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Google Chromebook Under $300 Defies PC Market With Growth

101 points by Lightning 13y ago

kryten 13y ago
Sorry but Chromebooks are a crap prospect for 99% of people and after about a week, any consumer will realise that. That happens post-sale which means the sales figures are good. They are lured in by the price and get screwed. That's all this shows. Crap netbooks, no-brand PC accessories and appliances, landfill Androids and supermarket bubble-packed electronics fill the same market sector. Edit: I stand by my comment :)
- Zikes 13y ago
  I'm sure the massive rate of returns and refunds will prove you right.
  - PaulMcCartney 13y ago
    Do you have stats on this?
  - tharrold 13y ago
    An anecdote from http://thecartoons.net/2013/06/24/why-i-didnt-buy-a-samsung-chromebook-yet/ http://thecartoons.net/2013/06/24/why-i-didnt-buy-a-samsung-... >I asked a couple different Best Buy reps if the Chromebooks had a big return rate. "All the time," both said frankly. "They return it in a couple of days. They don't know how it works."
    - Zikes 13y ago
      I'm sure that's true, however my own anecdotal experience with Best Buy is that they can't or don't properly educate consumers as to the right thing to buy in the first place.
- ambiate 13y ago
  It is truly a shame the cost of the Pixel is so high. During my Google Glass intro, I had the chance to use a Pixel during the meeting. My wife was more attracted to the Pixel than the Glass. They probably could have sold her one that day if they had pushed it on her.
- abraininavat 13y ago
  Do you realize that 99% of people use gmail, facebook, twitter, and play web games for 99% of the time?
- gmac 13y ago
  I don't think so. Don't compare the Chromebook with a laptop: compare it with not having the Internet. A year or two ago, I set up a retired family friend with an old desktop machine running Ubuntu and Chrome. He loved using it. Who wouldn't love the web if they'd never had it before? All he ever did was launch Chrome and browse websites. Sometimes he'd watch catch-up TV, but that was also through Chrome. A while back, a failed Ubuntu upgrade left the machine unbootable, and I had to reinstall Ubuntu for him. More recently, the HD crashed. So for his birthday we bought him a £200 Chromebook. It has exactly the same relevant capabilities as the old Ubuntu desktop, but it's small, light, low-power, and unlikely to get viruses or ask incomprehensible questions about software updates. Yes, an iPad might have worked too, but it would have been a lot more expensive, less familiar, and lacking in Flash (which, if all you ever do is browse websites, can still be somewhat limiting).
- pkulak 13y ago
  You're way off. Chromebooks fit cheap hardware with an appropriate operating system, such that performance is still acceptable. For example, that Samsung Chromebook with the ARM processor. It has a low-performance chip in it that only uses (I think) about 4 watts. So the battery can be tiny and it still gets very good battery life. Which means the whole machine can be very small, very easily. And it has a very nice trackpad and keyboard, with a reasonable screen. Samsung was able to cut costs in places that Chromeos doesn't _need_ it and make what is a very good machine for $250. Put Windows 8 on that thing and in two weeks the tray will be full of crapware icons and the whole thing will grind to a halt.
  - kryten 13y ago
    You can't get a decent general purpose computer for $250. You might get a laptop shaped kiosk device, but not a computer.
- jrockway 13y ago
  I traded in my Thinkpad for a Pixel. The Pixel is the only laptop I use. (I would say it's the only laptop I own, but my apartment is a veritable computer museum and several of the specimens are laptops.) For me, the biggest problem with laptops is keeping them sync'd with my desktop. I could use a laptop as a primary computer, and with better expansion options than previously exited (USB3, dual Display Ports, etc.), but I still find laptops limiting, meaning I only use them when I can't have my desktop. My desktop has 6 cores, 4 drives, a high-quality sound card, a real serial port, etc. These things are all important for what I use a computer for, most of the time, and a laptop just isn't good enough to be my only machine. Chrome OS solves the synchronization problem for me. The configurability is restricted more than my average Linux box, so there is less to concern myself about setting up. My browser settings and extension sync, the desktop background syncs, etc. I can take a brand new Chromebook and be up in running in 5 minutes. That's the value proposition of Chrome OS for me. Once it is up and running, I can ssh to a real computer and browse the web, which is what I'd do with a ultra-excellent billion-core superlaptop 99% of the time anyway. The other 1% of the time, I'd like to use a laptop for portable software-defined radio applications, and as it stands, Chrome OS is terrible for that. But since Chrome has APIs for talking to USB, serial ports, and audio, I'm actually working on supporting controlling my radio and analyzing the I/Q inputs as a Chrome packaged app. The advantage for me is that I'll have SDR functionality on any computer I encounter: you can install packaged apps from the webstore on Chrome OS, Mac, Windows, and Linux, and everything will Just Work. Finally, the Pixel has the best screen I've ever seen on a computer. Anyway, Chrome OS is nowhere near its full potential just with the APIs available today. I think as more developers write awesome web apps or Chrome apps, more people will use Chrome OS, further incentivizing developers to create even better non-desktop apps. But as it stands, I am 100% satisfied with the Pixel as my primary laptop, and I imagine many other people are too.
  - chinpokomon 13y ago
    I feel the same about my Pixel. I use the Remote Desktop Chrome app to log into any number of machines I've configured. If I need to SSH into another machine, there's an app for that too. I still use a "powerful" laptop as my work machine. but this is primarily because of the work I'm doing for a client. A significant part of my day I spend logged into remote systems; something I may start doing more on my Pixel.
mtgx 13y ago
