11 ms·

Schools bought millions of Chromebooks and 3 years later they’re breaking down

140 points by redundantly 4y ago

tough 4y ago
Planned obsolescence sounds about right
- sebzim4500 4y ago
  Is it really 'planned' in this case? I think 'expected' is a better term, it's not really avoidable that a $200 laptop is not going survive being used by children for very long.
  - izacus 4y ago
    It's absolutely planned since there's a planned published date after which Google refuses to even update the browser on those devices.
    - vuln 4y ago
      Could you link to the document that backs up your claim? Specifically the Chromebook devices. It looks like google supports devices for 6,7,8, even 9 years. Plenty of models with 2030+ expiration. https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en#zippy=%2Cdell%2Caxioo%2Casus%2Cascon%2Caopen%2Cadvan%2Cacer https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en#zip...
      - izacus 4y ago
        "Chromebook EoL date" is a very easily Googlable document listing hard cutoff for every model.
      - BurningFrog 4y ago
        Don't have a link, but Google is clear that the updates end after 8 years.
        redundantly 4y ago
        And it's 8 years after the model of chromebook/box is released. Not after being purchased.
        vuln 4y ago
        8 years is a very long time to support a device. How many other devices are updates made available for 8 years?
        xet7 4y ago
        Very many. Amiga 1200. Released in 1992, got update to AmigaOS 3.3.2 at 2023 https://www.hyperion-entertainment.com https://www.hyperion-entertainment.com . That is 31 years. My wife uses Vista era laptop, from 2007. Still works great at 2023, changed it to have SSD disk and 8 GB RAM, running newest Linux Mint. Newest Windows, macOS and ChromeOS only works on newest devices. After that, just install Linux. For example, 2 weeks ago I installed Debian 11 to Chromebook https://github.com/xet7/chromebook https://github.com/xet7/chromebook
        xet7 4y ago
        Problem is only, if manufacturer does not allow to: - Install alternative OS - Change or upgrade RAM and harddrive - Change battery It is possible to do all or some of that to some Chromebooks, there are videos at YouTube. It depends on model. At that article, there is complaining about Chromebooks and reparability. Where are similar articles about smartphones?
        xet7 4y ago
        Answering to myself, there is article about locked iPhones. Same problem is with Android. https://coloradosun.com/2019/04/17/recycled-iphones-trashed-find-my-iphone/ https://coloradosun.com/2019/04/17/recycled-iphones-trashed-...
        hot_gril 4y ago
        Mac and Windows laptops will probably run the latest OS for more than 8 years. Still, I don't see why a school should buy a more than 1yo Chromebook, so that leaves 7 years of support, which is fine. Most likely dies from 2% milk before then.
    - hot_gril 4y ago
      This is the most planned obsolescence I've ever seen.
the_snooze 4y ago
>“These high costs may make schools reconsider Chromebooks as a cost-saving strategy,” the report reads. Efficiency always has a cost, whether that's quality, reliability, sustainability, externalized waste, or whatever. Either you're honest about those costs and acknowledge that the bill will come due later, or you're living in magic land.
- notatoad 4y ago
  i'm assuming this report was written by microsoft?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- clnq 4y ago
  We crave luxury, convenience, decadence, and status, with our sole concern being how inexpensively we can attain them. Is anyone still naïve enough to believe that money is the only cost? This mindset is likely a significant contributor to climate change and numerous other global issues. A fundamental shift in values is desperately needed. We could consume less meat without sacrificing affordability, invest in reusable technology without breaking the bank, and make similar choices regarding cars. We opt for plastic simply because it's marginally cheaper than glass and metal, and we prefer frying pans with PFAs to save a mere 15 seconds of cleaning time. We shun nuclear energy like Molten Salt Reactors due to the inconvenience of waste handling, despite its relatively short duration of 300 years compared to the thousands of years it will take to restore atmospheric carbon levels. We buy clothing and blood diamonds from brands known for child labor, slavery, and bloodshed because they convey status. Have we stopped buying everything Nestle makes for us despite so much of their vehemently unethical behaviour? Was cheating emissions software not enough for us to stop buying VW cars? How many Foxconn suicides does it take for you to reconsider an iPhone? How many more wars on drugs will we wage before we stop paying pharma bros for OxyCotin? Are there no alternative companies to Bayer to buy from or was knowingly infecting Africans with HIV not a big enough violation of trust in a medical company? Surely if Tesla produced only my car, their brutal lithium mining using children and disposal scandal wouldn't be a big deal. The blame lies with us. As consumers, we consistently make decisions that go against our best interests in terms of health, finances, and the future of our children. Industries only cater to the demands we create. It is nothing short of absurd to believe that manufacturers would continue to supply unrepairable technology or products that harm us if we simply refused to buy them.
TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
I wonder how many of these are the Arm-based Chromebooks? Do those have similar problems with software updates to Android devices, because they're at the mercy of SoC vendors to provide updated drivers?
- resoluteteeth 4y ago
  Chromebooks don't really have that type of problem because they only have specific motherboards and the updates come from google They're much better than android devices in that sense They have a fixed date where they stop receiving updates (eight years from when the model is released) but they are guaranteed to receive updates until then
  - Mistletoe 4y ago
    And then after a few years the updates stop coming from Google and you can't even use it to watch streaming because the Chrome version number is too low. I will never buy another Chromebox or Chromebook again for this reason. I've got perfectly functioning devices that can't do anything because of this.
    - resoluteteeth 4y ago
      It's eight years from when the model is released so as long as you pay attention and don't buy a model that's already old at the time you buy it it's not too bad. On many devices you can unlock the bootloader and install a third party chromeos distribution (or linux) after that if you really want, too 8 years is MUCH better than basically all android devices although it's probably worse than windows on a normal laptop, and you're guaranteed updates during that period The browser is in the process of being decoupled from the os version (it's in beta right now and you can opt in I think) so in the future even if you stop getting updates you'll be able to update the browser to fix the problem you're describing ("you can't even use it to watch streaming because the Chrome version number is too low"). If your chrome os devices are just past their lifetime and have enough storage, you may be able to opt into that and keep using them now actually I think in the case of schools, 8 years is probably longer than they would expect to keep using laptops anyway.
hinkley 4y ago
> The PIRG report squares with the drum I’ve been banging in reviews of “eco” laptops for years: the most eco-friendly gadgets, by far, are gadgets that last. Surprising absolutely no one but the people who are eternally shocked to learn that free lunches don’t exist. Which is extra ironic considering schools provide lunches that are “free” to the student but are also gross and cost someone else money.
- vuln 4y ago
  > cost someone else money. The tax payer? There’s a lot of things taxes fund that do not allow decision making / control by those who pay the taxes.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    School lunch programs in the US are captive to the ag department, which is why they are gross. It’s a dumping ground for whatever commodity domestic goods are the most plentiful. Layers upon layers of perverse incentives. It’s not just taxpayers that pay, it’s also the kids and the environment and thus future generations. Some people have been trying to get this changed for a long time now. No luck so far.
MBCook 4y ago
Quite unfortunate, but I’m not surprised sub-$200 don’t last terribly long. Especially with the kind of treatment they’re likely to get from school kids. Even if they’re just as hard to repair, a more expensive and more ruggedized model might have been a better choice. If such a thing exists, which I kind of doubt.
- nazgulsenpai 4y ago
  I know for sure Lenovo and Dell have more ruggedized Chromebooks just for schools. The one my kid has was a Dell that had an metal frame. The Lenovo 11e (iirc) was also mostly metal and quite rugged.
  - intelVISA 4y ago
    [flagged]
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > I know for sure Lenovo and Dell have more ruggedized Chromebooks just for schools. Many of the makers of Chromebooks have ruggedized models, and they aren’t just for schools.
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  I was under the impression this was by design with Chromebooks, designed to be cheap and not last very long in the field.
- mc32 4y ago
  I recall a sales gig from Google demoing Chromebooks and part of his dog and pony show was tossing it to the ground. It was an attempt to impress disposability. They’re so cheap you don’t have to care if they break. I got the opposite impression. Why would I buy a piece of trash? Contrast that with a decade later and this attitude of disposability is a no-go. But they were selling that as an advantage.
- djaychela 4y ago
