At $250, New Chromebook Means Competition For Tablets, Netbooks, Ultrabooks

Google's new ARM-powered Chromebook isn't a lot of things: it isn't a full-fledged laptop, it's not a tablet (doesn't even have a touch screen); and by design it's not very good as a stand-alone device. Eric Lai at ZDNet, though, thinks Chromebooks are (with the price drop that accompanies the newest version) a good fit for business customers, at least "for white-collar employees and other workers who rarely stray away from their corporate campus and its Wi-Fi network." Lai lists some interesting large-scale rollouts with Chromebooks, including 19,000 of them in a South Carolina school district. Schools probably especially like the control that ChromeOS means for the laptops they administer. For those who'd like to have a more conventional but still lightweight ARM laptop, I wonder how quickly the ARM variant of Ubuntu will land on the new version. (Looks like I'm not the only one to leap to that thought.)

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

You get the CLOUD, son. The CLOUD. All your data can be stored in the CLOUD. The processor is not relevant. Cycles per second doesn't matter when you data is instantly accessible in the CLOUD. At our fingertips. We can scan, parse, and not store any data. Promise.

Re:I don't get it

[busyqth]

So when Microsoft locks down the bootloader, it's bad. But when Google does it, it's good.

Of course. That's a well known law of nature.

Re:I don't get it

[Tough Love]

No need for anti-malware... it runs a super-locked down variant of Linux.

Car analogy time. Fill a sedan up to the windows with concrete and nobody will be able to steal it. You also won't be able to drive it to the store to buy groceries but nobody will be able to steal it.

Re:I don't get it

[Penguinisto]

Yeah, we know [dilbert.com].

Re:Subsidised? Remember this hardware is cheap

[ArhcAngel]

The cost per unit of this sort of hardware isn't a lot and they only have to sell a few thousand to get their development costs back.

We lose money on each unit but we make it up by selling in volume.

Re:Why bother?

[Osgeld]

be real, the second a non geek gets their hands on one you will be called up and buried in dumbshit questions like, "why doesnt my GPS map updater work on it", "how do I install EXCEL", "my yahoo account doesnt work"

Re:at 250$ why would I buy it?

[ajlitt]

... my 5 year old free phone has a 1.2mp camera douche...

I think you're using it wrong.

Re:I don't get it

[marcello_dl]

Pointy head is acute, by definition...

Re:I don't get it

[hack slash]

Every time someone uses the word CLOUD in relation to computers it makes me want to CLOUT them, a lot.