I don't know how much it's in sales, but for what it's worth the Samsung ARM Chromebook has been the #1 bestselling laptop on Amazon for almost 9 months straight, since it came out last fall (I know because I've looked every now and then, and it's always been #1): http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-Laptop-Computers/zgbs/electronics/565108/ref=zg_bs_nav_e_2_541966 http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-Laptop-Comput... But I don't agree with the last paragraph that Chromebooks are ready to go to higher-end. At least for the next few years, Chromebooks should stay sub-$500, with most of them being ARM-based and sub-$300, but with a bigger battery (even more important than upgrading the resolution, I'd say). They last about 6-7 hours, but they have an embarrassingly small battery (about as big as the ones in 7" tablets). Double the battery size, keep the ARM processor up to date and the price under $300, and that should be the strategy going forward for the next few years for Chromebooks.
- AUmrysh 13y ago
  I think they can target both markets. Honestly, the Pixel seems overpriced for what it's intended to do, but if you plan on installing linux on it, you'll probably get your money's worth. I think the lower priced chromebooks are a great deal, and they should stay focused on that part of the market. I genuinely never would have purchased a netbook until I saw that the chromebook had the hardware it does at the low price point it has.
- jsnell 13y ago
  You've made this incorrect claim about battery size a bunch of times here, and I've corrected you a bunch of times. At this point I'm starting to think that you aren't just genuinely mistaken, but have some kind of agenda. (Even if I can't figure out what it could be). So for the Nth time, the ARM ChromeBook has a 30Wh battery. The Nexus 7 has a 16Wh battery. This is not "about the same", it's a factor of 2 difference. What would be about the same is the 2012 MacBook Air (35Wh) -- a device that incidentally has almost the same form factor as the ChromeBook. Now, Apple did manage to inch it up to 38 Wh in the latest release. Maybe Samsung will be able to do get similar relative improvements. But if you're genuinely suggesting that a low-end machine 11" super-thin laptop could have a 60Wh battery... Well, I just don't know what to say.
Roboprog 13y ago
At $200, it makes a nice second laptop that you aren't afraid to break/lose. It won't replace your "real" computer, but it's a better size for reading/writing email than a smart phone.
Glyptodon 13y ago
Chromebooks are the only small, portable, sub $500 PCs that don't completely suck. No wonder they sell. Everyone else is trying to charge $800+ even though laptops are perceived as something that should be cheap because they have a high risk of being stolen, getting damaged, or quickly going obsolete. It's like Google understood what the Netbook wanted to be, while everyone else dreamed of being Apple (without the least bit of ability to actually be Apple).
- pkulak 13y ago
  A friend of mine recently bought some ~$500 laptop with Windows 8 on it. Buying a new toy like that should be fun, but when that thing showed up he just spent a week being frustrated with it. And I was very little help. I don't even understand Windows 8. I've recommend Chromebooks to people, at half that cost, and when they get it they immediately love it.
- Pxtl 13y ago
  Yup. Probably the only other OS you could use to pull this kind of platform off would be Win8RT, but nobody wants to sell win8RT devices because they're scared of users freaking out when they find out their new Windows notebook doesn't actually run real Windows. Chrome and Win8RT are the only OSes that are good for an ARM-based notebook form-factor, and the ARM chip is necessary to make this device not suck at this end of the cost spectrum. That and frankly, I think we're all sick of supporting Grandma's windows machine, so getting computer-illiterate people onto a "web-only" device is great. I won't buy one, I don't need one, but I can see the niches it fills.
  - tomsaffell 13y ago
    >so getting computer-illiterate people onto a "web-only" device is great. I recently replaced my wife's aging MacBook Air with the Samsung/ARM Chromebook - she much prefers it. It doesn't overheat, nor require frequent restarts. But she has a Masters in CS, and works from the command line, so let's add to, "computer-illiterate people" , "..and people who dont want to spend time nursing their computer".
rwhite 13y ago
Interesting, lets see if the ecosystem picks it up.
soundoflight 13y ago
The article doesn't seem to mention if this is cutting into the netbook/cheap pc market or if it is actual growth in this type of laptop. Anyone have any ideas on this?
VLM 13y ago
chromebooks own 25% of the market under $300. OK. So who's the 75% they're eating into, I know thats not apple. Go to amazon, and its ... nothing. There doesn't appear to be a sub $300 laptop market other than chromebooks? Unless they're really twisting definitions and calling a $186 ipod touch a "laptop under $300 that isn't a chromebook" I might have missed it in the article.
- michaelt 13y ago
  Netbooks like [1] perhaps? [1] http://www.amazon.com/Acer-AOD270-1375-Netbook-Processor-Espresso/dp/B007582KGM/ http://www.amazon.com/Acer-AOD270-1375-Netbook-Processor-Esp...
  - VLM 13y ago
    Could be, but then instead of writing "Chromebooks have in just the past eight months snagged 20 percent to 25 percent of the U.S. market for laptops that cost less than $300, according to NPD Group Inc." they would have used the word netbook, or "electronic device" or something like that. There is a marketing problem in that I have a nexus 7 tablet and a bluetooth keyboard. What's the marketing message differentiating my nexus 7 from a chromebook, other than the screen is a wee bit bigger on the chromebook and the apps on the nexus 7 almost perfectly match the apps on my phone? There doesn't appear to be a marketing message differentiating them.
- bdcravens 13y ago
  A quick search on BestBuy.com turns up 5-6 PC laptops less than $300 (looking at only in-store options, not their listing of "online" laptops where they partner with other sellers). I see similarly priced machines in WalMart alot too.
abdophoto 13y ago
Do you guys feel that this suggests that computers will require less local storage and depend mostly on the cloud as we move forward?
- awaghadashish 13y ago
  they might still have local storage, but depending on the cloud's a no brainer IMO The main issue here is can people do without native apps and only a browser. I think a lot will change when we have programming IDEs and Photoshop inside a browser.