  True, but I think some of the demise of them is down to bad design. My partner is a tech at a first school here in the UK, and they have Chromebooks - pretty much one per child. Most of them have needed to be put back together because the hinge attachment to the case is not strong enough. The screws are not well fitted from the factory, and as soon as it comes loose, the mounting can get damaged because where the brass inserts are set in the plastic is pretty flimsy, and will crack. So they end up with a chromebook which can be 'kind of' repaired if you put the screws back in really tight, but it's only so long that it will last as that area has no real strength to it. If this part of these was made better (these are Asus C201, but there are others that are similar), then they would never have been a problem aside from the obvious actual abuse that about 10% of them get from children who have behavioural issues. Others mentioned here (such as Dell) are better, but have other issues - the Dell ones have glass in front of the screens, which can break, and leaves razor-sharp splinters when it does. It's also a nightmare to replace as parts are difficult to get (we had to order them from the US, and paid quite a bit for each one), and they are macbook-like in the difficulty of repair here. Making these much stronger (like many times stronger) would not have cost a lot. They just skimped on plastic in a few places, leading them to be weak in the field. Another £1 spent per unit would have meant almost none of them would have suffered this. The later model (C202) were better, but still broke in the same place, with the same failure mode for the most part.
spullara 4y ago
"I bought a $200 computer, gave it to children and I can't believe it didn't last very long." duh
- sharemywin 4y ago
  just replace $200 computer with ...anything...anything at all...
  - klipt 4y ago
    That's why Lego is popular - basically indestructible.
    - doubled112 4y ago
      My kids have broken Lego blocks. Don't ask me how. I don't know either. When everything is a hammer, everything is smashed to bits.
      - Gordonjcp 4y ago
        My 2.5 year old has seen me cutting and shaping bits of wood and metal to make stuff, and occasionally brings me Lego bits and says "Dada cut this!" because he wants a funny-shaped block for something. He's learned an important lesson. Things in the world can be constructed, things in the world can be destroyed, and all of it - including the world itself - can be *modified*...
        jacquesm 4y ago
        That's awesome :) When I was a kid I'd paint my bricks the right color if I didn't have enough of the ones I needed or if Lego had decided that bricks in a certain color shouldn't exist. Like green. Which they eventually made of course but when I was a kid those didn't exist at all. At 2.5 years old that's a great attitude to have, that's one that'll go places :) Thanks for this comment, it really made my day!
      - 4y ago
sporkl 4y ago
I knew some middle school students who would place their school-issued chromebooks upside-down on linoleum and slide around on them. So no surprise here.
blakesterz 4y ago
Here's the actual report: https://pirg.org/edfund/resources/chromebook-churn-report-highlights-problems-of-short-lived-laptops-in-schools/ https://pirg.org/edfund/resources/chromebook-churn-report-hi... It's worth checking that out too, it has a few additional details. I wonder how these compared to iPads on those same metrics? My kid's schools switched from iPads to Chromebooks. Seemed like The Chromebooks are way better for the work they have.
- NoPicklez 4y ago
  Having worked in IT at a school in my early days, you couldn't convince people that iPad's weren't the way to go in a Windows ecosystem. They're great if they're used for taking notes and using web based services. But if they need to start accessing network drives or school applications they're often not that great. Especially for teachers.
chaostheory 4y ago
Yeah, chrome books are terrible. Installing ChromeOS Flex on cheap traditional computers that cost slightly more would have a better long term impact
newsclues 4y ago
Often it feels like government especially education contracts for technology are designed to enrich people, rather than buy what is best for education.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  Government contracting over time acquires more and more rules reacting to scandals which are designed to prevent that, which has the unintended effect that government contracting is so complex that it goes entirely to firms–or organizations within firms–whose core competency is navigating (and manipulating) the result bureaucratic maze, not delivering quality goods and services (not uncommonly, the actual goods and services are subcontracted out), whereas the contract managers on the government side are pretty much fully occupied with the trees of bureaucratic minutiae so as not to be able to see (and generally being sharply limited in what they could do even if they did see) the overall cost/value situation.
  - StrangeATractor 4y ago
    The problem with bureaucracies is that even if someone did see the bigger picture, no one person is able to change the system to get desirable results. Maybe one or two people could, but they didn't get to that position by rocking the boat.
- CamelCaseName 4y ago
  I think it's just that government spending, especially in taxpayer facing environments, is under extreme scrutiny. So you have companies trying to make it look like they're offering the most, but costing the least, and hiding those costs elsewhere (planned obsolescence)
vuln 4y ago
So $66 a year? That’s not very much. 3 year life span with children as the user/abuser? Seems about right. Must be a slow news day.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  Yeah, that’s less than the cost of one hardcover textbook, or a few softcover workbooks. The per-student per-year acquisition cost involved is, on the scale of school expenses, hardly worth talking about.
  - josefx 4y ago
    Not sure how it is in the US, where I went to school I had to deal with textbooks that where up to 30 years old and showed it. The acquisition cost for school books was basically zero since they didn't buy replacements until the books literally fell apart in the hands of a student and students had to pay for anything they "broke".
    - smeej 4y ago
      I definitely had classmates finding their parents' names inside the front covers of their books in the old checkout list. This was in suburban Denver in the early 2000s, so it's not like it was some backwater town a long time ago.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - dmix 4y ago
      I don’t think he was comparing to the yearly cost of textbooks but more comparing it relative to a single textbook (which students have multiple). The key is cost per student for their most critical piece of equipment, and one far more capable than a 30yr old textbook, $66 isn’t bad at all.
      - 4y ago
spirit557 4y ago
I like my chromebook as a cheap, portable remote desktop client to a more powerful windows machine - and for watching youtube on the device itself. But what dies faster than any component, in my experience, is the emmc module. My understanding is the larger the size the more life it will have due to wear leveling. Ive found its hard to find a decently price chromebook that has replaceable ssds (m2 etc). The selection is really slim. This is one thing I wish could change. Just add why they're so handy. For $199 i got *14 inch anti-glare IPS display *fanless, battery life 3-7 hours *RDP (thru ssh tunnel) into a beefy windows desktop or laptop *you have IMO the best windows experience on a laptop. can easily bring a compact external battery it charge it up over usb c. never have to worry about finding a power outlet or running out of battery
- serf 4y ago
  you can buy a celeron no-name/Chinese brand ultrabook for like 250 bucks, and that generally comes with a minimum of 8gb of ram and an M2 slot. Chuwi is one example. I'm not sure that the value-add for Chromebooks as personal machines is still there at that point, at least personally. For me 50 dollars is worth the freedom of operating system/double the ram/ddr5/3:2/decent resolution/m2 interface/separation from Google.
lvl102 4y ago
Remember when Apple basically gave away computers to schools during 80/90s? I feel it created a long-term positive impact for the company down the road. Chromebook might accomplish the opposite.
- jen20 4y ago
  BBC Micros in the UK would be the in-school equivalent of this (although I don't believe they were given away), and the ZX Spectrum the home equivalent. The fact that they couldn't do very much unless you learned to program them was a distinct advantage compared to the PCs that followed - which were used to teach Microsoft Office, not computing - and is why Silicon Valley is packed full of mid-30s-40s Brits.
- shagie 4y ago
  Also the BBC Micro in the UK. The key things with these devices was the accessibility and the ability to "get under the covers" and use it. It wasn't a device to delivery courses, it was a tool - just as much as a hammer in shop class was a tool. Yea, we all played Oregon trail... but I've still got fond memories of Rocky's Boots ( https://archive.org/details/Rockys_Boots_1982_Learning_Company https://archive.org/details/Rockys_Boots_1982_Learning_Compa... ). Chromebooks and smart phones (I believe) are too far away from the computing of the device. With the Apple ][+ I recall wanting to make a program that showed maps of the world in low rez graphics... and the corresponding learning more about loops than the librarian understood and using the DATA block along with READ to read it and learning how to compress 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 into 255. There are a couple things going on though with the expectations. I could write a program that would look amateur but comparable to what was professional at that time using BASIC. The web of old that we fondly look back to with Myspace didn't take masterful skills to get to what was similarly acceptable. Today, to get something that is vaguely comparable to what you expect when you use a computing device takes a lot of work. Swift Playgrounds and Scratch aren't enough. There is a high discouragement factor and the expectations of what someone who wants to do what I did with BASIC or simple web pages back then is a lot of work. I would be tempted to say that instead of general computing and scratch we should look at teaching kids Excel... and I might get some flack for that. The main thing is that with Excel you look at what can be done and it's not too far from making a column have the values of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16. You can get something that is useful without too much work and without expecting it to look as nice as a fancy page or game. And as they learn how to do more, you can introduce them to =LAMBDA.
