Quote:
Originally Posted by Sregener
It's actually not very surprising to me. Apple's base hardware is significantly more expensive than Windows, which is also significantly more expensive than a Chromebook. While $200 will get you a decent Chromebook, it takes closer to $400 to get a basic Windows machine. And the cheapest MacBook Air is $1000.
Now, to get comparable performance and screen quality from a Windows laptop would actually get you close to $1000, but that's not the issue when you're looking at units sold. Cheaper units typically sell more volume. And the iPads have gotten so good that most Apple fans no longer see the need for a laptop/desktop. And at half the price.
The Chromebook has the potential to eat into iPad sales because it offers many of the same features at better than half the price. Sure, it's not a retina screen, and the battery life of most of these models is pathetic compared to an iPad, but the built-in keyboard and larger screen size probably makes up for some of these disadvantages. But the Chromebook offers snappy performance and fast start-up times, which makes it worlds better than a low-end Windows laptop for most uses.
But the question that remains to be answered is how dedicated Google will be in supporting these products long-term. Given how long they support phones and tablets (2 years or less), will they treat the Chromebook like a disposable product, or will they continue to provide software updates for older machines? I'm writing this post on a circa 2004 Powerbook that Apple hasn't officially supported for years, but I'm using a December 2013 compiled browser with the latest security patches on it. Will a Chromebook still run a relatively new browser in 10 years, even if Google stops supporting it?
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Afv011 points out that many Chromebooks with Haswell have 9 hours battery life. Most all devices will soon have Haswell. The Apple Air uses Haswell, so that will be a even playing field.
For example the new Acer $199 Chromebook has Haswell and 9 hours which of course is twice as long as the original $199 Acer Chromebook.
A real interest to me is that the HP 11 Chromebook has a IPS screen which Apple typically has.
I want a Chromebook with IPS, Haswell, and more than 4GB of RAM or at least the ability to add up to say 8GB of Ram As for storage, I would like a HDD, say 320GB or so which Acer has previously offered at no extra charge over a 16GB SSD. I might be satisfied with a 32GB SSD like Acer offers on its 720P.
Give me a better CPU and the above, and I will gladly pay $400 for a Chromebook.
I expect that some enterprising tech gurus will soon come up with a solution to my other outstanding problem with Chromebooks so far. The ability to do a local off line print.