  - chinpokomon 13y ago
    I agree. I haven't found all my desktop equivalent apps yet, but I miss them less and less with each passing day.
antitrust 13y ago
Consumers know the pattern: over time, technology gets cheaper. Laptops and desktops are not selling well because, at the same time there have been no huge leaps in actually useful technology, manufacturers are trying to upsell us toward fancier machines that don't actually help us do anything. At this point, a regular laptop should cost as much as a cell phone and be about as efficient. Instead, we're getting $1400 "ultra-books" that aren't so ultra that anyone actually needs one.
- evilduck 13y ago
  An unsubsidized smartphone is often more expensive than a budget to midrange laptop.
awaghadashish 13y ago
Just put Xcode in a browser and I am all for Chromebooks and I am sure it will happen one day!
eliben 13y ago
It's hard to over-estimate the convenience of a laptop you never fear losing, breaking or seeing die some horrible way. Just take another Chromebook, login, possibly wait a minute for all your apps to sync (if you use large apps) and viola - welcome back to your computer. Viruses? hah. And all that for half the price of an iPad. This is the laptop parents can give kids and folks can give their elderly parents without worrying about spending too much time fixing it and removing viruses.
- jmduke 13y ago
  I think the Chromebook paradigm is going to take some time to catch on, but once it does it's going to be terrific for everyone. I can't wait til it spreads to other platforms (namely smartphones and gaming consoles) as well. "Hey, my phone's out of battery. Can I check my texts on yours real quick?"
  - mehrzad 13y ago
    Only if it's on my personal, secure, and private cloud.
    - eliben 13y ago
      Feel free to build that cloud and provide web access to it - that's possible today from any phone, I guess.
  - jiggy2011 13y ago
    Yep, ubiquitous laptops with centralised control from a single entity and fine grained tracking built right in. This is terrific for everyone!
    - VikingCoder 13y ago
      A) many people use Crouton, so there's no centralized control AT ALL. Even if they don't, the only centralized control is over what version of Chrome you're running, and OPTIONALLY whether you're allowed to log in to the device, what your preferences were, and what windows you have open. B) there's no fine-grained tracking built right in. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. You have the source code to Chromium available to you, please provide evidence. If you believe the visible source code was augmented to add tracking, prior to being installed on the device, then it should be relatively easy to show a Wireshark log demonstrating the fine-grained tracking you speak of.
vinkelhake 13y ago
I happened to get a Chromebook for free some time ago. At first I didn't think I'd have much use for it. At the time I did much of my casual browsing on a tablet. For "serious" stuff I had laptops. I've found that it has displaced the tablet for most casual browsing. I think the main reasons is that while it's slow, it's still faster than a tablet. Having a real keyboard is very nice. It also works well as an SSH terminal.
- boingboing 13y ago
  I've been curious about the temperature, does it got as hot as a laptop, or is it cooler?
mdm_ 13y ago
I think the Chromebook looks interesting, but in Canada the major selling point (price) is moot. Right now on Amazon.ca the cheapest Chromebook is $399, while in the $349-379 range I can choose from several makes and models of fully-functional 15" laptops.
morgante 13y ago
I don't think this really speaks to any growth in that market sector. Rather, Google is just taking over the low-end sector with software which matches the abysmal hardware. Basically we're looking at the bifurcation of the market. People who can afford it have Apple devices and everyone else will end up with Google products subsidized by advertising dollars.
- rednukleus 13y ago
  You speak as though Windows and Linux dont exist. Over 90% of the market use those operating systems. Did I misinterpret your comment, or do you really live in that much of a bubble?
bdcravens 13y ago
At my local Best Buy, they're always sold out. A few times I've overheard conversations of folks checking it out. They just want a cheap laptop, and you hear the usual questions: "Can I hook up my scanner?" "Will it run Call of Duty?" "Can I sync my iPhone?" I think it's a great device, and I'll likely buy 1 or 2 or a few. However, I don't think that the marketing communicates what it really is, and folks are getting burned as a result. I wonder, when sales performance is reported, is this gross sales, or net after returns?
- fishtoaster 13y ago
  I bought one at bestbuy last week (as I was about to leave on a trip), and I definitely got the impression that most buyers didn't know what they were getting into. Several salespeople double-checked that I knew this was not a "normal laptop." One guy said they'd been getting a lot of returns from people not knowing what "chromebook" entails.
gwu78 13y ago
Let's say the user just wants the hardware and form factor. Can the user dd over ChromeOS and use their own bootloader and open source OS? Are these netbooks "remote controlled" by Google at such a low level that the user cannot "opt out"?
- chinpokomon 13y ago
  You can install a dev bootloader, but the way it initializes the system is different than what you may be familiar with
  - gwu78 13y ago
    Any pointers to read more about this? FWIW, I'm familiar with BSD bootloaders. I can follow the Linux boot process, but haven't invested much time in mastering it.
saturdaysaint 13y ago
Yeah, they're my default PC recommendation these days for non-power users. Enough power for web/e-mail/streaming video, 6 hours of battery life, great form factor, and build quality that's shockingly better than just about any PC I've used before this year. I'd certainly recommend them to anyone looking for a second PC. My girlfriend and I have one in our living room sitting next to our more capable Macbook Air and I have little urge to upgrade to 2 high end systems.
nzealand 13y ago
Almost the perfect computer for Grandma.... except still no skype.
- chinpokomon 13y ago
  I've haven't missed Skype yet. Voice calling in Gmail works perfectly for me on my Pixel. If I need Skype, I can use it on my phone. As an absolutely worst case scenario, I can use Skype through Crouton.
