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Google announces next Chromebooks and a Chromebox (desktop replacement)
- nthitz 14y agoIf I am able to watch videos that are stored on my Google Drive on a Chromebox connected to a television I would be very interested in this.
- michaelbuckbee 14y agoFor $200 you can get a Boxee Box from Dlink, which has a HDMI out, a very slick remote and will play back 1080p videos over wireless from any network share (it's basically a physical manifestation of VLC).
- abraham 14y agoYou should be able to.
- filmgirlcw 14y agoI cannot believe the pricing fail here. It's insanely overpriced for what it is -- and the reality is -- from someone who has tested one of these new Chromebooks -- the thing STILL has major usability issues. Chrome OS has too many bugs to depend on even if you live in a Google-fied cloud-centric world. Still, on what planet does $330 for a desktop and up to $550 for a netbook make sense, especially when you don't get a Windows license (assuming you're selling to schools and businesses here)? The netbook is dead and the iPad is the product that Chrome OS's target customers are actually buying in droves.
- edtechdev 14y agoIf you don't like it, don't buy it. I personally think the Chromebook is more useful in both education and business than an iPad. Although perhaps not as useful as a slate might be (but those will cost >$1000 give or take and Windows 8 is looking to be maybe not as good as people were hoping). What if you lose or break your computer - something that happens all the time in schools - with a chromebook it doesn't matter, just login to another one. In businesses, the chromebook would require virtually zero IT overhead. What if you don't want to spend extra on overpriced apps with less functionality than free ones in the browser (like Pages vs. Google Docs + Google Cloud Print) What if you actually want to quickly type up documents/code without having to pay an extra $60-$75 for a keyboard? It's $550 for a 3G chromebook, compared to $629 for a 4G or $529 for a 3G ipad. Pretty comparable - not to mention the firmware on the chromebook is open so I would expect to see people running ubuntu or android on these devices, too.
- mey 14y agohttp://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/05/slick-new-chromebook-first-chromebox-desktop-out-from-samsung-today/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/05/slick-new-chromebook-...
- netrus 14y agoDoes this raise the chances for a "Google Drive for Linux" release within the next weeks?
- rryan 14y agoChrome OS is a very different beast from desktop GNU/Linux distributions so I don't think that's a fair assumption.
- ajross 14y agoIt's really not, once you get beneath the user-facing skin (most of which is, obviously, implemented as just a bunch of Chrome extensions). It's a Linux distro running X.org. It's much (much!) closer to Ubuntu or Fedora than it is to Android.
- michaelbuckbee 14y agoThere is an unofficial linux client out now - Grive: http://www.webupd8.org/2012/05/grive-open-source-google-drive-client.html http://www.webupd8.org/2012/05/grive-open-source-google-driv...
- jrockway 14y agoThere is already a Chrome client.
- gouranga 14y agoDo you still have to use a google account to use chromeos?
- mey 14y agoYes, it is fundamental to it's function. Basically it acts as a terminal system to your google applications and the wider web.
- laconian 14y agoI believe you can sign in as a guest, but it won't save your browser settings. Since ChromeOS is all about having data "in the cloud" and keeping as little mutable state on the computer as possible, I guess this makes sense. Can we coin an abbreviation for "in the cloud"? I put it in quotation marks to avoid the unconscious eyerolling that I do when I use that phrase in a non-ironic fashion. "ITC"?
- jeffehobbs 14y agoI'm glad to see them iterating, and in exactly the way they should -- The original Chromebooks were a neat concept, but too underpowered.
- uptown 14y agoThe Chromebox feels about $180 too expensive.
- ditojim 14y agocompared to what?
