Chromebooks - latest news and discussion

[elbows]

How does that make it particularly clear? Using phrases like "personal computing devices" suggests that it's for consumers, not corporations.

What do you think PC stands for?

 

[editor]

What do you think PC stands for?

Plaid Cymru.

 

[newbie]

I'm sure it would be very easy to maintain. I'm very impressed with the what can be delivered when you strip away the bloat and deliver a decent experience at a low price, but am I alone though in worrying about having a machine that is so reliant on the "cloud"

reliance on (ie trust in) corporations. Leaving aside issues of privacy, copyright, ownership and control of information and metadata, and how that is monetised, there's still the fundamental consideration of what happens when they go bust, get taken over or simply decide to withdraw or reorientate their offering. You're at their mercy, which seems a very odd arrangement to enter into voluntarily.

 

[editor]

reliance on (ie trust in) corporations. Leaving aside issues of privacy, copyright, ownership and control of information and metadata, and how that is monetised, there's still the fundamental consideration of what happens when they go bust, get taken over or simply decide to withdraw or reorientate their offering. You're at their mercy, which seems a very odd arrangement to enter into voluntarily.

Pretty sure Google won't be going bust any time soon, and what are these issues of privacy, copyright, and ownership when it comes to personal, private material stored in the cloud?

 

[sim667]

outsell MacBooks five to one

I bet a chromebook only lasts a year or two until its so slow its unusable.

*runs before the bunfight starts.

 

[RedDragon]

I bet a chromebook only lasts a year or two until its so slow its unusable.

As a MBP man I thought the OP was a bit like comparing apples to oranges. HOWEVER, I'd be dead keen to know how these chrome-books stand the test of time, if they continue offer sustainable/reliable net access at an affordable cost then good on them.

 

[editor]

I bet a chromebook only lasts a year or two until its so slow its unusable.

*runs before the bunfight starts.

It looks like you're singularly failing to understand how Chromebooks work. They don't slow down over time. That's the whole concept.

 

[slainte]

Well as a MBP man and a man with a dual socket Quad Core Xeon machine for Vmware etc. The chromebook does all the "ordinary person" stuff pretty much for me. Leaving aside the pixel of course the requirement for most people for MBP or i5 8 Gig of RAM with metro interface and windows 8.1 with a requirement for 30 or so Gig 'Just to run a word processor document or spreadsheet and browse the web" just isn't there ...its spending too much money on what is not needed. Save your money get a cloud aware printer and even a home NAS with twonky or whatever and stream to it.
As for no storage well you do have storage typically 100Gig of it on the cloud for 2 years free and if you buy the SD slot card you can download at any time to the onboard SSD drive and save off..
What is the storage issue exactly.

 

[sim667]

It looks like you're singularly failing to understand how Chromebooks work. They don't slow down over time. That's the whole concept.

I was taking the mick

 

[UnderOpenSky]

After 20 years of PCs being common place, is slowdown because your daft enough to click yes on everything that wants to install itself still happening much to anyone but the old or mentally feeble stupid?

 

[Kid_Eternity]

After 20 years of PCs being common place, is slowdown because your daft enough to click yes on everything that wants to install itself still happening much to anyone but the old or mentally feeble?

Nope.

 

[elbows]

After 20 years of PCs being common place, is slowdown because your daft enough to click yes on everything that wants to install itself still happening much to anyone but the old or mentally feeble?

I've seen no change in the rather high number of requests I get to remove malware etc from peoples PCS. Any increase in knowledge about this stuff has been offset by the amount of surfing people do, the amount of dodgy emails they receive, the frequent desire to get free stuff, etc. The offensive term 'mentally feeble' tells us nothing about the disgraceful failure of many antivirus apps to actually protect against the sort of malware people end up getting on their machines.

Nor do these issues tell the whole story. A story of people buying computers that come with a lot of crap pre-installed, or buying peripherals or apps that installs a load of shit that runs on startup.

I see less random registry corruption & boot problems than I used to, but I still see windows pcs going wrong through no fault of the end-user, e.g. problems with windows bloody update.

Windows PCs have also done very well at persistently keeping the right balance of hardware power & software needs just beyond the price-point that many people want to go for when buying a laptop.

Many casual users, who I expect you are putting into the disgusting 'mentally feeble' category are starting to go for non-windows alternatives. They may still make the mistake of the false economy of spending a bit less than they really should on a tablet or whatever, but the greater diversity of non-windows machines of all sorts is gradually helping the situation. And very much pointing the finger of blame where it belongs - windows, its quirks, and the dishonest, messy and baffling stuff that has grown around that platform. To write off all these phenomenon as simply being down to unacceptable ignorance on the part of users is not on, its not their fault they've been sold stuff that is often not really fit for purpose.