blahbl4hblah 13y ago
They ARE the market for laptops under 300 dollars. Any growth in that market means big numbers because it barely exists. This is just more Google cock holding.
agent123 13y ago
Doesn't it concern anyone that this is a computer on which absolutely nothing is private?
- kryten 13y ago
  Make it cheap and no one will care any more. Make it shiny and the tech pundits will slobber all over it. It concerns me for reference. The device is dangerous to say the least. I wish Stallman would write about them as people might start paying attention to those of us who can see what is coming.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  Well, no, the OS is software on which, arguably, nothing is private. But you can put a different OS on a Chromebook, and apparently plenty of people who are concerned about ChromeOS -- whether for privacy or other reasons -- are putting Linux on them and finding Chromebooks a good way to get inexpensive (or not-so-inexpensive, in the case of the Pixel) Linux laptops.
- chinpokomon 13y ago
  It isn't any different than running Chrome on your other legacy platforms. Privacy comes in different forms. The content I place on my drive directly is private. Beyond that, it has the same privacy as your web browser.
uslic001 13y ago
My two best buys in the past year were a 200 dollar new chromebook for my oldest daughter and a 375 dollar new ASUS 11.6 inch touchscreen Windows 8 laptop. The Chromebook is the only computer in our house that has never crashed and never had a virus/malware problem. The ASUS Vivobook has worked great and I enjoy Windows 8 on the touchscreen. I hardly ever use my Ipad 3 anymore. I will never waste money on an Apple product again as I get a much better bang for my buck with the alternatives on the market now.
jvandonsel 13y ago
Two kids. Two chromebooks, plus a web proxy server I can centrally whitelist (squid). Great combination.
mmgutz 13y ago
Not sure why this is a surprise. Have we all forgotten how popular netbooks were? The Chromebook is a better netbook.
AsymetricCom 13y ago
Remember when netbooks were a thing, but the industry crushed them because there was no profit margin?
zmmmmm 13y ago
> The devices had about 4 percent to 5 percent > share in the first quarter That is really quite stunning in the context of the whole laptop market. I am kind of intrigued at how Google is pulling this off. There are so many good arguments against a Chromebook for most people. You can buy an ordinary laptop for similar price and just run Chrome and get the same thing but with more features. Even without that, this seems to violate the law that a new entrant into a market has to be not just better but compellingly better to get market share. How is Google doing it? Are they going direct to pitch these to bulk buyers like academic, students, businesses, governments? Or are "normal" consumers actually wandering into Best Buy and choosing it over the Windows laptop right next to it?
- kunai 13y ago
  > How is Google doing it A bit of both approaches, to be honest. People used to argue that OS X is the far better OS because of its dead simplicity, but that's falling flat on its face now that Chromebooks have arrived. No malware PERIOD -- no code can execute without some sort of complicated exploit, and if that wasn't enough, Linux runs at its base, which adds an extra layer of security. The beauty of the Chromebook is its simplicity, and extensibility. It's practically a $249 Linux box for the power users -- load up crouton and off you go. For the consumers who never need to touch the Linux layer, they can use the top layer without ever seeing Linux, and enjoy computing nirvana. Once NaCl is mature enough that most developers use it and once the Web Store populates with offline apps, watch this start to take off. It will ride on the same merits that drove OS X for over a decade, but it will fly higher. Just you wait. This is the final redemption for desktop Linux.
metaprinter 13y ago
I bought the acer chromebook for my 5yo. He loves it for playing Lego games, watching YouTube and Kahn Academy vids, as well as using code academy and getting emails from gamgam. I borrow it for business trips and works well enough. Best laptop I ever bought.
- tmzt 13y ago
  Is he playing Lego games in Chrome OS or are you running a different system on it?
habosa 13y ago
I have said it many times on HN and I'll say it again: I LOVE my Samsung ARM Chromebook. I'll just quote my previous comments: It's $250 so there's no argument about buying X or Y netbook instead, you can barely get anything with a keyboard that browses the internet for that price. Also for that price you get 2 (3?) years of 100GB on Google Drive and 12 Gogo WiFi passes, which together are already worth over $250. So you can throw the device in the trash and still come out on top. Now to the computer itself: First, the battery life is awesome, 6.5 hours of solid use (WiFi model) and since it turns on from cold in ~7 seconds you can turn it off between sessions and not lose any power at all. If that's too long for you just close the lid, you'll lose about 1% per hour but everything resumes instantly when you open it (and I do mean INSTANTLY). Second, the hardware is really excellent for the price. The keyboard is my favorite laptop keyboard out there (even against my MBP) and the trackpad is second only to Apple devices imo. It's the same weight/size as a MacBook Air but maybe 0.2" thicker. The only hardware downsides are the plastic chassis and the screen's somewhat bad viewing angles. Third, it runs most of what you need right out of the box. I don't even have my in developer mode, you don't need that to use Google's Secure Shell and Remote Desktop Chrome extensions. It has an Offline version of Google Drive so you can keep your most important documents local and everything syncs when you're connected. Fourth, it's stress-free. Because everything is synchronized to the cloud and the hardware is so cheap, you never have to worry about this thing. If it breaks (which it won't easily), just go to your nearest Best Buy, drop $250, and sign in with you Google account and you'll be back exactly where you left off (even down to the tabs you had open). I really can't recommend this device more highly. It's definitely not the right device for full-time development but as a companion to a larger laptop or a desktop it's a perfect second machine and much more useful than an iPad or Transformer-style tablet (I've had both).

