6 ms·

Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349

57 points by almightygod 15y ago

hollerith 15y ago
Is the main market for chrome books (a) people who want to install Linux and other OSes on them and (b) people who do not want the hassle of adminning a traditional OS?
- onemoreact 15y ago
  If it's secure, easy to use and browses "the Facebook" I could see giving them to a relative and saivng a fair amount of tech support time. Granted an iPad fills the same nitch but it costs twice as much.
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    The iPad is only $150 more. A great conditioned used 1st gen iPad you can get for $50 more. I'll take a 1st gen ipad over this Chromebook easy.
    - nextparadigms 15y ago
      It depends on whether you want a keyboard, too, or not. A keyboard costs extra money for iPad, and it's not a very elegant solution either. I'd much prefer an Asus Transformer if I were to choose a tablet over a Chromebook.
- notatoad 15y ago
  the theoretical market for chromebooks is people who only want a computer for facebook and email and want to buy something simple and cheap. in practice, i think the market is just nerds who want to play with a chromebook because it's new and cool. i appreciate what google is trying to do with chromeOS, and i think it's a good idea, but they have failed miserably at marketing it to non-techies.
  - Zumzoa 15y ago
    In terms of providing simple email, web use and facebook, the Chromebook may be out-performed by most modern mobile phones.
    - notatoad 15y ago
      for general, non-mobile use, a 3.5-4" screen does not outperform a 12" screen.
    - lftl 15y ago
      And numerous modern mobile phones actually cost more than a Chromebook (especially unsubsidized by cell phone contract).
eggbrain 15y ago
When I first saw the Chromebook, I figured it would be priced around $150, so that it was a no-brainer decision (especially with it's limitations over a normal laptop). But at $349, its still $75 more than an Acer Aspire One. Make it $100-$150, and I'll buy it. As it stands though, its too much money and too little benefits.
- lftl 15y ago
  To be fair as far as I can tell, there is no directly comparable Windows Acer Aspire One. All the 11.6" Acers I see run on a different chipset, and they're all only $20 cheaper than the Acer Chromebook. When I first tried out the Chromebook, I thought the same thing about price. But I'm pretty sure Microsoft licenses Windows for these netbooks VERY cheaply, so there's not much price to be shaved by swapping out the OS. To hit a significant price difference Chromebooks would have to skimp on the hardware compared to their Windows/Linux counterparts. The Chromebook I have already struggles with flash, so without dropping support for that completely I don't think there's much to trim off the CPU end of things. There's a little room to skimp on the HD compared to Windows, but not a ton. So basically I don't see any route other than being ad supported, rentals or some other type of Google subsidy for Chromebooks to actually become cheaper than the low end of the netbook segment.
  - jasongullickson 15y ago
    What does Windows have to do with it? Couldn't you achieve "Chromebook-level-functionality" with a Linux model (since you'd be living out of the browser)?
    - lftl 15y ago
      I was mostly just trying to do an apples-to-apples comparison based on price. I couldn't find any Acer linux laptops that ship with linux in a quick search. Functionality-wise, yes there's no reason you couldn't get linux on par with Chrome from a leanness standpoint by just stripping out services and booting into the browser.
  - nextparadigms 15y ago
revorad 15y ago
Chromebooks are like bigger and worse netbooks. Great at doing nothing but still not the cheapest!
vnorby 15y ago
Don't buy one. I got the Samsung Series 5 3g Chromebook a month ago, and I definitely regret buying even at its low price point. The OS is still very unstable and not performant. The speakers are very bad (but I wouldn't watch video or listen to music anyway - YouTube/Pandora/Turntable.fm tend to crash quite a bit). The screen is not that great. The only upside is the long battery life but you're better off spending a couple hundred more and getting an Air.
- shoota 15y ago
  A couple hundred dollars more? A MacBook Air is $650 more expensive than the price listed on Amazon. For that price you could buy almost 3 Chromebooks.
  - eggbrain 15y ago
    The Samsung Series 5 3g is $500, the cheapest Macbook Air is $835. So, a little more than a couple hundred dollars more, but a lot less than $650 more (even the cheapest Chromebook at $350 would be tops $485 less).
    - jonknee 15y ago
      The cheapest MacBook Air is indeed $999: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air/select?mco=MjMzOTQxMjE http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo... Perhaps you saw an older model that's on clearance.
      - eggbrain 15y ago
        The model I saw was here: http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MacBook-MC505LL-11-6-Inch-Laptop/dp/B0047DVRQW/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1311619643&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MacBook-MC505LL-11-6-Inch-Laptop... Which could very well be the 2010 model. That being said, the OP never mentioned getting "the latest and greatest" Macbook Air, only a Macbook Air.
        15y ago
emergence 15y ago
They've been on sale for over 10 days now. I don't see them flying off the shelf. I've been thinking about buying a 12.1" Samsung Series 5 3G or a 12.5" Lenovo X220 or an 11.6" Macbook Air or an 11.6" Samsung Series 9. If I could get emacs on a terminal, with ssh access I would be sold on the Chromebook. Does anyone know if ssh + emacs + term is possible? (w/ the same battery usage - i.e. I don't want to bother with installing Linux if I can only get <2 hours of mobile use).
- mdwrigh2 15y ago
  I don't know about the latest revisions, but the CR-48 had a terminal that was basically only useful for SSH. So if you have a dev box setup somewhere that you can SSH to, it makes an okay dev environment (for someone who uses emacs or vi).
- lftl 15y ago
  Chrome OS has a weird non-standard ssh, but I wouldn't think there's any problem ssh'ing into a remote machine where you have emacs running. Having emacs running locally probably wouldn't be possible though.
choko 15y ago
Wow, that seems a little pricey for what is offered. I would think they would be able to use an "off the shelf" netbook that already costs ~300 dollars, without Windows, and sell it for ~200. Windows accounts for a nice chunk of the price of a netbook, does it not? I know they don't pay store prices for Windows, but I'm sure they are still paying a decent amount. Does anyone have an insight in to how much Windows adds to the price of netbook hardware?