 

[xenon]

Windows is a lot better at not bloating over time. At least IME, using Windows Seven. I don't particularly like the concept of having the majority of my personal data stored in a corporate cloud. I suppose you could encrypt it with GPG, ignoring any potential backdoors. But I'd still not be that comfortable with it.

Aside that, I quite like the sound of the chromebooks. Reasonbly priced, decent keyboard, battery life, light an dportable. Certainly a market for that sort of thing.

 

[slainte]

Absolutely excellent statement above especially the last line regarding the chromebook most people through don't have anything to hide so the odd letter of shopping etc. is fine on the cloud.
Note though anything sensitive you can just save to the local SD or save off to an SD card.

 

[editor]

Good piece here about a journalist trying to use a low powered Chromebook for a fairly demanding assignment:

All of these complaints aside, I was able to cover the majority of CES with the Chromebook 11. I had one full cheat day on Monday, because I need Windows or OS X to run our image uploading tools for liveblogs and I didn't want to carry two laptops around all day.

Even the biggest sticking point—importing and manipulating images—could have been circumvented in part with a card reader dongle (or better yet, a Haswell Chromebook with an SD card slot integrated).

Even during the few times when I was without a reliable Internet connection throughout the show, Google's apps and the Outlook Web App's offline modes are robust enough that I could still get things done.

I didn't have problems with battery life, or with opening documents or files aside from the image and video problems mentioned above. It was better than working with a tablet or smartphone because it's got a real keyboard and because WordPress hates mobile browsers.

Did I prefer using a Chromebook to using my regular tools? No, not really. Is it possible to do and come back home with your sanity intact? Sure! That's probably something we couldn't have said 12 or 18 months ago, and it's why Chrome OS is so interesting—it doesn't do everything a PC can do, but Chromebooks do enough of what a PC does that they can pose a credible threat to low-end laptops. And in case you hadn't noticed, that's where a lot of the volume of the PC market comes from these days.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014...a-chromebook-wasnt-great-but-it-was-possible/

 

[mod]

Doesn't Adriod still support flash?

Meaning there 'is' life in the old dog 'flash' after all?

 

[Lazy Llama]

Have Google said what the support life of any of these devices is?

It shouldn't be difficult to support them for a very long time as long as they restrict what manufacturers can put in them, given that it's just Linux underneath.

I did look round but can't find anything from Google giving support lifetimes. Given Google's propensity for closing things down (Wave, Reader, Knol, Buzz, Health, Talk, iGoogle, Notebook, Answers etc) that might worry some people, particularly those responsible for supporting devices for business, but those were all services rather than end-user software.

Given the price of a Chromebook, if they do what you need they're a bargain.

In 5 years, when we're all on 100Mbps 5G networks and everything is presented as HTML5 augmented reality, the older machines with ARM CPUs will probably struggle, but for the price you'll be able to throw it away and buy a new faster one.

I played with Chromium OS on a Dell netbook but as of April 2013 it was barely functional and the Dell-sourced image was very poor. No updates available for it either.

 

[skyscraper101]

If these genuinely don't slow down over time, what is the main difference between these systems and Android based phones which definitely do slow down over time?

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Have Google said what the support life of any of these devices is?

It shouldn't be difficult to support them for a very long time as long as they restrict what manufacturers can put in them, given that's it's just Linux underneath.

I did look round but can't find anything from Google giving support lifetimes. Given Google's propensity for closing things down (Wave, Reader, Knol, Buzz, Health, Talk, iGoogle, Notebook, Answers etc) that might worry some people, particularly those responsible for supporting devices for business, but those were all services rather than end-user software.

Given the price of a Chromebook, if they do what you need they're a bargain.

In 5 years, when we're all on 100Mbps 5G networks and everything is presented as HTML5 augmented reality, the older machines with ARM CPUs will probably struggle, but for the price you'll be able to throw it away and buy a new faster one.

I played with Chromium OS on a Dell netbook but as of April 2013 it was barely functional and the Dell-sourced image was very poor. No updates available for it either.

That's more than a small risk, Google are sadly dumping product lines without a second thought these days.

I had a good play with the Pixel and if all I did was use Google products it might be worth it...

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Doesn't Adriod still support flash?

Meaning there 'is' life in the old dog 'flash' after all?

Google dumped it from their own products the Nexus 7 I believe...horrible tech, buggy as shot and kills battery.

 

[editor]

That's more than a small risk, Google are sadly dumping product lines without a second thought these days.

Care to list all the major ones they've supposedly "dumped without a second thought " in the last six months?

 

[mod]

Google dumped it from their own products the Nexus 7 I believe...horrible tech, buggy as shot and kills battery.