- uptown 14y agoCompared to what I need and what I'm willing to spend for the features the product offers. It fals short of what I need a desktop to do, so that means it's better suited as a TV-connected device. But the GoogleTV does much of what you'd want a Google device that's connected to your TV to do and only costs $100. Alternately, many TVs will offer GoogleTV integration if that's what a consumer really wants. Or, if you've got an Apple ecosystem of devices in your household, the AppleTV and Mountain Lion will likely offer you better connectivity for that content. If you're a gamer then an XBOX360 and the myriad of supported streaming services it now offers (Amazon, HBO, MLB, etc.) can stream the most-common services to your TV. But let's say your desktop computing needs are different than mine, and you still want a desktop PC. A cheap Inspiron offers all of the Google browser-based services PLUS you can run all of the Windows applications too, so why not go with that instead? You can get an underpowered device that can do basic desktop stuff for less than this costs, or if your needs demand it, you have the option of adding better hardware to meet your specific needs.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoSigh, this sounds neat "The new Chromebook and Chromebox, based on Intel Core processors, are nearly three times as fast as the first-generation Chromebooks." Except when you click the 'buy now' and go to either the NewEgg or the Amazon store all you get are Atom N570 choices or the Celeron for the ChromeBox. Did somebody forget to the HW guys to use the new Ivy Bridge processors? Is this some sort of weird "Quick lets announce something before Apple creams us with the new Macbook Pro?" (ok that is a bit cynical but still). I'd love to see the 'new' Chromebooks that can compete with the 'old' Macbook Air because I'd love to have something with the build quality of the Air and the simplicity of ChromeOS to recommend to my non programming friends. You're letting me down Google, bad dog, no biscuit.
- Kylekramer 14y agoWhy would Google push towards the high end? They already have people complaining Chromebooks cost too much. It would be a massive waste of money and effort to build MacBook Air style Chromebooks, with an absurdly small market even if done well. And I don't think Google could do that well.
- abraham 14y agoSadly a MB Air with Chrome OS and 3G is exactly what I want.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoI would love to hear more about how you reason to "absurdly small market." When I look at the market, and especially after the pretty remarkable success of the iPad, I see a clear line from smartphone, through smart tablet, to smart laptop. My expectation is that Apple will release an iOS based version of the Macbook Air for just this reason. This is my reasoning for that expectation. The iPad has taken a chunk out of the laptop market. A number of folks who would have bought a laptop bought an iPad instead this year. The number one reason that folks give for not replacing their laptop with an iPad is that "they can't type on it." and carrying multiple elements around (bluetooth keyboard etc) is inconvenient. When you get a device which has a high quality screen, and an attached keyboard, and can be used anywhere on 3G, you will capture a much bigger chunk of the laptop market. Now granted, I've been working this since 1999 when I pitched the 'appliance' laptop to Venture funds (they declined to fund because they didn't feel anyone could ship a product against windows and succeed), and I pitched it to the Android team when I was at Google (and while I take no credit at all for ChromeOS it did a lot of the things I had proposed in my JaDE project, so they were on the same wavelength). When I did my VC pitch I had commissioned some surveys and found that a significant chunk of people who owned a computer didn't want the "compute" part, they wanted just the web browsing/emailing/document prep part. Further it bothered them that their computer had all this stuff that they never used, and was often a source of exploits by third parties. So as I pushed inside Google for this the primary push back was "Ok, I got that already, its my phone doofus. C'mon network computers are soo last century, didn't you work on diskless workstations back in the stone age? How did that work out for you?" And I get that its not very sexy to propose the 21st century equivalent of the VT100 but that did not change the fact that the data says that people want these things. So I keep hoping Google will/would step outside their complexes and build a laptop killer. And they are getting closer and closer. These machines are clearly an improvement over the first generation both in software and in hardware. I feel like they had an opportunity here to get out in front of Apple, but given the announcement I don't think they did. For me, it makes June 11th (Apple's WWDC keynote) more interesting than it might otherwise have been.
- msh 14y agoBut can something like the chromebook survive in a ipad world? Maybe for some, but while I could be in the market for a chromebook (if it came before the ipad I would properly own one) but a tablet fits my 2nd computer device much better. I can survive with only a chromebook, so it would need to supplement my main computer, and in that regard I think my ipad (or properly a android tablet) is a much better suplement.