jacquesm 4y ago
If they're only breaking down after three years I would consider that a stellar victory for the engineers that designed them. My kids are very careful with their gear. So they say. And yet, it develops mysterious faults, cracked screens, broken keyboards and pulled out sockets. And nothing, absolutely nothing ever happens in my presence. Weirdest thing.
- grugagag 4y ago
  For things to be durable for kids they have to be built differently.
  - fuzzfactor 4y ago
    These are descended from laptops and 20 years ago laptops had already perfected the engineering for a two-year target lifetime. The further back you go, portables were still mainly business machines not expected to be affordable to most students, and businesses really didn't want to send their people out with more than a two-year-old laptop or wearing a suit much older either. And a new Windows version was coming out every 2 years.
- derefr 4y ago
  The thing about young humans is that they don't yet fully understand all practical, everyday corollaries to the laws of physics. Like, for example, it might not occur to a child that if you stack 10 textbooks on top of your backpack in your locker — where your laptop/tablet is held in a vertical pocket inside the backpack, and everything else in the backpack is just clothes or something, and so the laptop/tablet is acting as the load-bearing support for all those textbooks — then if you've got an all-plastic device, its chassis will probably flex apart and crack; or if you've got a metal-and-glass device, it'll probably buckle and bend. Learning a basic corollary to a law of physics by breaking something usually feels really embarrassing, though — a "why didn't I expect that that would happen? I must be stupid!" kind of feeling. So kids really don't like to admit it happened. But they really were being careful! They were trying as hard as they could! They just didn't have all the information on what they need to pay attention to to avoid breaking a thing, yet. (And, to be clear, an opaque warning to "never do X" doesn't give them that information, because there's no backing intuition, so while they might remember it in the moment for that specific case, they won't be able to translate it to any related case. What they need is the backing intuition itself — the understanding of the causal process that makes bad things happen, such that if they imagine doing X or Y or Z, then they'll picture the causal process that applies, and so automatically infer for themselves that [unwanted consequence] will follow.) --- Tangent, in the mode of a game designer: There are many "practical, everyday corollaries to the laws of physics" that a child will just learn from interacting with the world. And for others, there are common "learning toys" you can buy for children that teach them certain principles. But there are rather a lot of these physical principles that are more niche — plastic deformation under stress of seemingly-rigid bodies being one of them — where you just won't personally observe them in a regular childhood (unless your parents are nerds who like watching "historical failures of engineering" documentaries), and where it's hard for regular physical toys to model them. (A physical toy demonstrating plastic deformation would necessarily be single-use!) Growing up myself, I (subconsciously) learned a lot about these more niche corollaries in my tween years, from playing with physics-sim computer games in my middle-school computer lab. I feel like physics-sim games were a great supplement to my ability to predict the physical world. There are real simulational "set things up and see what happens when you press Go" sandbox 'games' that should be standard issue for every school-issued laptop/tablet, because kids can play with them and end up learning getting a feel for these principles that are hard to end up with personal experience with otherwise. There are also real games, that actually gamify the process of developing intuitions around more specific principles. Games like Kerbal Space Program, Poly Bridge, etc. They won't teach you the math, but you'll be very ready to learn the math, far ahead of the kids who just see opaque formulae without the intuitive sense for what it's doing. But, as far as I'm aware, there's no physics-sandbox that models plastic deformation of materials, let alone a game that gamifies the process of developing an intuition for it. (Poly Bridge might simulate stress/strain and buckling at the joints, but it won't give you any sense for the fact that a seemingly rigid body like a steel girder can end up crumpling like a wet paper bag under enough compressive stress, or pulling like taffy under enough tensile stress.) And that's a shame. Someone should develop one. Maybe then kids would stop stacking books on their backpacks.
ChumpGPT 4y ago
Why does a kid need a chrome book? To do what? Pencils and paper, what's wrong with that? It worked for centuries and now for some reason every student needs a chrome book to waste tax payer money, useless tech, theater for the parents that their children will have some kind of an advantage. Schools need to go back to the basics and not invent ways to make kids stupid and waste tax payer money.
- Eisenstein 4y ago
  Pencils and paper? What a waste, I used chalk on a slate tablet.
  - toastedwedge 4y ago
    Chalk on a slate tablet? What a waste, I just burned several chunks of wood in a particular way.
    - CoastalCoder 4y ago
      Luxury!
      - jaclaz 4y ago
        Kids today: https://tinyapps.org/blog/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html https://tinyapps.org/blog/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html
    - nindalf 4y ago
      Burning wood? Luxury! Growing up we had to inscribe our cuneiform on clay tablets. And it really was the best way, because our tablets would last thousands of years. - Ea-Nasir
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    I would probably go with more traditional wax inside wooden frame. I don't think slate is childproof enough. And the chalk is consumable waste...
TexanFeller 4y ago
I wish they didn't raise kids on such limited locked down devices. Kids will get the idea that the only software that exists is web based.
- fulafel 4y ago
  ChromeOS supports various kinds of Linux apps. Including normal desktop & cli apps in the Crostini developer oriented environment, and Android apps out of the box.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  I concur, but in retrospect, the curriculum even twenty years ago was learning locked-down pieces of software in a locked down environment. The usual "ICT" consisting of using Windows and learning the absolute basics of Word, Excel, and Publisher. Maybe they'd let you go on Google for 30 minutes once a month via Internet Explorer. Anybody who has more than a passing interest will go "but what about x?", e.g., "how do they make games then?" or "how do they make movies then?" or "how do I write an app then?". Most kids weren't and still aren't interested, but the ones who are, will beg, steal, borrow or buy yesteryear junk to fiddle with.
- StrangeATractor 4y ago
  It's perfect, being forced to use it by the school they'll come to hate it.
- sowbug 4y ago
  Or Linux, or Android, or Windows via WINE on Linux. And I'm sure Chromebooks would also run iOS and MacOS if Apple allowed it. Did I miss anything?
- hot_gril 4y ago
  As a kid who grew up using Mac and Windows, I got the idea that the only software that exists has a GUI. Is that much better?
donalhunt 4y ago
The EU is investigating options to ensure products are repairable for up to 10 years. Some product categories are already required to comply. See https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/spare-parts-and-repairs.html https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/spa... Fully supportive of such initiatives to make spare parts available directly or indirectly. Hopefully we see companies release designs after EOL/EOS dates that allow 3D printing (where feasible) in time. I've managed to extend the life of products (primarily my coffee grinder) by finding 3d printing designs online.
- nradov 4y ago
  The notion of 3D printing a replacement for a cracked plastic laptop case isn't very realistic for most consumers or school districts. If we want these devices to last longer then they will have to be designed for robustness, which will make them heavier and more expensive.
  - prepend 4y ago
    I think it would be perfectly fine to order a piece online for $4 and have it show up in a few days. Although every school in my county has a few 3d printers, so some schools could print directly.
    - Filligree 4y ago
      > Although every school in my county has a few 3d printers, so some schools could print directly. Shared 3D printers almost always produce poor quality, inaccurate prints. Never mind maintenance, using them requires skill. Skill which teachers usually lack, and schoolchildren obviously lack. They're still useful devices, but I wouldn't expect such prints to be strong enough and accurate enough to do the job.
    - nradov 4y ago
      A replacement for a cracked laptop case isn't going to cost $4 regardless of how it's manufactured.
enkid 4y ago
What I've seen is to plan to replace 25% of client systems every year. With a little variance, this seems about right.
prepend 4y ago