Maybe but flash (or rather actionscript) is incredibly powerful and can achieved amazing things. Anything I've seen created with html5, css3, JavaScript feels very inferior to date but I suspect Adobe Edge Animate will change this within a couple of years.

 

[Lazy Llama]

Google Reader, GUI Builder, Google Building Maker, Google Checkout and iGoogle have all closed or had their closure announced since 1st June 2013.

I only ever used 3 out of those 5.

 

[slainte]

Hmm if I got a Pixel not being afraid of Linux I would put in developer mode and install Crouton or if you like you can install Ubuntu there is a version especially for chromebooks as well crubuntu its called or an install of standard Ubuntu.
if you really need skype etc. this path can do it for you.
Advantage with Crouton as I see it is that its run as a seperate thread rather than an OS alongside your chrome OS rather than dual boot you are running Chrome OS and crouton as a thread.
http://lifehacker.com/how-to-install-linux-on-a-chromebook-and-unlock-its-ful-509039343
http://www.howtogeek.com/162120/how-to-install-ubuntu-linux-on-your-chromebook-with-crouton/

There are articles out there that you don't have to have Xfce desktop but the other desktops of Ubuntu..anyway the build quality of the laptops is good period and I have been playing around with other laptops based around windows 8 with flimsy keyboard or glossy OTT screen etc.
seriously unless youre spending around the 800 to 1K mark the keyboard quality and build quality is not there at the moment for windows 8 machines.
Generally they feel flimsy terrible keyboard feedback etc.

Also back to crouton the issue of security can be overcome by encrypting the installation and the option of alternative desktop is thus

http://www.webupd8.org/2013/12/install-ubuntu-on-your-chromebook-using.html

Personally and obviously commercially there must be something to the chromebook thing considering that more and more manfacturers are making chromebooks they are selling and even microsoft has made adverts which are essentially anti chromebook advertising. IF they are that shit why are they selling. In short its the experience.

Have a play with one its hard to give the experience element in a thread but the newer models have good displays and keyboards over Netbooks and the whole I need an OS thing if you are a bit of a tinkerer of tech is achievable with an Ubuntu or crouton install. If you are not a techy a cloud print printer and google docs will cover your needs in most cases or for a lot of the population all their needs.

On the google side more and more companies are also using google docs for business so the packages are getting better. Surprised by that myself but there is a growing amount. I find it a bit of a kick in the teeth that for full features of Office 365 Microsoft insist on an install of Windows OS to fully access the features in their flagship product but google docs gives you all from the start. Yes fancy hyperlinks etc. is not developed there in google docs but give it time its getting better and better not more and more bloated or playing with features removing then re-installing etc. etc. on next release.
Regarding google docs for business. Its simple but functional
http://www.google.co.uk/intx/en/enterprise/apps/business/products.html?utm_campaign=emea-smb-apps-bkws-gb&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_term=+google +docs +for +business#drive

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Google Reader, GUI Builder, Google Building Maker, Google Checkout and iGoogle have all closed or had their closure announced since 1st June 2013.

I only ever used 3 out of those 5.

Lol I like the way the resident fandroid avoids the point by demanding we only look at the last six months! Nice bit of framing.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

The point is each year they dump products that aren't their main profitable business. Each year they force Google + further down your through and integrate their few remaining product lines in a way that no one asked for. None of this is the action of a company you can trust your business with...

 

[slainte]

Sorry and you can totally trust your business with an investment in Microsoft which had anti competitive features like breaking and destroying Netscape Navigator back in the day. Plundering and purchasing other companies technologies such as Amiga for then their graphics. etc. Not breaking off their own browser from the OS being in breach of court orders and continuing to do so for years...Just google this if you want..

Even Apple forcing people not being able to upgrade say their white imac laptops to either lion or mountain lion even though the hardware was fine to run it ..not sure on the status of Mavericks and charging via the model of itunes match...eh sorry get serious.
Even with Mavericks it tried to break 3rd Party harddisks requiring major work-arounds to get them to boot afterwards or breaking bootcamp partitions...by removing the rescue disk ..had the same issue but had to hack the EFI and bootloader with more 3rd party apps to get to install onto my 3rd Party harddisk ....
Apple issues forcing people to upgrade well within a tech cycle. Just look at the original iphone 5 not even a year old and it was removed from circulation...sorry not even A YEAR....
What about the ipad 3 then ipad 4 etc. etc.

Sorry what is your point when stacked up against the others out there...

 

[Kid_Eternity]

And another one bites the dust...Google announce Schemer is kaput on Feb 7. Yep this is deffo a company that has your long term business interests as part of its profit seeking strategy!

 

[slainte]

And microsoft or Apple have your long term business interests at heart. Do you really think any company thinks about "your interests" other than shifting stuff for a price to you. No offence meant

 

[RedDragon]

Don't be evil™