I think price is the real key. If it's around the $200 mark, I'll probably even pick one up for surfing while sitting on the couch or toilet.
My grandparents need/want a laptop, and literally all they'll ever use it for is to google stuff. They'll possibly want to upload pictures from their digital camera they never use, but if that's made simple via USB and some cloud based service (existing or otherwise), then this device would be perfect for them. <$300 and I'd get them a chrome laptop. >$300 and I'd get them a cheap windows laptop. My wife is using a $349 toshiba full sized laptop right now, and it does everything she needs. But if I could save them $100 or so on one of these, that would definitely be the way I'd go.
Another important feature if you or your non-techie friends and family value your time is the protection from malware recovery and other sysadmin tasks.
But you could likely get a cheap Windows netbook for nearly the same price, as OEM Windows 7 Starter will cost ~$40 OEM. So rather than $200 you pay pay $240, but you also get the ability to run Office, iTunes, FireFox, hook up printers, scanners, cameras. etc...
Is this worth an extra $40? It feels like it is, even if I rarely use any of these features. But there's probably also some value in being able to say, "This device is only for the cloud, period". But I feel like I'd rather get a tablet device (the Nook Color is already a mere $249).
It's hard to believe a stateless box can be hard to manage. There isn't much to go wrong in it. At least, not when compared to a barebones Windows netbook.
Support and managing state are two different things.
For friends and family, the support I provide is almost never about state or ramifications of state. The most common set of questions are actually around printing (why does it print the webpage name at the bottom of the page? I don't want that. Or the computer says it's out of ink, but I just put new ink in it). Chrome just complicates this.
The next biggest set of issues is hooking up the laptop to TVs. Nobody did this a year ago, and this holiday season I've already gotten like three calls on how to do this.
Windows and MacOS have gotten sufficiently mature that a lot of the old issues just don't come up any more (or we've past that stage where there were a lot of adult complete computer neophytes... even my parents are decade old computer users now).
Why would ChromeOS complicate tasks like page setup? It seems printing is somewhat different (not sure - I haven't used a Cr-48 yet) but it can't possibly be so complicated my mother (an archetypal 75 year-old lady) would have problems. About a month ago, I set her up with a USB printer (I took away my networked printer), Ubuntu detected it immediately when plugged. No driver download, no nothing. It all just worked.
Anyway, if page setup and connecting external screens are your worst problems, consider yourself very lucky. Most of us have to deal with the occasional malware infection (luckily, I don't). The horror stories are often amusing.
Fortunatley, I've only had one malware infection amongst friends and family, and it was on the Amiga -- where I'd inadvertantly infected my neighborhood with an infected disk. Felt like a jerk.
I ran w/o any virus protection until about 2005 on a PC and never got any malware. Lucky? Maybe, but I see so little malware amongst "my users" that I wonder where the ruckus comes from. In any case, I do now have everyone on MS Security Essentials.
ChromeOS doesn't complicate page setup, but it printing. With printing you need to have a "server" computer hooked up to the printer. Now there are issues around the other computer being turned on, and diagnosing issues at the host computer rather than at the machine their doing the print job from. Basically take every problem you have today, but then add another computer in the middle.
In my extended social circle there are two groups with observably higher computer problem frequency: the teens and the seniors. The teens are heavy gamers, prefer Windows and frequent all the worst places of the net. The seniors exchange an astonishing volume of PowerPoint presentations and click on every link they get by e-mail. Both groups have their computers rebuilt ever 6 months or so. Not only because of malware, but performance issues that appear to make the machines unbearably slow (maybe due to installing two or three smiley-making extensions to their IM clients)
Actually, I have, and it's perfectly adequate if you're using a netbook as a netbook. (The biggest number of Windows complaints I see on the eeeuser.com forums involve people who have 64-bit driver problems, for example.)
I mean, if you're comparing running a Chrome browser under Windows 7 Starter with running the Chrome "OS" on top of Linux, it seems to me the biggest difference will be the option of persistent storage, not the polish of the user experience.