101 points by Lightning 13y ago

Sorry but Chromebooks are a crap prospect for 99% of people and after about a week, any consumer will realise that. That happens post-sale which means the sales figures are good. They are lured in by the price and get screwed. That's all this shows. Crap netbooks, no-brand PC accessories and appliances, landfill Androids and supermarket bubble-packed electronics fill the same market sector. Edit: I stand by my comment :)

Zikes 13y ago
I'm sure the massive rate of returns and refunds will prove you right.
- PaulMcCartney 13y ago
  Do you have stats on this?
- tharrold 13y ago
  An anecdote from http://thecartoons.net/2013/06/24/why-i-didnt-buy-a-samsung-chromebook-yet/ http://thecartoons.net/2013/06/24/why-i-didnt-buy-a-samsung-... >I asked a couple different Best Buy reps if the Chromebooks had a big return rate. "All the time," both said frankly. "They return it in a couple of days. They don't know how it works."
  - Zikes 13y ago
    I'm sure that's true, however my own anecdotal experience with Best Buy is that they can't or don't properly educate consumers as to the right thing to buy in the first place.
ambiate 13y ago
It is truly a shame the cost of the Pixel is so high. During my Google Glass intro, I had the chance to use a Pixel during the meeting. My wife was more attracted to the Pixel than the Glass. They probably could have sold her one that day if they had pushed it on her.
abraininavat 13y ago
Do you realize that 99% of people use gmail, facebook, twitter, and play web games for 99% of the time?
gmac 13y ago
I don't think so. Don't compare the Chromebook with a laptop: compare it with not having the Internet. A year or two ago, I set up a retired family friend with an old desktop machine running Ubuntu and Chrome. He loved using it. Who wouldn't love the web if they'd never had it before? All he ever did was launch Chrome and browse websites. Sometimes he'd watch catch-up TV, but that was also through Chrome. A while back, a failed Ubuntu upgrade left the machine unbootable, and I had to reinstall Ubuntu for him. More recently, the HD crashed. So for his birthday we bought him a £200 Chromebook. It has exactly the same relevant capabilities as the old Ubuntu desktop, but it's small, light, low-power, and unlikely to get viruses or ask incomprehensible questions about software updates. Yes, an iPad might have worked too, but it would have been a lot more expensive, less familiar, and lacking in Flash (which, if all you ever do is browse websites, can still be somewhat limiting).
pkulak 13y ago
You're way off. Chromebooks fit cheap hardware with an appropriate operating system, such that performance is still acceptable. For example, that Samsung Chromebook with the ARM processor. It has a low-performance chip in it that only uses (I think) about 4 watts. So the battery can be tiny and it still gets very good battery life. Which means the whole machine can be very small, very easily. And it has a very nice trackpad and keyboard, with a reasonable screen. Samsung was able to cut costs in places that Chromeos doesn't _need_ it and make what is a very good machine for $250. Put Windows 8 on that thing and in two weeks the tray will be full of crapware icons and the whole thing will grind to a halt.
- kryten 13y ago
  You can't get a decent general purpose computer for $250. You might get a laptop shaped kiosk device, but not a computer.
jrockway 13y ago
I traded in my Thinkpad for a Pixel. The Pixel is the only laptop I use. (I would say it's the only laptop I own, but my apartment is a veritable computer museum and several of the specimens are laptops.) For me, the biggest problem with laptops is keeping them sync'd with my desktop. I could use a laptop as a primary computer, and with better expansion options than previously exited (USB3, dual Display Ports, etc.), but I still find laptops limiting, meaning I only use them when I can't have my desktop. My desktop has 6 cores, 4 drives, a high-quality sound card, a real serial port, etc. These things are all important for what I use a computer for, most of the time, and a laptop just isn't good enough to be my only machine. Chrome OS solves the synchronization problem for me. The configurability is restricted more than my average Linux box, so there is less to concern myself about setting up. My browser settings and extension sync, the desktop background syncs, etc. I can take a brand new Chromebook and be up in running in 5 minutes. That's the value proposition of Chrome OS for me. Once it is up and running, I can ssh to a real computer and browse the web, which is what I'd do with a ultra-excellent billion-core superlaptop 99% of the time anyway. The other 1% of the time, I'd like to use a laptop for portable software-defined radio applications, and as it stands, Chrome OS is terrible for that. But since Chrome has APIs for talking to USB, serial ports, and audio, I'm actually working on supporting controlling my radio and analyzing the I/Q inputs as a Chrome packaged app. The advantage for me is that I'll have SDR functionality on any computer I encounter: you can install packaged apps from the webstore on Chrome OS, Mac, Windows, and Linux, and everything will Just Work. Finally, the Pixel has the best screen I've ever seen on a computer. Anyway, Chrome OS is nowhere near its full potential just with the APIs available today. I think as more developers write awesome web apps or Chrome apps, more people will use Chrome OS, further incentivizing developers to create even better non-desktop apps. But as it stands, I am 100% satisfied with the Pixel as my primary laptop, and I imagine many other people are too.
- chinpokomon 13y ago
  I feel the same about my Pixel. I use the Remote Desktop Chrome app to log into any number of machines I've configured. If I need to SSH into another machine, there's an app for that too. I still use a "powerful" laptop as my work machine. but this is primarily because of the work I'm doing for a client. A significant part of my day I spend logged into remote systems; something I may start doing more on my Pixel.

mtgx 13y ago

I don't know how much it's in sales, but for what it's worth the Samsung ARM Chromebook has been the #1 bestselling laptop on Amazon for almost 9 months straight, since it came out last fall (I know because I've looked every now and then, and it's always been #1): http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-Laptop-Computers/zgbs/electronics/565108/ref=zg_bs_nav_e_2_541966 http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-Laptop-Comput... But I don't agree with the last paragraph that Chromebooks are ready to go to higher-end. At least for the next few years, Chromebooks should stay sub-$500, with most of them being ARM-based and sub-$300, but with a bigger battery (even more important than upgrading the resolution, I'd say). They last about 6-7 hours, but they have an embarrassingly small battery (about as big as the ones in 7" tablets). Double the battery size, keep the ARM processor up to date and the price under $300, and that should be the strategy going forward for the next few years for Chromebooks.