- bookwormAT 14y agoI agree that for personal use, Chrome OS is not very interesting until the price is down to 200,- or less. But I don't see businesses adopting tablets for use in their call centers, and that is what Chrome OS is currently targeted at. Every large company has thousands of employees that need a computer basically only to access some web based business application as well as basic office tasks (spreadsheets, mail). Chrome OS promises a very secure solution with a minimum of maintenance costs.
- netcan 14y agoThe market is (as I see it) for a "home" machine. People who use the web, the augmented web (web services via apps), video & maybe some light document stuff. People who "get enough of the computer at work" people who can share a laptop, people who didn't really use the internet before facebook & youtube came to them. That's a lot of people. Being a second machine might follow from being good at those things. That said this chrome/android separation is nonsense.
- filmgirlcw 14y agoNo. It can't. And that's why it has been an utter failure in the marketplace. Google toyed with subsidizing the costs more to try to use it to push more enterprise services to business and education customers but it never gained traction (and from I understand, they were practically willing to give them away). The large-scale use case for Chrome OS is minuscule.
- throwaway1979 14y agoI don't get it. And I'm almost a Google fanboy. I got a chromebook at Google IO last year. I use it very sporadically .. typically when my iPad is out of power. The chromebox looks nice .. but can it really compare with a Mac Mini I have hooked up to my TV? I thought Google TV was supposed to take on that role. Google TV, Android and Chrome ... there can only be one!
- chadmaughan 14y agoI was also a skeptic of Chromebooks until I took mine home from Google IO last year and gave it to my then 7yr old. His response after a few minutes, "Dad, this has the whole internet on it!" This was followed by a detailed lesson from me on exactly how the "whole internet" works. Then later, regret on my part for not having explained that to him earlier.
- Sephr 14y agoGoogle TV is Android 3+ with some UI changes to make it better suited for TVs. Eventually, I think they will merge Chrome OS's great looks into the Chrome app for all platforms (especially Android), or at least do some kind of merge with Android and Chrome.
- mtgx 14y agoI don't like the idea of having "one UI" for all form factors, like Microsoft tries to do. I think that will only lead to being optimized for one form factor, and significantly underoptimized for others. Personally, I'd like to see them use some kind of "UI modes", so you have a phone mode, a tablet mode, a TV mode, and a desktop mode (which may or may not be the same as the tablet one, but would probably be better if they are kept separate). Of course, they should still make them resemble each other as much as possible, but you can't use a tablet UI for a TV, and you can't use a phone UI for a desktop monitor. So when I dock the phone into a PC monitor, I want to see the desktop mode, and when I dock it into the TV, I want to see the TV mode, and so on. I don't think there is such thing as "one UI for everything". It may be good for one form factor, but for all the others it will be mediocre at best.
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- simonsarris 14y agoEdit: Apparently there are shortcuts that are not typical on Windows that apply to the Cr-48. I was a dope with my chromebook all this time! I should have known better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_keyboard_shortcuts#Text_editing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_keyboard_shortcuts#Tex... Original comment: Unfortunately these laptops still have the same problem as the original Cr-48. None of these keyboards are suited for basic text editing as they lack the home/end/delete keys, which would be a minimum for a lot of people, and the entire 6-key cluster still-in-place would be much preferred. This is the keyboard, by the way, which is identical my old Cr-48: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/815Dnur3O6L._AA1500_.jpg http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/815Dnur3O6L._AA1500_.j... Making blog posts, using google docs, jsfiddle, Ace, StackOverflow, etc. All of these are a frustrating experience after a while if you are used to using a normal keyboard and are then forced to forego the home/end cluster. If the difference between a tablet and a Chromebook is a keyboard, why can't they take writing seriously?
- tadfisher 14y agoI don't know if they've disabled it in their distribution, but Ctrl-A (beginning of line) and Ctrl-E (end-of-line) work in my version of Chrome. Not sure if this is a default or something I've set system-wide.