That said, I have two netbooks and both are dual-booting Windows 7 Starter and Ubuntu 10.10 desktop.
Agreed: and I think the ultimate target market is the enterprise space (rather than the grandparents) where a company wants to get a lot of employees mobile and online quick and cheap without security risk or proprietary software costs
I agree on the price point, although it's not clear how you could get to that price point -- ditching the Windows tax doesn't buy you that much.
I think the biggest problem I have with it is that -- barring a revolutionary cheap price point -- there seems to be no Unique Selling Proposition or compelling use case that distinguishes it from the capabilities of existing netbooks.
The hardware will be cheaper. These things run on ARM processors and a free Linux kernel / firmware. With a few OEMs on board, I think that it's absolutely feasible to see these things around $99 - (perhaps free if paired with Wireless carrier and a data contract)
Think about that for a second: A $99 'laptop' that you don't need to worry about upgrading or going out of date like a regular PC, that has a much longer battery life, is lighter, smaller, and 'just works' for it's intended purpose better than a PC.
It sounds nuts, but after having used one of these for the last week, I am more convinced than ever that Microsoft/Intel is in big trouble unless they do something pretty radical and perhaps painful to their immediate existing business.
*edit -- I've just read that Cr-48 runs Atom. I was told it was an ARM chip. Certainly the chipset requirements factor into my argument here.
Yep, from the beta samples it appears they're using commodity hardware, so the only savings will be the Windows tax. Basically, if you took the original Asus 701 netbook and made some upgrades (7" -> 12" screen; 600 MHz Centrino -> 1.6 GHz Atom; 500 MB -> 2 GB RAM; 4 GB -> 16 GB flash drive) you'd have the Cr-48 specs.
Asus differentiates its wide range of netbooks with price point variations based on different battery specs, hard drive size, Bluetooth, etc.
The only variation I can see for commercial roll-out would be in, say, the 3G module added by a particular service provider. Given what has happened with the added "features" of some Android devices, I'm not sure that a Verizon-specific Chromebook would be a big seller. A vendor-specific would seem to lead to contracts and account personalization details that would kill the anonymity focus of the device.
But, How are they going to reach that price point? Specially since they are not going to produce them, and at least this model is pretty ordinary hardware(runs an Atom, not an ARM CPU). And, why manufacturers would want to canibalize their already tight margins on netbooks?
Besides, most people I know, would pay 100$ for the ability of running a "real" OS.
Because it needs 3G connectivity to be usefull.
The people charging you $40/month (really $100) for a 3year contract will be happy to subsidize a $200 unit
It is amazing that the article treats Google TV failing as a foregone conclusion:
Alas, Google TV fell apart because it didn't have great app support, and more importantly, that content owners didn't want their content shared through the browser.
When Google is telling the OEMs who had planned CES 2011 Google TV rollouts to pull back and delay announcements so that they can "refine" the software then you know things are bad. 2011 is gone for Google TV, and by 2012 they will be facing better, strong competition from people who actually know what they are doing in the consumer space. Apple will keep getting better, Netflix and Amazon will get aggressive about going directly to the TV manufacturers, Roku and Boxee will continue to improve and expand their distribution pipeline, etc. Google sent a wake-up call to the content creators and distributors (who returned to favor to Google) that will also drive most of them to partner with one or two non-Google internet-enabled TV distribution platforms.
Google whiffed in making a play for the TV space and their competitors are not going to give them an opportunity for a second chance.
Just a note, in case people don't know, right now Google TV has no 3rd party Android apps. Only web apps which can't interface with any of the TV components which is where the coolness occurs.
3rd party Android apps aren't supposed to come out until Q1, but I'm not sure they are going to hit that date considering the "don't show anything at CES" stance Google has recently taken.
- A computer does not cost as much as a car, so it's not as expensive to buy more than you need.
- It can't be cheaper enough than ordinary PCs to accept the restricted functionality it offers, because ordinary PCs are already available at the bottom of the pricing barrel.