I think schools need to just give parents $1000 and have them buy and maintain and insure devices directly. My county school system bought a bunch of crappy Lenovos three years ago and now they are really bad. Disk failures. Battery lasts an hour so students have to constantly charge all day (20 kids running cables every 55 minutes). And they have lots of weird systems and sites that are hard coded to only run on these laptops. And the school doesn’t have people to maintain or debug or patch so it’s a weird situation where 5th graders are supposed to call tech support in the middle of a school day to figure out why something is working. And it has weird policies where if your laptop was stolen you had to reimburse the county the purchase price. So if your Lenovo that you could probably eBay for $100 was stolen you had to pay $1299 or something strange. The first repair was free, the second $100, the third $300. And since no one understood computers they would make rulings that any damage was caused by the student (a 10 year old). After about a year, I noped out and just bought a MacBook Air for $800 with AppleCare ($80/year) to insure against damage or theft. This works well except for the times when they have special web sites that only work on the Lenovo. I consider myself pretty tech savvy, but I think school was better with everything on paper. But at least we didn’t buy chromebooks.
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  >5th graders are supposed to call tech support in the middle of a school day to figure out why something is working. I'll presume to assume the above was meant to say 'something isn't working', but it makes so much more sense as written.
  - prepend 4y ago
    Yes, thanks. Meant “isn’t working” and I typed that, but thanks to autocorrect, my phone changed it to “is working” and I didn’t notice until now. I have to get in the habit of proof reading everything since I can’t rely on just typing specifically.
- klipt 4y ago
  > I think school was better with everything on paper. I'm pretty sure writing notes on paper is better for learning. Something about engaging more of the brain through motor skills.
AlbertCory 4y ago
Anyone remember One Laptop Per Child? https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17233946/olpcs-100-laptop-education-where-is-it-now https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17233946/olpcs-100-laptop... Give a TED Talk, go on 60 Minutes, and then change the subject until the world moves on. > “I have to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a check written,” Negroponte finally admitted. “And yes, it has been a disappointment.”
- germinalphrase 4y ago
  I have one sitting in my basement. It’s a neat device - but not particularly useful. As a former teacher, it’s clearly a theory-first educational device.
- wmf 4y ago
  Netbooks and Chromebooks were inspired by OLPC and may not have happened without it. OLPC really hurt themselves by not selling to individuals or schools.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Rediscover 4y ago
    Quite well remember them and the Give 1 Get 1 program. Mine still boots and I still love being able to use it outside with bright sunlight. I believe (but could be wrong) it was Richard Smith of the project who made the comment (paraphrased) "perhaps the warranty should be void until you've the XO-1." I last booted mine a week ago in anticipation of summer.
    - wmf 4y ago
      Until you've what?
      - AlbertCory 4y ago
m3kw9 4y ago
better to have programs that renew low-mid laptops every 2 years. They get abused in the school setting, and battery gets bad after 2 years.
dougSF70 4y ago
A classic False Economy at play.
supportengineer 4y ago
Our kids' experience with public school Chromebooks has been pretty much the opposite of the comments here. All the neighborhood kids I've seen are taking good care of the school Chromebooks they have been entrusted with - they understand how to be responsible for them. Our schools taught basic typing at an early age, so the kids can fire up Google Docs and start writing as fast as they can think. For science class, they can open a spreadsheet, record data and immediately make charts and graphs. Not to mention, in almost any future profession, spreadsheet skills are a must. During Covid they could Zoom with their teachers and classmates. From what I've seen, their Chromebooks have been a tool that enables them to do their best academic and creative work. And they do all this without any trouble from viruses or malware. $200 for 3 years is extremely reasonable given all the benefits the kids are receiving.
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  This could be accomplished without surveillance capitalism.
  - surveilmedaddy 4y ago
    [dead]
- hot_gril 4y ago
  Sounds way better than the ill-advised educational iPad rollouts.
Tempest1981 4y ago
Some school have on-site repair centers. Students can quickly swap a broken device for a refurbished working one. It's a constant cycle. The repair centers have a stash of parts, and do basic part swap-outs on site. Students get charged if they break too many screens. Not sure the cost of running these centers, or if parents volunteer.
pier25 4y ago
3 years for a $200 device seems like a pretty good deal. Especially in the hands of kids who are rarely careful with things. It's obviously terrible for the environment and it's also probably terrible for cognitive development. Pen and paper is a way better solution for kids and teenagers.
- James_Henry 4y ago
  Honestly, for adults too, pen and paper is often a better solution. Word processing and number crunching are the main use cases for a computer and I think kids should learn these things with a computer, but it would be so much better if they had direct instruction in a computer lab rather than giving them all a distracting laptop/chromebook.
Ekaros 4y ago
Sub-200 device doesn't sound so bad if you look at lifetime cost. If on average they last 2 years. It is still better than 800 device that is replaced in 4 years. Or 6 years... And my guess is that these are heavily abused and the more expensive wouldn't on average survive substantially longer.
sowbug 4y ago
It's amazing how far we're come in 15 years. Rewind to 2008 when Chrome was launched: - Netbooks were hopelessly underpowered for the only game in town, Windows. Now it's possible to run a whole classroom on hardware that's even less expensive (even before adjusting for inflation). - Microsoft's Internet Explorer team had been disbanded for years, and Apple had abandoned its pursuit of the web for iPhone apps, launching the App Store instead. Today, the open web includes enough platform functionality to implement full-fledged word-processing, drawing, painting, and finance applications. - Unpatched desktop machines were the norm, and antivirus subscriptions were the band-aid response among the relatively conscientious. Now an eight-year automatic update policy (plus more via Chrome OS Flex) is viewed as a liability. - Laptop repairs were an expensive ordeal. Actually, that hasn't changed much. But it's interesting how this article portrays a $90 Chromebook repair as a negative because the device was inexpensive to begin with. Some of these devices cost less than the retail price of a Windows 11 license key!
Laaas 4y ago
FWIW my primary device is a Chromebook and it's quite sturdy. I've thrown it, stepped on it, spilled water on it, abused it in every way you can imagine, and it's fine (minus the paint etc.). 3 years in the hands of children seems very reasonable considering the cheap price point.
jrm4 4y ago
Right. This says nothing about "Chromebooks" per se; more "all computer and computer-like" devices. The planned obsolescence for all of them is pretty appalling. I say this as someone who runs a non-profit which includes at times grabbing old computers from institutions and trying to repurpose them for others. The number of available computers FAR FAR FAR outpaces the time, labor, and even possible recipients. It's ridiculous how we throw these things away.
beefman 4y ago
Three years is about the lifetime of a laptop. The real story here is how kids are being forced to use Google Drive. Google now has a lock on whatever is left of personal computing (managing files) which will last a generation.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
znpy 4y ago
what's the news? on what planet a 300$ toy laptop is going to outperform and/or outlive a proper laptop?
cultofmetatron 4y ago
sounds like a good time to switch over to the framework chromebooks (https://frame.work/products/laptop-chromebook-12-gen-intel https://frame.work/products/laptop-chromebook-12-gen-intel) sure they cost more but you can upgrade them en masse and replace components and screens. dunno how the math works out for cost savings vs cheap disposable devices but at least you'll have less E-waste.
ACV001 4y ago
chromebooks are a scam - I haven't seen worse equipment.
pipeline_peak 4y ago
The title sucks, it’s nothing to do with Chromebooks. It’s the cheap laptops they buy that happens to use ChromeOS…
- hot_gril 4y ago
  There's a note about ChromeOS software support.
hot_gril 4y ago
> For example, researchers found that nearly half of the replacement keyboards listed for Acer Chromebooks were out of stock online and that over a third cost “$89.99 or more, which is nearly half the cost of a typical $200 Chromebook.” Some IT departments, PIRG reports, have resorted to buying extra batches of Chromebooks just for their components. It costs a lot more than this to replace a MacBook keyboard. Idk about other laptops. Seems the only thing uniquely bad about Chromebooks is the limited software updates.
beagle3 4y ago
This is a great thread to ask a semi-related question: I have an 2012/2013 Samsung ARM Chromebook (silver, looks like a MacBook knockoff). Google dropped support for it a few years ago - is there any modern Linux distribution available for these things? That thing is still in almost mint condition, and battery still holds over an hour charge despite being 10 years old (and in serious use for its first 3 years, light use for a few more).

