wheezy comes with).
it's honestly impossible to decipher the validity of the claims without seeing the sales breakdown of chrome books. how many of them were given away for free but counted as sales?
Why would Amazon give away laptops for free? You can verify the claim in the link by just going to Amazon and looking at the best sellers in the laptop category.
As long as you're fine abandoning the past a Chromebook is a good idea. However the concept of online documents to a normal person used to desktop software can be tricky, "how do I save?", "how do I attach this document to an email?". Then there's concepts like authorising a web app to use your Google Drive to save files in, and exporting PDFs to give to people. And things like mpeg2 files don't play, so your own video camera won't work.
Main advantage is it never goes wrong or needs maintenance, no apps to update, even automatically. Don't need to learn about AV, etc.
Chroombooks support thumb drives / memory sticks. So people can stick to their old habit of drag&dropping files from their thumb stick to an email to add an attachment.
Android/iOS basically didn't bother with cross application files, so that's one way to solve it. However the whole "3rd party app saves to google drive, attach file to email straight from drive, never have to download and upload it" thing is the future, just another new concept for people to learn, complicated by having to authorise all the 3rd parties to write to your gdrive.
I've been looking into buying a Chromebook for some backpacking I'll be doing in Southeast Asia this summer. The portability and battery life are a big plus, and I like that the devices are cheap enough that I wouldn't have to worry about it getting damaged. However, I've also been considering getting an iPad mini instead.
Anyone with experience traveling with these devices care to share some input? Specifically, would a Chromebook still be useful (and worth the weight) if I might only have WiFi a couple times per week?
Running vim on a Nexus 7 is a dream; the only hassle is pairing the bluetooth keyboard (another thing to carry with AAA batteries) and a OTG cable dongle if you transfer files to usb flash.
It all depends what you want to do with the device.
One thing i like about tablets though is they are quick data capture devices: secondary camera, Swype like virtual keyboard faster that typing and paint/sketching.
Imagine trying to swivel a Chromebook's stanky front facing VGA cam to take a picture if your camera lost power.
Also, another important thing to note that many Chromebook apps now work just fine off-line, so Chromebooks are increasingly less dependent on an Internet connection.
I'd be interested in seeing if anyone has had success in getting OSX to run on a Chromebook. So far googling for "Chromebook hackintosh" doesn't look promising.
The same way Apple has come out with its 'C' line of iPhones which I assume are cheaper, I see an enormous opportunity to do the same with their Macs.
The only good part about Macs is the UI. There used to be Mac clones made with commodity hardware, but they sold so well they threatened Apple's ridiculously inefficient margins.
Apple's supply chain isn't as bad now, but if all you want is a browser there's no reason to get it from them.
one reason why the "c" line of iPhones came out is because consumers now see iPhones and Android phones as virtual substitutes. even within the more tech savvy crowd I see many peers switching between one and the other, in both directions. I see this far less with Macs, and so I question the substitutionality of Macs with other computing options for most of its consumers.
(that being said I use all three major PC operating systems)
Chromebooks are very intriguing to me. Currently I use a MacBook Air and iPad Air for computing (C#, Java, ObjC programming, Photoshop, and basic office stuff such as word and Excel). I primarily run Win7 due to the VPN client my company uses only working with Windows. But if that changes. I may look elsewhere.
I appreciate what Google is doing for software compared to other companies but most people I know are buying a chrome book because its cheap. I feel that an Internet only connected computer isn't the way to go. Chrome only sucks. I want a real OS.
Is there still a chromebook with 3G or even LTE access built in? With a (worldwide) google data plan? I would buy one in a heartbeat if that were the case.
Yes, there is. I have a Samsung Chromebook with 3G from Verizon built-in. I am very impressed with this laptop and battery life. The next model will have the LTE capability.
Sad to see you modded down for just asking a question, but you're right.
>according to the latest numbers from NPD, Chromebooks accounted for 21 percent of all laptop sales and almost 10 percent of all computer sales to businesses in 2013.
It's only "preconfigured" laptops, which probably excludes many sales because a lot of people go to the OEM sites, say Lenovo and configure a laptop there. Also, it's US only and probably counts the Chromebooks that Google is discounting a lot, for example $99 for some schools.
Also, other big news is that Mac sales(not sure if absolute or as a percentage) seem to be dropping.
In particular, large enterprises buy a lot of computers CTO (custom to order). CTO is not preconfigured.
Also note that this NPD report is for the commercial channel only. If a school bought Chromebooks for every student, then that gets counted. If a business decided to use Google Apps for corporate groupware, and bought Chromebooks as a bundle, that's also counted.
But all the discussion above about how great Chromebooks are for girlfriends and grandmas? That's not what this NPD report is about.
NPD tabulates retail sales separately from commercial sales. The latest public figures from NPD give a 3.3% share for Chromebooks in the retail channel during back-to-school season (July, August, and the first week of September).
> Also, other big news is that Mac sales(not sure if absolute or as a percentage) seem to be dropping.
I would say that the 8.5% increase in Windows desktop sales is bigger news. Especially since it contradicts the dominant narrative of the impending death of Windows.
As for declines in Mac sales, Macs are practically nonexistent in the business world, except for its majority share in the media industry. Remember the backlash over Final Cut Pro and the delays to the Mac Pro? That would not have been good for Mac sales to the media industry. But now the Mac Pro is out, so Mac numbers should go back up next year.
