"Why Chromebook Pundits Are Out of Touch"

[ApK]

Wow, you broke a months-long posting abstention just be an...um...intelligent posterior?
Slow day?

[Prestidigitweeze]

Hey, I thought taosaur's comment was rather funny. I know what he means about the subject header -- and I'm the one who affixed it to the stucco firmament.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by ApK

Wow, you broke a months-long posting abstention just be an...um...intelligent posterior?
Slow day?

Maybe the sunlight bothered him and he woke up.

[frahse]

APK,

what really gets some folks is that "the times are changing" and perhaps in less than preferred direction for them personally.

From liliputing.com this morning:

Liliputing.com
"Reports: PC sales decline by 10% but Chromebooks climb 112%

01/10/2014 at 11:00 AM by Brad Linder 5 Comments

There’s good news and bad news for PC makers in the latest reports from research firms IDC, Gartner, and NPD. The bad news is that most reports suggest PC sales in 2013 were down about 10 percent from the previous year, with 4th quarter/holiday shipments down about 6 percent from 2013. The good news is that’s not quite as bad as some had predicted.

Another bit of good news? The growth of new product categories are helping to offset declining sales of traditional PCs.

For example, NPD reports that Chromebook sales are up 112 percent from a year earlier."

For myself, this is good news.

I am itching to pull the "buy trigger" on my new Chromebook, and it is not a price driven decision.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by frahse

I am itching to pull the "buy trigger" on my new Chromebook, and it is not a price driven decision.

My decision was based on two hardware features - Haswell CPU for long battery life and 4GB RAM. Price was number three on the list.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by ApK

True, but we tend to set value by comparing costs to other similar things.
Even the Apple Macbook Air 13" is only $100 more than the 11", and that's in Apple dollars, which is currently less than $25 in normal money.*

ApK

*Exchange rate based on the price difference of a 32GB and 64GB iPod Touch compared to the price for a 32GB micro sd card.... ;-)

The basic problem with this approach is that with Apple you are comparing in-brand and in a single line where presumably they are striving to maintain a similar level of quality; with the Chromebooks you are comparing across companies which might make different choices of OMD, component quality, etc.

--
Bill

[AndrewH]

Interesting article about Micro$oft's anti-Chromebook ads:
Why Microsoft’s Scroogled Ads Are Wrong About Chromebooks

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

Interesting article about Micro$oft's anti-Chromebook ads:
Why Microsoft’s Scroogled Ads Are Wrong About Chromebooks

Yeah, the basic issue here is management of expectations. In original conception, chromebooks are essentially thin clients and that was what they were when first produced, but Google quickly added offline functionality that has allowed them to transcend that niche. Other than printing, they will cover almost all the things 80% of people use their computers for. They arguably are the perfect second or third computer for a family (at least one that doesn't do high end gaming on their computers ).

--
Bill

[ApK]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

The basic problem with this approach is that with Apple you are comparing in-brand and in a single line where presumably they are striving to maintain a similar level of quality; with the Chromebooks you are comparing across companies which might make different choices of OMD, component quality, etc.

--
Bill

True enough, I am thinking more a long the lines I would think if these were two comparable Acer models with the screen size being the main difference.

Still, aside from the Pixel, which is clearly a "concept machine" of sorts, I think when the price of a Chromebook gets close to the price of a similar Windows machine, then it's a harder sell.

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Other than printing, they will cover almost all the things 80% of people use their computers for. They arguably are the perfect second or third computer for a family (at least one that doesn't do high end gaming on their computers ).

True enough in my family's case. True at $199, anyway.
And since we had to replace our printer recently, and ended up with one with Google Cloud Print built in, the printing issue is covered too.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

Interesting article about Micro$oft's anti-Chromebook ads:
Why Microsoft’s Scroogled Ads Are Wrong About Chromebooks

It's a good article. No one should be surprised that a pawnshop wouldn't give you enough money for a Chromebook to get you to Hollywood; after all, the Chromebook only costs around $200 to $250 in the first place. Bring in a Windows laptop, and they aren't exactly going to be throwing money at you either. Besides, computers depreciate very quickly. It seems to be an eternal phenomenon of people trying to resell their computer for close to what they paid for it a few years ago, only to be shocked that it is nearly worthless. I would be very reluctant to buy a laptop from a pawnshop, I might simply be buying someone else's problem.

"Chromebook pundits" do in fact exist. That's not really in dispute. One need only point to the articles written by people who insist that the Chromebook is a bad idea for everyone. If it's not for everyone, it's therefore not for me, so if I find that it meets my needs, I must be mistaken. It would be just as mistaken for me to stridently insist that the Chromebook is right for everyone.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

It's a good article. No one should be surprised that a pawnshop wouldn't give you enough money for a Chromebook to get you to Hollywood; after all, the Chromebook only costs around $200 to $250

Bus fare from Vegas to LA is about $25. She almost certainly would have gotten enough. Even at THAT pawn shop (unless MS pays them to refuse all Chromebooks now...).

[bullet]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Cinnamon, not so much...

I'll have to take a closer look at MATE. Looks pretty much like the gnome I'm running here on Ubuntu. I'll have to see what/if the differences.

I am running Linux Mint 14, 15, and 16 KDE 64 bit on Desktops and Laptops, Ubuntu Saucy KDE on my wife's HP Chromebook 14 and am quite happy with ability to control my desktop environments. I am a fugitive from Gnome and Unity...

[frahse]

More from the "Register."

"Why 2014 might just be the year of the Google Chromebook
Netbooks done properly: Cheap, the right size and without Windows
By Tony Smith, 10th January 2014

Can Google’s Chromebook become the laptop platform of choice during 2014? Probably not, but there’s certainly demand for it. According to US market-watcher NPD, during the 11 months from January through November 2013, the platform’s share of the computing device market had risen to 9.6 per cent from just 0.2 per cent in the same months of the previous year.

By contrast, Apple’s laptops accounted for a mere 1.8 per cent of the market in 2013, down from 2.6 per cent the year before. Windows-based laptops also declined, though they remain the biggest seller: their combined share fell from 42.9 per cent to 34.1 per cent.

Do the sums, and that means Windows laptops took 75 per cent of the US notebook market, Chromebooks 21 per cent and Apple a measly four per cent. Some 6.6 million laptops were shipped through commercial channels, says NPD, of which just under 1.4 million were Chromebooks. Five Chromebooks were sold for every MacBook."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01...omebook_surge/

The new kid on the block is spreading out.

In particular Apple seems to be losing share.

[Sregener]

Originally Posted by frahse

In particular Apple seems to be losing share.

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?

[afv011]

Originally Posted by Sregener

...and the battery life of most of these models is pathetic compared to an iPad...

Recent models with Haswell CPUs offer 9-10 hours battery life, that's the same battery life claimed for the ipad air.