Real World Stats Show Chromebooks Are Struggling 250
recoiledsnake writes "The first real world stats for Chromebooks show that they're struggling to have any traction in the marketplace. In its first week of monitoring worldwide usage of Google's Chrome OS, NetMarketShare reported that the percentage of web traffic from Chromebooks was roughly 2/100 of 1 percent, a figure too small to earn a place on its reports. The first Chromebooks went on sale in June 2011, nearly two years ago, with Acer reportedly selling fewer than 5000 units in the first six months and Samsung selling even fewer. In the past three years, Chromebook sales have been worse than even three months worth of WindowsRT sales. Perhaps users are heeding Stallman's warning on Chromebooks. We previously discussed reports of Chromebook topping Amazon sales, selling to 2000 schools and wondered whether QuickOffice on ChromeOS can topple Microsoft Office." I find ChromeOS good in some contexts (any place that a browser and a thin layer of Linux is all you need), but the limitations are frustrating — especially on hardware that can run a conventional Linux as well as Google's specialized one. We'll watch for developments in the Google hardware world at next week's I/O conference.
I quite like mine. (Score:4, Informative)
Light weight, fast enough. Good web browsing experience.
I wouldn't have it as my only computer, but over all I think it will make one heck of a good momputer.
Re:I quite like mine. (Score:5, Informative)
Very easy to run Chrombuntu on and then it makes the best laptop I know of for that price.
Wait... what? (Score:5, Informative)
Chromebooks have been topping the Amazon sales charts [extremetech.com]. Clearly TFA's numbers are bullshit because you don't top Amazon by selling less than 5,000 units.
X is dying. Slashdot confirms it. One of the oldest trolls that still works.
Re:I quite like mine. (Score:5, Informative)
I wouldn't have it as my only computer, but over all I think it will make one heck of a good momputer.
Give this man a prize, he hit the nail on the head. Momputing is where it is at.
After having to perform the drudgery of familial tech support for years, this thing makes my life a breeze. It is simple and straightforward for my mom to use. Currently it has a smaller attack vector cross section due to the smaller user base making it currently "safer" for mom to use with regards to malware. If it does get compromised or the OS gets corrupted, it is easy to reset to a clean state without having to do time consuming reconfiguration. If it actually breaks, her stuff is in the cloud so it is as simple as buying a new chromebook and having her login and she is good to go.
My mom has been using the $249 Samsung Chromebook with the solid state memory and mobile processor for about a month now and loves it. It has an added benefit of being light and (due to the mobile processor) requires no fan and doesn't get hot on her lap.
I could also see value in this as a living room/guest laptop, but have not tried that.
Re:Wait... what? (Score:5, Informative)
Chromebooks have been topping the Amazon sales charts [extremetech.com]. Clearly TFA's numbers are bullshit because you don't top Amazon by selling less than 5,000 units.
X is dying. Slashdot confirms it. One of the oldest trolls that still works.
Submitter here. The 5000 figure is from the first 6 months of sales from June/July 2011.The Amazon sales charts numbers are from January of this year. Also, not many folks buy laptops from Amazon, so topping the sales there is nothing big.
OTOH, total sales so through Q1 of 2013 are purportedly in the 500K [bgr.com] range. Certainly not a Windows killer yet, nor even an OS X competitor, but 100X more than 5K.
Re:Imagine the day you're booted off Google (Score:2, Informative)
What a load of FUD.
Google is a wonderful company, and their products are useful and seductive and beautifully interlinked. But they're free to use and you're not the customer. And every day a certain number of people have their Google account blocked, for one reason or another, and find that there's no recourse to Google to fix that. In fact, there's no customer service department at all.
Examples on the internet of this are easy to find: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/open-letter-to-google-why-have-you-taken-away-my-google-gmail-accounts/7873/ [searchenginejournal.com] http://classicsynth.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Get-Disabled-Google-Account-Back [hubpages.com]
If they're so easy to find, why did you post only one, from 2008, who was locked out for only 15 hours? Your second just said that Google might temporarily disable your account if they suspect it's being attacked (hint: you probably want them to disable it in that case) and that Google will offer you some account recovery options.
Now imagine that this happens to you, and your laptop has just become a paperweight. And this time, you've paid for it. Hmmm.
Not true. You can still log on to your Chromebook and use it as a web browser, including whatever you need to straighten out your account problem. You just won't be able to access your Google account stuff. If you haven't set it to disallow other users, in the worst case (somehow you simply cannot recover your Google account), you can always use it to create a new Google account. If you have set it to disallow other users, you can always reset it to factory configuration and log in with a new account.
In short: In the unlikely event you truly lose access to your Google account you will have lost access to everything in your account... but your Chromebook is still yours, is not locked to that account, and can be used just as before with a new account.
Also, since you buy a Chromebook, there are customer support centers to help you: http://support.google.com/chromeos/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1280301 [google.com]. I'm pretty sure Google provides customer support for all of its paid services.