- sahaj 15y ago
  From what I understand Windows volume licensing cost is around $30-$40 per copy depending on who the hardware vendor is.
- shoota 15y ago
  According to this article http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/06/microsoft-currently-asking-45-to-55-for-windows-7-starter.ars http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/06/microsoft-curr... which is a bit dated it seems like the cost of windows could be as low as $15-30.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Netbooks are priced what they are because of their component parts. The 2 Chromebooks released so far are the size of a normal notebook/laptop. The parts are similar (except for the processor) to that of a notebook, which explains the price. The Series 5 cost $334.32 to make.[1] [1]http://www.thechromesource.com/with-what-it-costs-to-make-is-the-samsung-series-5-chromebook-overpriced/ http://www.thechromesource.com/with-what-it-costs-to-make-is...
Ronkdar 15y ago
> It just works. Can we stop saying this please? > "Your apps, documents, and settings are stored safely in the cloud." Until Google deletes your account for no specific reason and refuses to give it back (this has happened to more than one person) > Millions of apps. [citation needed] > Friends let friends login. Every OS ever has had this feature. It's called "Users" >Gets faster over time. What does this mean? That you designed it to be inefficient so you can speed it up and gather favor from your users? That you just stopped optimizing halfway through and pegged it 1.0?
- Pewpewarrows 15y ago
  If by no specific reason you mean "blatant violation of AdSense terms of service," then yes.
- mtogo 15y ago
  I agree with you 100%, especially on the "It just works" point, but you're wrong on the "friends let friends login" thing. As far as i know, no other OS allows me to log into someone else's computer and get the exact same experience i have on my own, and vice versa.
  - joeyespo 15y ago
    I've always wanted it to work this way. Even just a few years ago, I'd never imagine this would be accomplished by using a browser-based operating system.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  > Until Google deletes your account for no specific reason and refuses to give it back (this has happened to more than one person) Google can delete my Facebook account? My Office Web Apps account? How do they manage this? > Every OS ever has had this feature. It's called "Users" No other OS saves OS settings and apps in the cloud, to my knowledge. > What does this mean? That you designed it to be inefficient so you can speed it up and gather favor from your users? That you just stopped optimizing halfway through and pegged it 1.0? They are talking about the auto-update feature.
ben1040 15y ago
I've been using a Samsung Series 5 for a couple weeks (I have the 3G model which is priced at $499). After having tried this out, there's no way I would call it worth $499. Maybe I'm just spoiled from my MacBook Air but the Series 5 is heavy and has a cheap/plasticky feel to it. The trackpad has responsiveness problems and in general just feels funny to use. All in all it gives off kind of a "toy computer" impression which is unfortunate.
klbarry 15y ago
The biggest Chromebook advantage, in my opinion, is that it never slows down because you never change the software in any meaningful way. For the average person who bloats their computer over time until it isn't usable, that is huge.
- pharrington 15y ago
  Unfortunately adware/malware Chrome extensions already exist. Granted removing that is much easier than removing some nasty software installed on a traditional OS, but the type of user that's not savvy enough to avoid malware wouldn't know how to remove a Chrome extension :\
watty 15y ago
I too struggle with the price of Chromebooks. I do love my CR48 but expected price to be around $200 considering the OS is very limited.
nextparadigms 15y ago
$350 should be the max pricing point for a higher quality Chromebook, not the starting point. The starting point should be like $200. They should also make them only with ARM chips to cut the cost significantly. Ideally, it should be like $200 wi-fi only with Tegra 2 (or other dual core ARM chip) and $350 for a better built one with 4G and Tegra 3 (or similar).
dstein 15y ago
I think Google's strategy for ChomeOS is all wrong. Nobody wants low powered laptops without a proper OS. As soon as the iPad blew up the netbook market Google should have retargeted ChomeOS as a tablet OS. A lightweight (zero-weight) OS is perfectly suited for a tablet. I use an iPad almost exclusively for browsing the net and checking email and I bet I'm not the only one. A Chrometablet with some decent specs and maybe some hardware WebGL support might even open a whole new online gaming market.
- phillijw 15y ago
  I don't have an iPad though. I like to have a keyboard for typing if I have the option.
arihant 15y ago
If they sell this at $49 with a 2-year data plan contract - would rock! Two reasons: 1 - This is a brick if you don't have internet. 2 - This is a brick if you can't use it on road. People have internet at homes. So consistent always on internet with a very low buy-in cost would probably be better, imo. I mean, this thing needs to sell as a complete experience.
yason 15y ago
The price is astronomical. I can turn my EeePC into a homemade chromebook with $0 and I paid much less for that years ago. I would assume that you could strip the chromebook down to $150-200 precisely because the hardware specs required for a glorified browser ought to be considerably lower than for running a full-fledged OS. Perhaps I'll have to wait for some Tegra chromebook to get the price/perf figure to a more sensitive level: even the latest smartphones should be able to match the requirements for a chromebook.
krishna2 15y ago
Imagine you have a chromebook, and imagine Google deleted your account, now do you have a very expensive paper-weight? (or is there some salvation?). I see some opportunity for two ideas: 1. insurance against the event that a company will delete your account. 2. a backup-for-orig-company.com (browser plug-in? desktop-background-app?), that backs up (and keeps track of) everything you do with company X - so you can retrieve it all someday if the need be.
- e1ven 15y ago
  At least for the CR-48's, you could flip the dev switch and wipe them, or install Ubuntu. I had to use the dev-switch to get a terminal.. Web online just doesn't cut it when you need to SSH to your servers ;)