140 points by redundantly 4y ago

tough 4y ago

Planned obsolescence sounds about right

sebzim4500 4y ago
Is it really 'planned' in this case? I think 'expected' is a better term, it's not really avoidable that a $200 laptop is not going survive being used by children for very long.
- izacus 4y ago
  It's absolutely planned since there's a planned published date after which Google refuses to even update the browser on those devices.
  - vuln 4y ago
    Could you link to the document that backs up your claim? Specifically the Chromebook devices. It looks like google supports devices for 6,7,8, even 9 years. Plenty of models with 2030+ expiration. https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en#zippy=%2Cdell%2Caxioo%2Casus%2Cascon%2Caopen%2Cadvan%2Cacer https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en#zip...
    - izacus 4y ago
      "Chromebook EoL date" is a very easily Googlable document listing hard cutoff for every model.
    - BurningFrog 4y ago
      Don't have a link, but Google is clear that the updates end after 8 years.
      - redundantly 4y ago
        And it's 8 years after the model of chromebook/box is released. Not after being purchased.
        vuln 4y ago
        8 years is a very long time to support a device. How many other devices are updates made available for 8 years?
        xet7 4y ago
        Very many. Amiga 1200. Released in 1992, got update to AmigaOS 3.3.2 at 2023 https://www.hyperion-entertainment.com https://www.hyperion-entertainment.com . That is 31 years. My wife uses Vista era laptop, from 2007. Still works great at 2023, changed it to have SSD disk and 8 GB RAM, running newest Linux Mint. Newest Windows, macOS and ChromeOS only works on newest devices. After that, just install Linux. For example, 2 weeks ago I installed Debian 11 to Chromebook https://github.com/xet7/chromebook https://github.com/xet7/chromebook
        xet7 4y ago
        Problem is only, if manufacturer does not allow to: - Install alternative OS - Change or upgrade RAM and harddrive - Change battery It is possible to do all or some of that to some Chromebooks, there are videos at YouTube. It depends on model. At that article, there is complaining about Chromebooks and reparability. Where are similar articles about smartphones?
        xet7 4y ago
        Answering to myself, there is article about locked iPhones. Same problem is with Android. https://coloradosun.com/2019/04/17/recycled-iphones-trashed-find-my-iphone/ https://coloradosun.com/2019/04/17/recycled-iphones-trashed-...
        hot_gril 4y ago
        Mac and Windows laptops will probably run the latest OS for more than 8 years. Still, I don't see why a school should buy a more than 1yo Chromebook, so that leaves 7 years of support, which is fine. Most likely dies from 2% milk before then.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    This is the most planned obsolescence I've ever seen.

the_snooze 4y ago

>“These high costs may make schools reconsider Chromebooks as a cost-saving strategy,” the report reads. Efficiency always has a cost, whether that's quality, reliability, sustainability, externalized waste, or whatever. Either you're honest about those costs and acknowledge that the bill will come due later, or you're living in magic land.

notatoad 4y ago
i'm assuming this report was written by microsoft?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
clnq 4y ago
We crave luxury, convenience, decadence, and status, with our sole concern being how inexpensively we can attain them. Is anyone still naïve enough to believe that money is the only cost? This mindset is likely a significant contributor to climate change and numerous other global issues. A fundamental shift in values is desperately needed. We could consume less meat without sacrificing affordability, invest in reusable technology without breaking the bank, and make similar choices regarding cars. We opt for plastic simply because it's marginally cheaper than glass and metal, and we prefer frying pans with PFAs to save a mere 15 seconds of cleaning time. We shun nuclear energy like Molten Salt Reactors due to the inconvenience of waste handling, despite its relatively short duration of 300 years compared to the thousands of years it will take to restore atmospheric carbon levels. We buy clothing and blood diamonds from brands known for child labor, slavery, and bloodshed because they convey status. Have we stopped buying everything Nestle makes for us despite so much of their vehemently unethical behaviour? Was cheating emissions software not enough for us to stop buying VW cars? How many Foxconn suicides does it take for you to reconsider an iPhone? How many more wars on drugs will we wage before we stop paying pharma bros for OxyCotin? Are there no alternative companies to Bayer to buy from or was knowingly infecting Africans with HIV not a big enough violation of trust in a medical company? Surely if Tesla produced only my car, their brutal lithium mining using children and disposal scandal wouldn't be a big deal. The blame lies with us. As consumers, we consistently make decisions that go against our best interests in terms of health, finances, and the future of our children. Industries only cater to the demands we create. It is nothing short of absurd to believe that manufacturers would continue to supply unrepairable technology or products that harm us if we simply refused to buy them.

TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago

I wonder how many of these are the Arm-based Chromebooks? Do those have similar problems with software updates to Android devices, because they're at the mercy of SoC vendors to provide updated drivers?

resoluteteeth 4y ago
Chromebooks don't really have that type of problem because they only have specific motherboards and the updates come from google They're much better than android devices in that sense They have a fixed date where they stop receiving updates (eight years from when the model is released) but they are guaranteed to receive updates until then
- Mistletoe 4y ago
  And then after a few years the updates stop coming from Google and you can't even use it to watch streaming because the Chrome version number is too low. I will never buy another Chromebox or Chromebook again for this reason. I've got perfectly functioning devices that can't do anything because of this.
  - resoluteteeth 4y ago
    It's eight years from when the model is released so as long as you pay attention and don't buy a model that's already old at the time you buy it it's not too bad. On many devices you can unlock the bootloader and install a third party chromeos distribution (or linux) after that if you really want, too 8 years is MUCH better than basically all android devices although it's probably worse than windows on a normal laptop, and you're guaranteed updates during that period The browser is in the process of being decoupled from the os version (it's in beta right now and you can opt in I think) so in the future even if you stop getting updates you'll be able to update the browser to fix the problem you're describing ("you can't even use it to watch streaming because the Chrome version number is too low"). If your chrome os devices are just past their lifetime and have enough storage, you may be able to opt into that and keep using them now actually I think in the case of schools, 8 years is probably longer than they would expect to keep using laptops anyway.

hinkley 4y ago

> The PIRG report squares with the drum I’ve been banging in reviews of “eco” laptops for years: the most eco-friendly gadgets, by far, are gadgets that last. Surprising absolutely no one but the people who are eternally shocked to learn that free lunches don’t exist. Which is extra ironic considering schools provide lunches that are “free” to the student but are also gross and cost someone else money.

vuln 4y ago
> cost someone else money. The tax payer? There’s a lot of things taxes fund that do not allow decision making / control by those who pay the taxes.
- hinkley 4y ago
  School lunch programs in the US are captive to the ag department, which is why they are gross. It’s a dumping ground for whatever commodity domestic goods are the most plentiful. Layers upon layers of perverse incentives. It’s not just taxpayers that pay, it’s also the kids and the environment and thus future generations. Some people have been trying to get this changed for a long time now. No luck so far.

MBCook 4y ago

Quite unfortunate, but I’m not surprised sub-$200 don’t last terribly long. Especially with the kind of treatment they’re likely to get from school kids. Even if they’re just as hard to repair, a more expensive and more ruggedized model might have been a better choice. If such a thing exists, which I kind of doubt.