- Most people need wireless connectivity not more than once or twice a year.
I'm not saying it will succeed (that remains to be seen) but:
1. Not if you don't have the money for a computer in the first place. My grandparents would really like to get online, and the difference between a $400 laptop and a $200 netbook is significant.
2. Not if all you need is the basic functionality this device offers.
3. This is just all sort of wrong if you don't live in a metropolitan area.
4. That's your opinion, and a valid one, but I love the cloud. I'm moving everything I can to it. Of course, I don't personally concern myself too much with security, but I still think it's a great tool for a lot of casual computer users.
1 > I think the number of people in that position is relatively few. Specifically: the number of people who, when buying a new computer once in four years will consider a $100 difference in price significant, is small.
2 > Maybe, but there's also a question of the quality of that functionality. The cloud equivalents of almost any piece of software are significantly more limited even for non-power users.
3 > Meh? Do people in rural areas lack wifi? Do they take their laptops out of their houses to places without wifi but with 3G signal much more often than people in urban areas? I doubt it, but maybe there is something about rural people that I am not aware of. :)
4 > I think the cloud has a lot of potential, but as it is right now I believe it has been oversold. But you're right, there are many valid opinions on this one.
3. Yup. I'm exclusively accessing internet through 3G right now, and I'm only 15 minutes from town. No DSL or cable options for me.
4. I agree it's been totally oversold. Those "To the cloud!" emails make me roll my eyes, even if that one does have April Oneal from TMNT in it.
> - Most people need wireless connectivity not more than once or twice a year.
Where do you get this idea? Why in the world would I ever want to "wire" my house for the internet by running cat5 cables everywhere when I can buy a box that will do all the work for me?
The wireless I'm talking about is the 3G wireless. That's the wireless discussed in the article too. It obviously cannot be wifi that they are discussing because that is not a differentiating factor between this laptop and non-Chrome OS laptops.
As a gamer, I trust cat5 cables way more than wireless connections (I have both at home)...anything to mitigate the possibility of disconnection and higher latency.
I also don't have any numbers to prove this, but I'm fairly certain my download/upload speeds are faster on cat5 than wireless as well. It's really noticeable when I remote desktop another computer on the network -- on cat5 I notice very little latency, while on wireless I get constant fps lag.
At least in the UK, almost everyone uses wireless rather than wire connections in the home 73% of the UK population have home internet access, and 60% of the UK population use the internet every day.
I think there's a huge market for a personal home browsing device, which is a large use case of the ipad, available here at a much lower cost.
# [These days] the only people who know how to take advantage of all [the functionality of their computers] are the people writing malicious code.
# If it's $199 or less, it'll be a big hit; likewise, if it's over $299, it just won't make sense.
Bad points:
# Even if it doesn't compete on price with iPads and Android tabs, it's going to compete for the same audience... if you have a tablet, you won't want this also.
# [People] are going to wise up, and realize that they've been paying for too much computer.
[we (Americans) have been paying for too much car for years]
The developing world will eat this up. Sure there are connectivity issues, but those can be overcome. Many countries that never had phones now have cellphones.
I've always seen the main roadblock to computer adoption as the babysitting nightmare that is the Windows PC. 100 computers in a village or remote school are 100 headaches for somebody. Now a good percentage of those issues are irrelevant. Sure there will be other problems, but this is a huge improvement.
I just got the CR-48 today (really surprised, no clue it was on the way). Happy surprised with the hardware thus far, and as commented above, it was the easiest setup I've experienced in an OS by far.
Need to figure out a way to get dropbox to somehow work and would like to get a command prompt to be able to SSH into the server.
I also got mine today (about a week from submitting my application). Hardware is great, imo. The trackpad take some getting used to coming from a Macbook, although it's no worse than any other netbook I've played with.