57 points by almightygod 15y ago

Is the main market for chrome books (a) people who want to install Linux and other OSes on them and (b) people who do not want the hassle of adminning a traditional OS?

onemoreact 15y ago
If it's secure, easy to use and browses "the Facebook" I could see giving them to a relative and saivng a fair amount of tech support time. Granted an iPad fills the same nitch but it costs twice as much.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  The iPad is only $150 more. A great conditioned used 1st gen iPad you can get for $50 more. I'll take a 1st gen ipad over this Chromebook easy.
  - nextparadigms 15y ago
    It depends on whether you want a keyboard, too, or not. A keyboard costs extra money for iPad, and it's not a very elegant solution either. I'd much prefer an Asus Transformer if I were to choose a tablet over a Chromebook.
notatoad 15y ago
the theoretical market for chromebooks is people who only want a computer for facebook and email and want to buy something simple and cheap. in practice, i think the market is just nerds who want to play with a chromebook because it's new and cool. i appreciate what google is trying to do with chromeOS, and i think it's a good idea, but they have failed miserably at marketing it to non-techies.
- Zumzoa 15y ago
  In terms of providing simple email, web use and facebook, the Chromebook may be out-performed by most modern mobile phones.
  - notatoad 15y ago
    for general, non-mobile use, a 3.5-4" screen does not outperform a 12" screen.
  - lftl 15y ago
    And numerous modern mobile phones actually cost more than a Chromebook (especially unsubsidized by cell phone contract).

eggbrain 15y ago

When I first saw the Chromebook, I figured it would be priced around $150, so that it was a no-brainer decision (especially with it's limitations over a normal laptop). But at $349, its still $75 more than an Acer Aspire One. Make it $100-$150, and I'll buy it. As it stands though, its too much money and too little benefits.