nazgulsenpai 4y ago
I know for sure Lenovo and Dell have more ruggedized Chromebooks just for schools. The one my kid has was a Dell that had an metal frame. The Lenovo 11e (iirc) was also mostly metal and quite rugged.
- intelVISA 4y ago
  [flagged]
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > I know for sure Lenovo and Dell have more ruggedized Chromebooks just for schools. Many of the makers of Chromebooks have ruggedized models, and they aren’t just for schools.
908B64B197 4y ago
I was under the impression this was by design with Chromebooks, designed to be cheap and not last very long in the field.
mc32 4y ago
I recall a sales gig from Google demoing Chromebooks and part of his dog and pony show was tossing it to the ground. It was an attempt to impress disposability. They’re so cheap you don’t have to care if they break. I got the opposite impression. Why would I buy a piece of trash? Contrast that with a decade later and this attitude of disposability is a no-go. But they were selling that as an advantage.
djaychela 4y ago
True, but I think some of the demise of them is down to bad design. My partner is a tech at a first school here in the UK, and they have Chromebooks - pretty much one per child. Most of them have needed to be put back together because the hinge attachment to the case is not strong enough. The screws are not well fitted from the factory, and as soon as it comes loose, the mounting can get damaged because where the brass inserts are set in the plastic is pretty flimsy, and will crack. So they end up with a chromebook which can be 'kind of' repaired if you put the screws back in really tight, but it's only so long that it will last as that area has no real strength to it. If this part of these was made better (these are Asus C201, but there are others that are similar), then they would never have been a problem aside from the obvious actual abuse that about 10% of them get from children who have behavioural issues. Others mentioned here (such as Dell) are better, but have other issues - the Dell ones have glass in front of the screens, which can break, and leaves razor-sharp splinters when it does. It's also a nightmare to replace as parts are difficult to get (we had to order them from the US, and paid quite a bit for each one), and they are macbook-like in the difficulty of repair here. Making these much stronger (like many times stronger) would not have cost a lot. They just skimped on plastic in a few places, leading them to be weak in the field. Another £1 spent per unit would have meant almost none of them would have suffered this. The later model (C202) were better, but still broke in the same place, with the same failure mode for the most part.

spullara 4y ago

"I bought a $200 computer, gave it to children and I can't believe it didn't last very long." duh

sharemywin 4y ago
just replace $200 computer with ...anything...anything at all...
- klipt 4y ago
  That's why Lego is popular - basically indestructible.
  - doubled112 4y ago
    My kids have broken Lego blocks. Don't ask me how. I don't know either. When everything is a hammer, everything is smashed to bits.
    - Gordonjcp 4y ago
      My 2.5 year old has seen me cutting and shaping bits of wood and metal to make stuff, and occasionally brings me Lego bits and says "Dada cut this!" because he wants a funny-shaped block for something. He's learned an important lesson. Things in the world can be constructed, things in the world can be destroyed, and all of it - including the world itself - can be *modified*...
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        That's awesome :) When I was a kid I'd paint my bricks the right color if I didn't have enough of the ones I needed or if Lego had decided that bricks in a certain color shouldn't exist. Like green. Which they eventually made of course but when I was a kid those didn't exist at all. At 2.5 years old that's a great attitude to have, that's one that'll go places :) Thanks for this comment, it really made my day!
    - 4y ago

sporkl 4y ago

I knew some middle school students who would place their school-issued chromebooks upside-down on linoleum and slide around on them. So no surprise here.

blakesterz 4y ago

Here's the actual report: https://pirg.org/edfund/resources/chromebook-churn-report-highlights-problems-of-short-lived-laptops-in-schools/ https://pirg.org/edfund/resources/chromebook-churn-report-hi... It's worth checking that out too, it has a few additional details. I wonder how these compared to iPads on those same metrics? My kid's schools switched from iPads to Chromebooks. Seemed like The Chromebooks are way better for the work they have.

NoPicklez 4y ago
Having worked in IT at a school in my early days, you couldn't convince people that iPad's weren't the way to go in a Windows ecosystem. They're great if they're used for taking notes and using web based services. But if they need to start accessing network drives or school applications they're often not that great. Especially for teachers.

chaostheory 4y ago

Yeah, chrome books are terrible. Installing ChromeOS Flex on cheap traditional computers that cost slightly more would have a better long term impact

newsclues 4y ago

Often it feels like government especially education contracts for technology are designed to enrich people, rather than buy what is best for education.

dragonwriter 4y ago
Government contracting over time acquires more and more rules reacting to scandals which are designed to prevent that, which has the unintended effect that government contracting is so complex that it goes entirely to firms–or organizations within firms–whose core competency is navigating (and manipulating) the result bureaucratic maze, not delivering quality goods and services (not uncommonly, the actual goods and services are subcontracted out), whereas the contract managers on the government side are pretty much fully occupied with the trees of bureaucratic minutiae so as not to be able to see (and generally being sharply limited in what they could do even if they did see) the overall cost/value situation.
- StrangeATractor 4y ago
  The problem with bureaucracies is that even if someone did see the bigger picture, no one person is able to change the system to get desirable results. Maybe one or two people could, but they didn't get to that position by rocking the boat.
CamelCaseName 4y ago
I think it's just that government spending, especially in taxpayer facing environments, is under extreme scrutiny. So you have companies trying to make it look like they're offering the most, but costing the least, and hiding those costs elsewhere (planned obsolescence)

vuln 4y ago

So $66 a year? That’s not very much. 3 year life span with children as the user/abuser? Seems about right. Must be a slow news day.

dragonwriter 4y ago
Yeah, that’s less than the cost of one hardcover textbook, or a few softcover workbooks. The per-student per-year acquisition cost involved is, on the scale of school expenses, hardly worth talking about.
- josefx 4y ago
  Not sure how it is in the US, where I went to school I had to deal with textbooks that where up to 30 years old and showed it. The acquisition cost for school books was basically zero since they didn't buy replacements until the books literally fell apart in the hands of a student and students had to pay for anything they "broke".
  - smeej 4y ago
    I definitely had classmates finding their parents' names inside the front covers of their books in the old checkout list. This was in suburban Denver in the early 2000s, so it's not like it was some backwater town a long time ago.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - dmix 4y ago
    I don’t think he was comparing to the yearly cost of textbooks but more comparing it relative to a single textbook (which students have multiple). The key is cost per student for their most critical piece of equipment, and one far more capable than a 30yr old textbook, $66 isn’t bad at all.
    - 4y ago

spirit557 4y ago

I like my chromebook as a cheap, portable remote desktop client to a more powerful windows machine - and for watching youtube on the device itself. But what dies faster than any component, in my experience, is the emmc module. My understanding is the larger the size the more life it will have due to wear leveling. Ive found its hard to find a decently price chromebook that has replaceable ssds (m2 etc). The selection is really slim. This is one thing I wish could change. Just add why they're so handy. For $199 i got *14 inch anti-glare IPS display *fanless, battery life 3-7 hours *RDP (thru ssh tunnel) into a beefy windows desktop or laptop *you have IMO the best windows experience on a laptop. can easily bring a compact external battery it charge it up over usb c. never have to worry about finding a power outlet or running out of battery

serf 4y ago
you can buy a celeron no-name/Chinese brand ultrabook for like 250 bucks, and that generally comes with a minimum of 8gb of ram and an M2 slot. Chuwi is one example. I'm not sure that the value-add for Chromebooks as personal machines is still there at that point, at least personally. For me 50 dollars is worth the freedom of operating system/double the ram/ddr5/3:2/decent resolution/m2 interface/separation from Google.

lvl102 4y ago

Remember when Apple basically gave away computers to schools during 80/90s? I feel it created a long-term positive impact for the company down the road. Chromebook might accomplish the opposite.

jen20 4y ago
BBC Micros in the UK would be the in-school equivalent of this (although I don't believe they were given away), and the ZX Spectrum the home equivalent. The fact that they couldn't do very much unless you learned to program them was a distinct advantage compared to the PCs that followed - which were used to teach Microsoft Office, not computing - and is why Silicon Valley is packed full of mid-30s-40s Brits.
shagie 4y ago
Also the BBC Micro in the UK. The key things with these devices was the accessibility and the ability to "get under the covers" and use it. It wasn't a device to delivery courses, it was a tool - just as much as a hammer in shop class was a tool. Yea, we all played Oregon trail... but I've still got fond memories of Rocky's Boots ( https://archive.org/details/Rockys_Boots_1982_Learning_Company https://archive.org/details/Rockys_Boots_1982_Learning_Compa... ). Chromebooks and smart phones (I believe) are too far away from the computing of the device. With the Apple ][+ I recall wanting to make a program that showed maps of the world in low rez graphics... and the corresponding learning more about loops than the librarian understood and using the DATA block along with READ to read it and learning how to compress 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 into 255. There are a couple things going on though with the expectations. I could write a program that would look amateur but comparable to what was professional at that time using BASIC. The web of old that we fondly look back to with Myspace didn't take masterful skills to get to what was similarly acceptable. Today, to get something that is vaguely comparable to what you expect when you use a computing device takes a lot of work. Swift Playgrounds and Scratch aren't enough. There is a high discouragement factor and the expectations of what someone who wants to do what I did with BASIC or simple web pages back then is a lot of work. I would be tempted to say that instead of general computing and scratch we should look at teaching kids Excel... and I might get some flack for that. The main thing is that with Excel you look at what can be done and it's not too far from making a column have the values of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16. You can get something that is useful without too much work and without expecting it to look as nice as a fancy page or game. And as they learn how to do more, you can introduce them to =LAMBDA.