AUmrysh 13y ago
I think they can target both markets. Honestly, the Pixel seems overpriced for what it's intended to do, but if you plan on installing linux on it, you'll probably get your money's worth. I think the lower priced chromebooks are a great deal, and they should stay focused on that part of the market. I genuinely never would have purchased a netbook until I saw that the chromebook had the hardware it does at the low price point it has.
jsnell 13y ago
You've made this incorrect claim about battery size a bunch of times here, and I've corrected you a bunch of times. At this point I'm starting to think that you aren't just genuinely mistaken, but have some kind of agenda. (Even if I can't figure out what it could be). So for the Nth time, the ARM ChromeBook has a 30Wh battery. The Nexus 7 has a 16Wh battery. This is not "about the same", it's a factor of 2 difference. What would be about the same is the 2012 MacBook Air (35Wh) -- a device that incidentally has almost the same form factor as the ChromeBook. Now, Apple did manage to inch it up to 38 Wh in the latest release. Maybe Samsung will be able to do get similar relative improvements. But if you're genuinely suggesting that a low-end machine 11" super-thin laptop could have a 60Wh battery... Well, I just don't know what to say.

Roboprog 13y ago

At $200, it makes a nice second laptop that you aren't afraid to break/lose. It won't replace your "real" computer, but it's a better size for reading/writing email than a smart phone.

Glyptodon 13y ago

Chromebooks are the only small, portable, sub $500 PCs that don't completely suck. No wonder they sell. Everyone else is trying to charge $800+ even though laptops are perceived as something that should be cheap because they have a high risk of being stolen, getting damaged, or quickly going obsolete. It's like Google understood what the Netbook wanted to be, while everyone else dreamed of being Apple (without the least bit of ability to actually be Apple).

pkulak 13y ago
A friend of mine recently bought some ~$500 laptop with Windows 8 on it. Buying a new toy like that should be fun, but when that thing showed up he just spent a week being frustrated with it. And I was very little help. I don't even understand Windows 8. I've recommend Chromebooks to people, at half that cost, and when they get it they immediately love it.
Pxtl 13y ago
Yup. Probably the only other OS you could use to pull this kind of platform off would be Win8RT, but nobody wants to sell win8RT devices because they're scared of users freaking out when they find out their new Windows notebook doesn't actually run real Windows. Chrome and Win8RT are the only OSes that are good for an ARM-based notebook form-factor, and the ARM chip is necessary to make this device not suck at this end of the cost spectrum. That and frankly, I think we're all sick of supporting Grandma's windows machine, so getting computer-illiterate people onto a "web-only" device is great. I won't buy one, I don't need one, but I can see the niches it fills.
- tomsaffell 13y ago
  >so getting computer-illiterate people onto a "web-only" device is great. I recently replaced my wife's aging MacBook Air with the Samsung/ARM Chromebook - she much prefers it. It doesn't overheat, nor require frequent restarts. But she has a Masters in CS, and works from the command line, so let's add to, "computer-illiterate people" , "..and people who dont want to spend time nursing their computer".

rwhite 13y ago

Interesting, lets see if the ecosystem picks it up.

soundoflight 13y ago

The article doesn't seem to mention if this is cutting into the netbook/cheap pc market or if it is actual growth in this type of laptop. Anyone have any ideas on this?

VLM 13y ago

chromebooks own 25% of the market under $300. OK. So who's the 75% they're eating into, I know thats not apple. Go to amazon, and its ... nothing. There doesn't appear to be a sub $300 laptop market other than chromebooks? Unless they're really twisting definitions and calling a $186 ipod touch a "laptop under $300 that isn't a chromebook" I might have missed it in the article.

michaelt 13y ago
Netbooks like [1] perhaps? [1] http://www.amazon.com/Acer-AOD270-1375-Netbook-Processor-Espresso/dp/B007582KGM/ http://www.amazon.com/Acer-AOD270-1375-Netbook-Processor-Esp...
- VLM 13y ago
  Could be, but then instead of writing "Chromebooks have in just the past eight months snagged 20 percent to 25 percent of the U.S. market for laptops that cost less than $300, according to NPD Group Inc." they would have used the word netbook, or "electronic device" or something like that. There is a marketing problem in that I have a nexus 7 tablet and a bluetooth keyboard. What's the marketing message differentiating my nexus 7 from a chromebook, other than the screen is a wee bit bigger on the chromebook and the apps on the nexus 7 almost perfectly match the apps on my phone? There doesn't appear to be a marketing message differentiating them.
bdcravens 13y ago
A quick search on BestBuy.com turns up 5-6 PC laptops less than $300 (looking at only in-store options, not their listing of "online" laptops where they partner with other sellers). I see similarly priced machines in WalMart alot too.

abdophoto 13y ago

Do you guys feel that this suggests that computers will require less local storage and depend mostly on the cloud as we move forward?