- gringomorcego 14y agodefault, at least it's true for me to, and I never set anything
- mibbitier 14y agoMacs don't have home/end/delete. Personally I don't miss them.
- duskwuff 14y agoThey kinda do, actually - fn+left/right is home/end, fn+up/down is pageup/down, fn+backspace ("delete") is forward delete.
- wavephorm 14y agoGoogle's still trying to sell netbooks? Really? Sometimes I wonder if they are aware that the iPad has completely obliterated the market for underpowered/overpriced netbooks.
- mibbitier 14y agoCompletely different market. People don't type on an iPad for long periods.
- wavephorm 14y agoSo there's actually a market of people that don't want a fully capable laptop, and don't want a tablet + external keyboard, and want a web-only miniature laptop? I think these Chromebooks are targeted at market that actually does not exist.
- shriphani 14y agoThe chromebox really needs to be $200. I have a Cr48 and I went and threw Win8 Consumer Preview (and it runs VS2k11 Beta - not the best experience but it is not unusable) on it. Maybe 1 or 2 iterations later, this will be a very competitive offering.
- joejohnson 14y agoDespite the initial Chromebooks being widely considered a failure, they push on with the next iteration of this product. Google has the kind of determination that only obscene amounts of money can buy.
- mtgx 14y agoIt was mostly a pricing failure, one which they unfortunately repeated again this time. Yes, it did have usability problems, and it has been greatly improved, but you know as they say: there is no bad product, only bad pricing. Chromebooks would sell for $200, or free on contract with LTE. They won't sell for $450.
- Karunamon 14y ago$30 a month for business customers if they'd open it up to the general public. And with a few meg of free 3g.. I can imagine that taking off nicely. I'm waiting for them to get rid of the 3 unit minimum.
- rdl 14y agoFor the business market, a Chromebook pays for itself in software licensing, maintenance, and other savings vs. Windows, every year.
- rwhitman 14y agoI think whats unsaid here, and particularly telling about the Chromebox, is that Google is gunning to be a replacement for Windows in the workplace. The ISO certification of google apps, a cheap desktop replacement directly integrated into google products, a laptop that keeps in sync with its desktop counterpart, these are all significant steps into creating a fully cloud-based workplace. A chromebook may not become your home computer but it may soon be the cheap laptop the IT guys at your work start issuing to employees who don't need the heavy lifting power of a mac or windows machine...
- jsz0 14y agoIronic though that if the IT department is handing out Chrome-things they are basically writing their own pink slips.
- Karunamon 14y agoSomeone has to admin the systems online as well as the networking.
- cooldeal 14y agoGoogle may gun for whatever it wants to, but sales of Chromebooks have been really dismal so far, and I seriously doubt the Chromebox is going to be much different. >but it may soon be the cheap laptop the IT guys at your work start issuing to employees who don't need the heavy lifting power of a mac or windows machine... The Chromebook isn't much cheaper than equivalent laptops with which you can access Google apps as well as run other programs.
- rwhitman 14y agoIIRC Android phones weren't selling particularly well a year and a half after the 1st release either
- sahaj 14y agoI would consider this the "test" phase for Google. They are testing the waters, getting feedback, and adding as needed. Agile development applied to hardware - and (I hope) soon coming to Motorola.
- ilaksh 14y agoSo Chromebox is Mini-ITX, or is it smaller? I sure hope this inspires other companies to release more smaller desktops. I don't see any reason why we should have to keep lugging around giant boxes anymore. And actually you can get very powerful systems in Mini-ITX now, doesn't have to be bargain-power like these Chromeboxes on Amazon. Although dual-core is probably more than enough for most things.
- rdl 14y agoI'm really sad that the Chromebox only has Bluetooth 3.0 (not 4.0/LE), and the Chromebook 550 doesn't seem to list Bluetooth at all. LE would be amazing for the kind of corporate environments the Box would work in -- as a user presence/locking token.