jacquesm 4y ago

If they're only breaking down after three years I would consider that a stellar victory for the engineers that designed them. My kids are very careful with their gear. So they say. And yet, it develops mysterious faults, cracked screens, broken keyboards and pulled out sockets. And nothing, absolutely nothing ever happens in my presence. Weirdest thing.

grugagag 4y ago
For things to be durable for kids they have to be built differently.
- fuzzfactor 4y ago
  These are descended from laptops and 20 years ago laptops had already perfected the engineering for a two-year target lifetime. The further back you go, portables were still mainly business machines not expected to be affordable to most students, and businesses really didn't want to send their people out with more than a two-year-old laptop or wearing a suit much older either. And a new Windows version was coming out every 2 years.
derefr 4y ago
The thing about young humans is that they don't yet fully understand all practical, everyday corollaries to the laws of physics. Like, for example, it might not occur to a child that if you stack 10 textbooks on top of your backpack in your locker — where your laptop/tablet is held in a vertical pocket inside the backpack, and everything else in the backpack is just clothes or something, and so the laptop/tablet is acting as the load-bearing support for all those textbooks — then if you've got an all-plastic device, its chassis will probably flex apart and crack; or if you've got a metal-and-glass device, it'll probably buckle and bend. Learning a basic corollary to a law of physics by breaking something usually feels really embarrassing, though — a "why didn't I expect that that would happen? I must be stupid!" kind of feeling. So kids really don't like to admit it happened. But they really were being careful! They were trying as hard as they could! They just didn't have all the information on what they need to pay attention to to avoid breaking a thing, yet. (And, to be clear, an opaque warning to "never do X" doesn't give them that information, because there's no backing intuition, so while they might remember it in the moment for that specific case, they won't be able to translate it to any related case. What they need is the backing intuition itself — the understanding of the causal process that makes bad things happen, such that if they imagine doing X or Y or Z, then they'll picture the causal process that applies, and so automatically infer for themselves that [unwanted consequence] will follow.) --- Tangent, in the mode of a game designer: There are many "practical, everyday corollaries to the laws of physics" that a child will just learn from interacting with the world. And for others, there are common "learning toys" you can buy for children that teach them certain principles. But there are rather a lot of these physical principles that are more niche — plastic deformation under stress of seemingly-rigid bodies being one of them — where you just won't personally observe them in a regular childhood (unless your parents are nerds who like watching "historical failures of engineering" documentaries), and where it's hard for regular physical toys to model them. (A physical toy demonstrating plastic deformation would necessarily be single-use!) Growing up myself, I (subconsciously) learned a lot about these more niche corollaries in my tween years, from playing with physics-sim computer games in my middle-school computer lab. I feel like physics-sim games were a great supplement to my ability to predict the physical world. There are real simulational "set things up and see what happens when you press Go" sandbox 'games' that should be standard issue for every school-issued laptop/tablet, because kids can play with them and end up learning getting a feel for these principles that are hard to end up with personal experience with otherwise. There are also real games, that actually gamify the process of developing intuitions around more specific principles. Games like Kerbal Space Program, Poly Bridge, etc. They won't teach you the math, but you'll be very ready to learn the math, far ahead of the kids who just see opaque formulae without the intuitive sense for what it's doing. But, as far as I'm aware, there's no physics-sandbox that models plastic deformation of materials, let alone a game that gamifies the process of developing an intuition for it. (Poly Bridge might simulate stress/strain and buckling at the joints, but it won't give you any sense for the fact that a seemingly rigid body like a steel girder can end up crumpling like a wet paper bag under enough compressive stress, or pulling like taffy under enough tensile stress.) And that's a shame. Someone should develop one. Maybe then kids would stop stacking books on their backpacks.

ChumpGPT 4y ago

Why does a kid need a chrome book? To do what? Pencils and paper, what's wrong with that? It worked for centuries and now for some reason every student needs a chrome book to waste tax payer money, useless tech, theater for the parents that their children will have some kind of an advantage. Schools need to go back to the basics and not invent ways to make kids stupid and waste tax payer money.

Eisenstein 4y ago
Pencils and paper? What a waste, I used chalk on a slate tablet.
- toastedwedge 4y ago
  Chalk on a slate tablet? What a waste, I just burned several chunks of wood in a particular way.
  - CoastalCoder 4y ago
    Luxury!
    - jaclaz 4y ago
      Kids today: https://tinyapps.org/blog/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html https://tinyapps.org/blog/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html
  - nindalf 4y ago
    Burning wood? Luxury! Growing up we had to inscribe our cuneiform on clay tablets. And it really was the best way, because our tablets would last thousands of years. - Ea-Nasir
- Ekaros 4y ago
  I would probably go with more traditional wax inside wooden frame. I don't think slate is childproof enough. And the chalk is consumable waste...

TexanFeller 4y ago

I wish they didn't raise kids on such limited locked down devices. Kids will get the idea that the only software that exists is web based.

fulafel 4y ago
ChromeOS supports various kinds of Linux apps. Including normal desktop & cli apps in the Crostini developer oriented environment, and Android apps out of the box.
hammyhavoc 4y ago
I concur, but in retrospect, the curriculum even twenty years ago was learning locked-down pieces of software in a locked down environment. The usual "ICT" consisting of using Windows and learning the absolute basics of Word, Excel, and Publisher. Maybe they'd let you go on Google for 30 minutes once a month via Internet Explorer. Anybody who has more than a passing interest will go "but what about x?", e.g., "how do they make games then?" or "how do they make movies then?" or "how do I write an app then?". Most kids weren't and still aren't interested, but the ones who are, will beg, steal, borrow or buy yesteryear junk to fiddle with.
StrangeATractor 4y ago
It's perfect, being forced to use it by the school they'll come to hate it.
sowbug 4y ago
Or Linux, or Android, or Windows via WINE on Linux. And I'm sure Chromebooks would also run iOS and MacOS if Apple allowed it. Did I miss anything?
hot_gril 4y ago
As a kid who grew up using Mac and Windows, I got the idea that the only software that exists has a GUI. Is that much better?

donalhunt 4y ago

The EU is investigating options to ensure products are repairable for up to 10 years. Some product categories are already required to comply. See https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/spare-parts-and-repairs.html https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/spa... Fully supportive of such initiatives to make spare parts available directly or indirectly. Hopefully we see companies release designs after EOL/EOS dates that allow 3D printing (where feasible) in time. I've managed to extend the life of products (primarily my coffee grinder) by finding 3d printing designs online.

nradov 4y ago
The notion of 3D printing a replacement for a cracked plastic laptop case isn't very realistic for most consumers or school districts. If we want these devices to last longer then they will have to be designed for robustness, which will make them heavier and more expensive.
- prepend 4y ago
  I think it would be perfectly fine to order a piece online for $4 and have it show up in a few days. Although every school in my county has a few 3d printers, so some schools could print directly.
  - Filligree 4y ago
    > Although every school in my county has a few 3d printers, so some schools could print directly. Shared 3D printers almost always produce poor quality, inaccurate prints. Never mind maintenance, using them requires skill. Skill which teachers usually lack, and schoolchildren obviously lack. They're still useful devices, but I wouldn't expect such prints to be strong enough and accurate enough to do the job.
  - nradov 4y ago
    A replacement for a cracked laptop case isn't going to cost $4 regardless of how it's manufactured.

enkid 4y ago

What I've seen is to plan to replace 25% of client systems every year. With a little variance, this seems about right.

prepend 4y ago

I think schools need to just give parents $1000 and have them buy and maintain and insure devices directly. My county school system bought a bunch of crappy Lenovos three years ago and now they are really bad. Disk failures. Battery lasts an hour so students have to constantly charge all day (20 kids running cables every 55 minutes). And they have lots of weird systems and sites that are hard coded to only run on these laptops. And the school doesn’t have people to maintain or debug or patch so it’s a weird situation where 5th graders are supposed to call tech support in the middle of a school day to figure out why something is working. And it has weird policies where if your laptop was stolen you had to reimburse the county the purchase price. So if your Lenovo that you could probably eBay for $100 was stolen you had to pay $1299 or something strange. The first repair was free, the second $100, the third $300. And since no one understood computers they would make rulings that any damage was caused by the student (a 10 year old). After about a year, I noped out and just bought a MacBook Air for $800 with AppleCare ($80/year) to insure against damage or theft. This works well except for the times when they have special web sites that only work on the Lenovo. I consider myself pretty tech savvy, but I think school was better with everything on paper. But at least we didn’t buy chromebooks.