awaghadashish 13y ago
they might still have local storage, but depending on the cloud's a no brainer IMO The main issue here is can people do without native apps and only a browser. I think a lot will change when we have programming IDEs and Photoshop inside a browser.
- chinpokomon 13y ago
  I agree. I haven't found all my desktop equivalent apps yet, but I miss them less and less with each passing day.

antitrust 13y ago

Consumers know the pattern: over time, technology gets cheaper. Laptops and desktops are not selling well because, at the same time there have been no huge leaps in actually useful technology, manufacturers are trying to upsell us toward fancier machines that don't actually help us do anything. At this point, a regular laptop should cost as much as a cell phone and be about as efficient. Instead, we're getting $1400 "ultra-books" that aren't so ultra that anyone actually needs one.

evilduck 13y ago
An unsubsidized smartphone is often more expensive than a budget to midrange laptop.

awaghadashish 13y ago

Just put Xcode in a browser and I am all for Chromebooks and I am sure it will happen one day!

eliben 13y ago

It's hard to over-estimate the convenience of a laptop you never fear losing, breaking or seeing die some horrible way. Just take another Chromebook, login, possibly wait a minute for all your apps to sync (if you use large apps) and viola - welcome back to your computer. Viruses? hah. And all that for half the price of an iPad. This is the laptop parents can give kids and folks can give their elderly parents without worrying about spending too much time fixing it and removing viruses.

jmduke 13y ago
I think the Chromebook paradigm is going to take some time to catch on, but once it does it's going to be terrific for everyone. I can't wait til it spreads to other platforms (namely smartphones and gaming consoles) as well. "Hey, my phone's out of battery. Can I check my texts on yours real quick?"
- mehrzad 13y ago
  Only if it's on my personal, secure, and private cloud.
  - eliben 13y ago
    Feel free to build that cloud and provide web access to it - that's possible today from any phone, I guess.
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  Yep, ubiquitous laptops with centralised control from a single entity and fine grained tracking built right in. This is terrific for everyone!
  - VikingCoder 13y ago
    A) many people use Crouton, so there's no centralized control AT ALL. Even if they don't, the only centralized control is over what version of Chrome you're running, and OPTIONALLY whether you're allowed to log in to the device, what your preferences were, and what windows you have open. B) there's no fine-grained tracking built right in. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. You have the source code to Chromium available to you, please provide evidence. If you believe the visible source code was augmented to add tracking, prior to being installed on the device, then it should be relatively easy to show a Wireshark log demonstrating the fine-grained tracking you speak of.

vinkelhake 13y ago

I happened to get a Chromebook for free some time ago. At first I didn't think I'd have much use for it. At the time I did much of my casual browsing on a tablet. For "serious" stuff I had laptops. I've found that it has displaced the tablet for most casual browsing. I think the main reasons is that while it's slow, it's still faster than a tablet. Having a real keyboard is very nice. It also works well as an SSH terminal.

boingboing 13y ago
I've been curious about the temperature, does it got as hot as a laptop, or is it cooler?

mdm_ 13y ago

I think the Chromebook looks interesting, but in Canada the major selling point (price) is moot. Right now on Amazon.ca the cheapest Chromebook is $399, while in the $349-379 range I can choose from several makes and models of fully-functional 15" laptops.

morgante 13y ago

I don't think this really speaks to any growth in that market sector. Rather, Google is just taking over the low-end sector with software which matches the abysmal hardware. Basically we're looking at the bifurcation of the market. People who can afford it have Apple devices and everyone else will end up with Google products subsidized by advertising dollars.

rednukleus 13y ago
You speak as though Windows and Linux dont exist. Over 90% of the market use those operating systems. Did I misinterpret your comment, or do you really live in that much of a bubble?

bdcravens 13y ago

At my local Best Buy, they're always sold out. A few times I've overheard conversations of folks checking it out. They just want a cheap laptop, and you hear the usual questions: "Can I hook up my scanner?" "Will it run Call of Duty?" "Can I sync my iPhone?" I think it's a great device, and I'll likely buy 1 or 2 or a few. However, I don't think that the marketing communicates what it really is, and folks are getting burned as a result. I wonder, when sales performance is reported, is this gross sales, or net after returns?

fishtoaster 13y ago
I bought one at bestbuy last week (as I was about to leave on a trip), and I definitely got the impression that most buyers didn't know what they were getting into. Several salespeople double-checked that I knew this was not a "normal laptop." One guy said they'd been getting a lot of returns from people not knowing what "chromebook" entails.

gwu78 13y ago

Let's say the user just wants the hardware and form factor. Can the user dd over ChromeOS and use their own bootloader and open source OS? Are these netbooks "remote controlled" by Google at such a low level that the user cannot "opt out"?

chinpokomon 13y ago
You can install a dev bootloader, but the way it initializes the system is different than what you may be familiar with
- gwu78 13y ago
  Any pointers to read more about this? FWIW, I'm familiar with BSD bootloaders. I can follow the Linux boot process, but haven't invested much time in mastering it.

saturdaysaint 13y ago

Yeah, they're my default PC recommendation these days for non-power users. Enough power for web/e-mail/streaming video, 6 hours of battery life, great form factor, and build quality that's shockingly better than just about any PC I've used before this year. I'd certainly recommend them to anyone looking for a second PC. My girlfriend and I have one in our living room sitting next to our more capable Macbook Air and I have little urge to upgrade to 2 high end systems.

nzealand 13y ago

Almost the perfect computer for Grandma.... except still no skype.

chinpokomon 13y ago
I've haven't missed Skype yet. Voice calling in Gmail works perfectly for me on my Pixel. If I need Skype, I can use it on my phone. As an absolutely worst case scenario, I can use Skype through Crouton.