As for their OS, it's Chrome-the-browser with a login page and a few more hidden about:config style pages, no frills. I think my wife will love it when she gets home. All of her computing use cases are internet based, and we were discussing buying her an iPad, but she'll probably try to steal this for her couch computing usage. SD slot and file management seem a little iffy right now (downloading a PDF from google docs worked, uploading a picture from my digital camera didn't).
As for the command prompt, you can hit ctrl-alt-T to get to the console, but it's very limited. SSH is password only, not key based, which is practically a deal breaker for me.
The Verizon wireless setup was painless, and when connected it shows you how much data you have left in the context menu which is really nice (although you do have to create an account with Verizon and provide a CC number, even for the free service. I figure it's stored for immediate plan upgrade options since they don't have overage fees).
As someone else mentioned, I think a Google hosted VPN service would be really nice for this. More of the "no worries OS" since 100mb is very little wireless data and I'm not all that tempted to be daring and hop on public wifi and access any personal data.
If they want it to succeed, they need to add a VPN client, and run the VPN servers themselves. In the era of Firesheep, nobody should be trusting public wifi networks.
The point is that the machine itself is more secure, not the whole ecosystem around it. Nobody claims that Chrome OS will somehow decrease (or increase) the probability on server-side attacks.
ChromeOS is zero maintenance. As a technical person with a few gadgets, that's one less thing to worry about. For non-technical people I can only imagine it as revolutionary.
Android, by comparison, is the Microsoft Windows of mobile operating systems. It requires customization, maintenance, and care. If I recommended an Android device to someone I am certain I would be paid regular visits as the designated mechanic. And I'm certain I'd have a checklist of stuff I'd have to do before even handing it over. I've used one. I see how people here are constantly fiddling on their significant other's behalf.
I think people here discount ChromeOS because they can work around Android's quirks and are happy hackers. They can't see how software maintenance is more like incomprehensible house chores than playing with Legos.
> ChromeOS is zero maintenance. As a technical person with a few gadgets, that's one less thing to worry about. For non-technical people I can only imagine it as revolutionary.
For many this has been a key selling point with the iPad. But this one also has keyboard and Google Docs...
It's even more of a selling point with this vs. the iPad because the first thing you have to when you set up a new iPad is plug it into a computer running iTunes.
This requires nothing but an internet connection. Just turn it on and go. (in seconds)
I have the Cr-48, and think it's great. The biggest use I see for it is in enterprise, since it would be so easy to set up a network of these (since the web is much more cross compatible than other things). Working in the cloud makes a big organization much more nimble which is worth a great deal to them.
I see a lot more barriers to this entering the enterprise market than it entering personal markets.
For example your company would have to run entirely on web apps already or kiss all of your existing infrastructure goodbye (shared drives, word documents, excel documents, externally received word/excel, Lotus Notes, Exchange, etc.)
Also if your company depends on using any other sort of software it's a no go, anything installed like AutoCad, Photoshop, Development tools, etc. I think many industries have one key piece of software that they can't exist without that must be installed.
And how does working in the cloud make an organisation more nimble? If anything it makes them more exposed to risk and of unintended downtimes when their internet connection plays up.
For example one of the companies I'm contracting with uses manymoon. Aside from being a bit poo, every now and then it stops working. Sometimes it's their servers, sometimes it's our wifi, sometimes the internet connection. It's not a key piece of software, but it makes you think of the kind of risk you're exposing yourself to. What if tomorrow google apps was shutdown due to a court order or bankruptcy? I know google won't go bankrupt, but there's no saying your other providers won't. Or a patent war which shuts down a key part of the system?
Obviously there are massive benefits like not having to run your own infrastructure, but it's still a risk.
>shared drives, word documents, excel documents, externally received word/excel, Lotus Notes, Exchange, etc.
All can be virtualized. You'd be surprised how many large companies are (legally) running Office and productivity applications on say, a Citrix server, and already treating full blown (expensive) windows clients like "dumb terminals"
The difference can be imperceptible, even to someone whose tech savvy. (Local desktop icons, no noticeable decline in performance, etc)