InCityDreams 4y ago
>5th graders are supposed to call tech support in the middle of a school day to figure out why something is working. I'll presume to assume the above was meant to say 'something isn't working', but it makes so much more sense as written.
- prepend 4y ago
  Yes, thanks. Meant “isn’t working” and I typed that, but thanks to autocorrect, my phone changed it to “is working” and I didn’t notice until now. I have to get in the habit of proof reading everything since I can’t rely on just typing specifically.
klipt 4y ago
> I think school was better with everything on paper. I'm pretty sure writing notes on paper is better for learning. Something about engaging more of the brain through motor skills.

AlbertCory 4y ago

Anyone remember One Laptop Per Child? https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17233946/olpcs-100-laptop-education-where-is-it-now https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17233946/olpcs-100-laptop... Give a TED Talk, go on 60 Minutes, and then change the subject until the world moves on. > “I have to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a check written,” Negroponte finally admitted. “And yes, it has been a disappointment.”

germinalphrase 4y ago
I have one sitting in my basement. It’s a neat device - but not particularly useful. As a former teacher, it’s clearly a theory-first educational device.
wmf 4y ago
Netbooks and Chromebooks were inspired by OLPC and may not have happened without it. OLPC really hurt themselves by not selling to individuals or schools.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Rediscover 4y ago
  Quite well remember them and the Give 1 Get 1 program. Mine still boots and I still love being able to use it outside with bright sunlight. I believe (but could be wrong) it was Richard Smith of the project who made the comment (paraphrased) "perhaps the warranty should be void until you've the XO-1." I last booted mine a week ago in anticipation of summer.
  - wmf 4y ago
    Until you've what?
    - AlbertCory 4y ago

m3kw9 4y ago

better to have programs that renew low-mid laptops every 2 years. They get abused in the school setting, and battery gets bad after 2 years.

dougSF70 4y ago

A classic False Economy at play.

supportengineer 4y ago

Our kids' experience with public school Chromebooks has been pretty much the opposite of the comments here. All the neighborhood kids I've seen are taking good care of the school Chromebooks they have been entrusted with - they understand how to be responsible for them. Our schools taught basic typing at an early age, so the kids can fire up Google Docs and start writing as fast as they can think. For science class, they can open a spreadsheet, record data and immediately make charts and graphs. Not to mention, in almost any future profession, spreadsheet skills are a must. During Covid they could Zoom with their teachers and classmates. From what I've seen, their Chromebooks have been a tool that enables them to do their best academic and creative work. And they do all this without any trouble from viruses or malware. $200 for 3 years is extremely reasonable given all the benefits the kids are receiving.

mixmastamyk 4y ago
This could be accomplished without surveillance capitalism.
- surveilmedaddy 4y ago
  [dead]
hot_gril 4y ago
Sounds way better than the ill-advised educational iPad rollouts.

Tempest1981 4y ago

Some school have on-site repair centers. Students can quickly swap a broken device for a refurbished working one. It's a constant cycle. The repair centers have a stash of parts, and do basic part swap-outs on site. Students get charged if they break too many screens. Not sure the cost of running these centers, or if parents volunteer.

pier25 4y ago

3 years for a $200 device seems like a pretty good deal. Especially in the hands of kids who are rarely careful with things. It's obviously terrible for the environment and it's also probably terrible for cognitive development. Pen and paper is a way better solution for kids and teenagers.

James_Henry 4y ago
Honestly, for adults too, pen and paper is often a better solution. Word processing and number crunching are the main use cases for a computer and I think kids should learn these things with a computer, but it would be so much better if they had direct instruction in a computer lab rather than giving them all a distracting laptop/chromebook.

Ekaros 4y ago

Sub-200 device doesn't sound so bad if you look at lifetime cost. If on average they last 2 years. It is still better than 800 device that is replaced in 4 years. Or 6 years... And my guess is that these are heavily abused and the more expensive wouldn't on average survive substantially longer.

sowbug 4y ago

It's amazing how far we're come in 15 years. Rewind to 2008 when Chrome was launched: - Netbooks were hopelessly underpowered for the only game in town, Windows. Now it's possible to run a whole classroom on hardware that's even less expensive (even before adjusting for inflation). - Microsoft's Internet Explorer team had been disbanded for years, and Apple had abandoned its pursuit of the web for iPhone apps, launching the App Store instead. Today, the open web includes enough platform functionality to implement full-fledged word-processing, drawing, painting, and finance applications. - Unpatched desktop machines were the norm, and antivirus subscriptions were the band-aid response among the relatively conscientious. Now an eight-year automatic update policy (plus more via Chrome OS Flex) is viewed as a liability. - Laptop repairs were an expensive ordeal. Actually, that hasn't changed much. But it's interesting how this article portrays a $90 Chromebook repair as a negative because the device was inexpensive to begin with. Some of these devices cost less than the retail price of a Windows 11 license key!

Laaas 4y ago

FWIW my primary device is a Chromebook and it's quite sturdy. I've thrown it, stepped on it, spilled water on it, abused it in every way you can imagine, and it's fine (minus the paint etc.). 3 years in the hands of children seems very reasonable considering the cheap price point.

jrm4 4y ago

Right. This says nothing about "Chromebooks" per se; more "all computer and computer-like" devices. The planned obsolescence for all of them is pretty appalling. I say this as someone who runs a non-profit which includes at times grabbing old computers from institutions and trying to repurpose them for others. The number of available computers FAR FAR FAR outpaces the time, labor, and even possible recipients. It's ridiculous how we throw these things away.

beefman 4y ago

Three years is about the lifetime of a laptop. The real story here is how kids are being forced to use Google Drive. Google now has a lock on whatever is left of personal computing (managing files) which will last a generation.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

znpy 4y ago

what's the news? on what planet a 300$ toy laptop is going to outperform and/or outlive a proper laptop?

cultofmetatron 4y ago

sounds like a good time to switch over to the framework chromebooks (https://frame.work/products/laptop-chromebook-12-gen-intel https://frame.work/products/laptop-chromebook-12-gen-intel) sure they cost more but you can upgrade them en masse and replace components and screens. dunno how the math works out for cost savings vs cheap disposable devices but at least you'll have less E-waste.

ACV001 4y ago

chromebooks are a scam - I haven't seen worse equipment.

pipeline_peak 4y ago

The title sucks, it’s nothing to do with Chromebooks. It’s the cheap laptops they buy that happens to use ChromeOS…

hot_gril 4y ago
There's a note about ChromeOS software support.

hot_gril 4y ago

> For example, researchers found that nearly half of the replacement keyboards listed for Acer Chromebooks were out of stock online and that over a third cost “$89.99 or more, which is nearly half the cost of a typical $200 Chromebook.” Some IT departments, PIRG reports, have resorted to buying extra batches of Chromebooks just for their components. It costs a lot more than this to replace a MacBook keyboard. Idk about other laptops. Seems the only thing uniquely bad about Chromebooks is the limited software updates.

beagle3 4y ago

This is a great thread to ask a semi-related question: I have an 2012/2013 Samsung ARM Chromebook (silver, looks like a MacBook knockoff). Google dropped support for it a few years ago - is there any modern Linux distribution available for these things? That thing is still in almost mint condition, and battery still holds over an hour charge despite being 10 years old (and in serious use for its first 3 years, light use for a few more).