lftl 15y ago
To be fair as far as I can tell, there is no directly comparable Windows Acer Aspire One. All the 11.6" Acers I see run on a different chipset, and they're all only $20 cheaper than the Acer Chromebook. When I first tried out the Chromebook, I thought the same thing about price. But I'm pretty sure Microsoft licenses Windows for these netbooks VERY cheaply, so there's not much price to be shaved by swapping out the OS. To hit a significant price difference Chromebooks would have to skimp on the hardware compared to their Windows/Linux counterparts. The Chromebook I have already struggles with flash, so without dropping support for that completely I don't think there's much to trim off the CPU end of things. There's a little room to skimp on the HD compared to Windows, but not a ton. So basically I don't see any route other than being ad supported, rentals or some other type of Google subsidy for Chromebooks to actually become cheaper than the low end of the netbook segment.
- jasongullickson 15y ago
  What does Windows have to do with it? Couldn't you achieve "Chromebook-level-functionality" with a Linux model (since you'd be living out of the browser)?
  - lftl 15y ago
    I was mostly just trying to do an apples-to-apples comparison based on price. I couldn't find any Acer linux laptops that ship with linux in a quick search. Functionality-wise, yes there's no reason you couldn't get linux on par with Chrome from a leanness standpoint by just stripping out services and booting into the browser.
- nextparadigms 15y ago

revorad 15y ago

Chromebooks are like bigger and worse netbooks. Great at doing nothing but still not the cheapest!

vnorby 15y ago

Don't buy one. I got the Samsung Series 5 3g Chromebook a month ago, and I definitely regret buying even at its low price point. The OS is still very unstable and not performant. The speakers are very bad (but I wouldn't watch video or listen to music anyway - YouTube/Pandora/Turntable.fm tend to crash quite a bit). The screen is not that great. The only upside is the long battery life but you're better off spending a couple hundred more and getting an Air.

shoota 15y ago
A couple hundred dollars more? A MacBook Air is $650 more expensive than the price listed on Amazon. For that price you could buy almost 3 Chromebooks.
- eggbrain 15y ago
  The Samsung Series 5 3g is $500, the cheapest Macbook Air is $835. So, a little more than a couple hundred dollars more, but a lot less than $650 more (even the cheapest Chromebook at $350 would be tops $485 less).
  - jonknee 15y ago
    The cheapest MacBook Air is indeed $999: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air/select?mco=MjMzOTQxMjE http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo... Perhaps you saw an older model that's on clearance.
    - eggbrain 15y ago
      The model I saw was here: http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MacBook-MC505LL-11-6-Inch-Laptop/dp/B0047DVRQW/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1311619643&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MacBook-MC505LL-11-6-Inch-Laptop... Which could very well be the 2010 model. That being said, the OP never mentioned getting "the latest and greatest" Macbook Air, only a Macbook Air.
      - 15y ago

emergence 15y ago

They've been on sale for over 10 days now. I don't see them flying off the shelf. I've been thinking about buying a 12.1" Samsung Series 5 3G or a 12.5" Lenovo X220 or an 11.6" Macbook Air or an 11.6" Samsung Series 9. If I could get emacs on a terminal, with ssh access I would be sold on the Chromebook. Does anyone know if ssh + emacs + term is possible? (w/ the same battery usage - i.e. I don't want to bother with installing Linux if I can only get <2 hours of mobile use).

mdwrigh2 15y ago
I don't know about the latest revisions, but the CR-48 had a terminal that was basically only useful for SSH. So if you have a dev box setup somewhere that you can SSH to, it makes an okay dev environment (for someone who uses emacs or vi).
lftl 15y ago
Chrome OS has a weird non-standard ssh, but I wouldn't think there's any problem ssh'ing into a remote machine where you have emacs running. Having emacs running locally probably wouldn't be possible though.

choko 15y ago

Wow, that seems a little pricey for what is offered. I would think they would be able to use an "off the shelf" netbook that already costs ~300 dollars, without Windows, and sell it for ~200. Windows accounts for a nice chunk of the price of a netbook, does it not? I know they don't pay store prices for Windows, but I'm sure they are still paying a decent amount. Does anyone have an insight in to how much Windows adds to the price of netbook hardware?

sahaj 15y ago
From what I understand Windows volume licensing cost is around $30-$40 per copy depending on who the hardware vendor is.
shoota 15y ago
According to this article http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/06/microsoft-currently-asking-45-to-55-for-windows-7-starter.ars http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/06/microsoft-curr... which is a bit dated it seems like the cost of windows could be as low as $15-30.
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Netbooks are priced what they are because of their component parts. The 2 Chromebooks released so far are the size of a normal notebook/laptop. The parts are similar (except for the processor) to that of a notebook, which explains the price. The Series 5 cost $334.32 to make.[1] [1]http://www.thechromesource.com/with-what-it-costs-to-make-is-the-samsung-series-5-chromebook-overpriced/ http://www.thechromesource.com/with-what-it-costs-to-make-is...

