8 ms·

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

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.

nswanberg 16y ago
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.
samuel 16y ago
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.
- Qz 16y ago
  'most people you know' aren't really ChromeOS's target market.
  - samuel 16y ago
    So it must be really tiny. Seriously, this thing is doomed unless gets really, really cheap, and I don't think how it could be.
    - iuygtrftghyujik 16y ago
      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
redwood 16y ago
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
kenjackson 16y ago
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).
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > But you could likely get a cheap Windows netbook for nearly the same price And be their support guy forever?
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    And Chrome OS fixes that problem? You clearly haven't received your cr-48... :-)
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      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.
      - kenjackson 16y ago
        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).
tygorius 16y ago
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.
- spinchange 16y ago
  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.
  - tygorius 16y ago
    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.

nswanberg 16y ago

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.

samuel 16y ago

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.

Qz 16y ago
'most people you know' aren't really ChromeOS's target market.
- samuel 16y ago
  So it must be really tiny. Seriously, this thing is doomed unless gets really, really cheap, and I don't think how it could be.
  - iuygtrftghyujik 16y ago
    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

redwood 16y ago

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

kenjackson 16y ago

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).

rbanffy 16y ago
> But you could likely get a cheap Windows netbook for nearly the same price And be their support guy forever?
- kenjackson 16y ago
  And Chrome OS fixes that problem? You clearly haven't received your cr-48... :-)
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    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.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      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).

tygorius 16y ago

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.

spinchange 16y ago
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.
- tygorius 16y ago
  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.