blahbl4hblah 13y ago

They ARE the market for laptops under 300 dollars. Any growth in that market means big numbers because it barely exists. This is just more Google cock holding.

agent123 13y ago

Doesn't it concern anyone that this is a computer on which absolutely nothing is private?

kryten 13y ago
Make it cheap and no one will care any more. Make it shiny and the tech pundits will slobber all over it. It concerns me for reference. The device is dangerous to say the least. I wish Stallman would write about them as people might start paying attention to those of us who can see what is coming.
dragonwriter 13y ago
Well, no, the OS is software on which, arguably, nothing is private. But you can put a different OS on a Chromebook, and apparently plenty of people who are concerned about ChromeOS -- whether for privacy or other reasons -- are putting Linux on them and finding Chromebooks a good way to get inexpensive (or not-so-inexpensive, in the case of the Pixel) Linux laptops.
chinpokomon 13y ago
It isn't any different than running Chrome on your other legacy platforms. Privacy comes in different forms. The content I place on my drive directly is private. Beyond that, it has the same privacy as your web browser.

uslic001 13y ago

My two best buys in the past year were a 200 dollar new chromebook for my oldest daughter and a 375 dollar new ASUS 11.6 inch touchscreen Windows 8 laptop. The Chromebook is the only computer in our house that has never crashed and never had a virus/malware problem. The ASUS Vivobook has worked great and I enjoy Windows 8 on the touchscreen. I hardly ever use my Ipad 3 anymore. I will never waste money on an Apple product again as I get a much better bang for my buck with the alternatives on the market now.

jvandonsel 13y ago

Two kids. Two chromebooks, plus a web proxy server I can centrally whitelist (squid). Great combination.

mmgutz 13y ago

Not sure why this is a surprise. Have we all forgotten how popular netbooks were? The Chromebook is a better netbook.

AsymetricCom 13y ago

Remember when netbooks were a thing, but the industry crushed them because there was no profit margin?

zmmmmm 13y ago

> The devices had about 4 percent to 5 percent > share in the first quarter That is really quite stunning in the context of the whole laptop market. I am kind of intrigued at how Google is pulling this off. There are so many good arguments against a Chromebook for most people. You can buy an ordinary laptop for similar price and just run Chrome and get the same thing but with more features. Even without that, this seems to violate the law that a new entrant into a market has to be not just better but compellingly better to get market share. How is Google doing it? Are they going direct to pitch these to bulk buyers like academic, students, businesses, governments? Or are "normal" consumers actually wandering into Best Buy and choosing it over the Windows laptop right next to it?

kunai 13y ago
> How is Google doing it A bit of both approaches, to be honest. People used to argue that OS X is the far better OS because of its dead simplicity, but that's falling flat on its face now that Chromebooks have arrived. No malware PERIOD -- no code can execute without some sort of complicated exploit, and if that wasn't enough, Linux runs at its base, which adds an extra layer of security. The beauty of the Chromebook is its simplicity, and extensibility. It's practically a $249 Linux box for the power users -- load up crouton and off you go. For the consumers who never need to touch the Linux layer, they can use the top layer without ever seeing Linux, and enjoy computing nirvana. Once NaCl is mature enough that most developers use it and once the Web Store populates with offline apps, watch this start to take off. It will ride on the same merits that drove OS X for over a decade, but it will fly higher. Just you wait. This is the final redemption for desktop Linux.

metaprinter 13y ago

I bought the acer chromebook for my 5yo. He loves it for playing Lego games, watching YouTube and Kahn Academy vids, as well as using code academy and getting emails from gamgam. I borrow it for business trips and works well enough. Best laptop I ever bought.

tmzt 13y ago
Is he playing Lego games in Chrome OS or are you running a different system on it?

habosa 13y ago

I have said it many times on HN and I'll say it again: I LOVE my Samsung ARM Chromebook. I'll just quote my previous comments: It's $250 so there's no argument about buying X or Y netbook instead, you can barely get anything with a keyboard that browses the internet for that price. Also for that price you get 2 (3?) years of 100GB on Google Drive and 12 Gogo WiFi passes, which together are already worth over $250. So you can throw the device in the trash and still come out on top. Now to the computer itself: First, the battery life is awesome, 6.5 hours of solid use (WiFi model) and since it turns on from cold in ~7 seconds you can turn it off between sessions and not lose any power at all. If that's too long for you just close the lid, you'll lose about 1% per hour but everything resumes instantly when you open it (and I do mean INSTANTLY). Second, the hardware is really excellent for the price. The keyboard is my favorite laptop keyboard out there (even against my MBP) and the trackpad is second only to Apple devices imo. It's the same weight/size as a MacBook Air but maybe 0.2" thicker. The only hardware downsides are the plastic chassis and the screen's somewhat bad viewing angles. Third, it runs most of what you need right out of the box. I don't even have my in developer mode, you don't need that to use Google's Secure Shell and Remote Desktop Chrome extensions. It has an Offline version of Google Drive so you can keep your most important documents local and everything syncs when you're connected. Fourth, it's stress-free. Because everything is synchronized to the cloud and the hardware is so cheap, you never have to worry about this thing. If it breaks (which it won't easily), just go to your nearest Best Buy, drop $250, and sign in with you Google account and you'll be back exactly where you left off (even down to the tabs you had open). I really can't recommend this device more highly. It's definitely not the right device for full-time development but as a companion to a larger laptop or a desktop it's a perfect second machine and much more useful than an iPad or Transformer-style tablet (I've had both).