Ronkdar 15y ago

> It just works. Can we stop saying this please? > "Your apps, documents, and settings are stored safely in the cloud." Until Google deletes your account for no specific reason and refuses to give it back (this has happened to more than one person) > Millions of apps. [citation needed] > Friends let friends login. Every OS ever has had this feature. It's called "Users" >Gets faster over time. What does this mean? That you designed it to be inefficient so you can speed it up and gather favor from your users? That you just stopped optimizing halfway through and pegged it 1.0?

Pewpewarrows 15y ago
If by no specific reason you mean "blatant violation of AdSense terms of service," then yes.
mtogo 15y ago
I agree with you 100%, especially on the "It just works" point, but you're wrong on the "friends let friends login" thing. As far as i know, no other OS allows me to log into someone else's computer and get the exact same experience i have on my own, and vice versa.
- joeyespo 15y ago
  I've always wanted it to work this way. Even just a few years ago, I'd never imagine this would be accomplished by using a browser-based operating system.
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
> Until Google deletes your account for no specific reason and refuses to give it back (this has happened to more than one person) Google can delete my Facebook account? My Office Web Apps account? How do they manage this? > Every OS ever has had this feature. It's called "Users" No other OS saves OS settings and apps in the cloud, to my knowledge. > What does this mean? That you designed it to be inefficient so you can speed it up and gather favor from your users? That you just stopped optimizing halfway through and pegged it 1.0? They are talking about the auto-update feature.

ben1040 15y ago

I've been using a Samsung Series 5 for a couple weeks (I have the 3G model which is priced at $499). After having tried this out, there's no way I would call it worth $499. Maybe I'm just spoiled from my MacBook Air but the Series 5 is heavy and has a cheap/plasticky feel to it. The trackpad has responsiveness problems and in general just feels funny to use. All in all it gives off kind of a "toy computer" impression which is unfortunate.

klbarry 15y ago

The biggest Chromebook advantage, in my opinion, is that it never slows down because you never change the software in any meaningful way. For the average person who bloats their computer over time until it isn't usable, that is huge.

pharrington 15y ago
Unfortunately adware/malware Chrome extensions already exist. Granted removing that is much easier than removing some nasty software installed on a traditional OS, but the type of user that's not savvy enough to avoid malware wouldn't know how to remove a Chrome extension :\

watty 15y ago

I too struggle with the price of Chromebooks. I do love my CR48 but expected price to be around $200 considering the OS is very limited.

nextparadigms 15y ago

$350 should be the max pricing point for a higher quality Chromebook, not the starting point. The starting point should be like $200. They should also make them only with ARM chips to cut the cost significantly. Ideally, it should be like $200 wi-fi only with Tegra 2 (or other dual core ARM chip) and $350 for a better built one with 4G and Tegra 3 (or similar).

dstein 15y ago

I think Google's strategy for ChomeOS is all wrong. Nobody wants low powered laptops without a proper OS. As soon as the iPad blew up the netbook market Google should have retargeted ChomeOS as a tablet OS. A lightweight (zero-weight) OS is perfectly suited for a tablet. I use an iPad almost exclusively for browsing the net and checking email and I bet I'm not the only one. A Chrometablet with some decent specs and maybe some hardware WebGL support might even open a whole new online gaming market.

phillijw 15y ago
I don't have an iPad though. I like to have a keyboard for typing if I have the option.

arihant 15y ago

If they sell this at $49 with a 2-year data plan contract - would rock! Two reasons: 1 - This is a brick if you don't have internet. 2 - This is a brick if you can't use it on road. People have internet at homes. So consistent always on internet with a very low buy-in cost would probably be better, imo. I mean, this thing needs to sell as a complete experience.

yason 15y ago

The price is astronomical. I can turn my EeePC into a homemade chromebook with $0 and I paid much less for that years ago. I would assume that you could strip the chromebook down to $150-200 precisely because the hardware specs required for a glorified browser ought to be considerably lower than for running a full-fledged OS. Perhaps I'll have to wait for some Tegra chromebook to get the price/perf figure to a more sensitive level: even the latest smartphones should be able to match the requirements for a chromebook.

krishna2 15y ago

Imagine you have a chromebook, and imagine Google deleted your account, now do you have a very expensive paper-weight? (or is there some salvation?). I see some opportunity for two ideas: 1. insurance against the event that a company will delete your account. 2. a backup-for-orig-company.com (browser plug-in? desktop-background-app?), that backs up (and keeps track of) everything you do with company X - so you can retrieve it all someday if the need be.

e1ven 15y ago
At least for the CR-48's, you could flip the dev switch and wipe them, or install Ubuntu. I had to use the dev-switch to get a terminal.. Web online just doesn't cut it when you need to SSH to your servers ;)