First Chrome OS Notebooks Due This Month 246
adeelarshad82 writes "According to recent reports, a Google-branded Chrome OS notebook will be launched by Inventec later this month. Acer and HP will be launching theirs a month later, in December. This report is also backed by a source close to Google stating that the company is still on track to launch its Chrome OS by the end of the year, as well as its Chrome app store."
Inventec (Score:4, Insightful)
Do Not Want (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't think this will compete directly with i (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Now with 100% LESS privacy! (Score:0, Insightful)
There is NO target market is for google's Chrome brand stuff, because they are totally self-serving.
Products which futher google's privacy invasion, without adding any value.
Whilst I can't stand anything apple, they have produced a unique sales proposition of "Place your dick and balls in this mysterious hole, and we'll make computing completely easy and fashionable for you".
Microsoft - Mr and Mrs default
Apple - Mr Hipster
Opensource - Geeks
Google won't snag any of those markets, especially geeks because they tend to put a value on privacy.
Cost is Key (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm really hoping that this thing is super cheap. That's the only way I can really justify something that has so little capability. Some of my primary use cases - handling photos, video, etc. are just not well suited for non-native applications right now. So this would really truly be a limited device. However if the price was right - and I'm talking max $150, preferably $99 - I could really go for it. As in, I'd have them all over the house, just for convenience. But if this thing costs $300 or more then it's in iPad territory and there's just zero reason to buy it over an iPad.
HTML5 local storage neé Google Gears (Score:3, Insightful)
...will keep your google document alive offline today.
If battery life approaches or exceeds iPad and current netbook class while providing instant-on and a keyboard, it will sell.
I don't WANT windows and all it's security issues and bulk for lightweight browsing, and I'd like a keyboard sometimes (which the iPad doesn't have).
At the right price, this will make a value proposition that takes the base of netbooks
Read the first line of the article & summary (Score:2, Insightful)
"A Google-branded Chrome OS notebook will be launched by Inventec, with Acer and Hewlett-Packard following suit thereafter, according to a report."
It's Google branded, meaning Google probably chose that manufacturer for launch devices. With the run in the mid-tens of thousands, it seems to be a kick start for the platform, not a major brand.
Maybe if someone SRWare Irons out the Google spyware, I might consider one.
Sadly, this is almost certainly doomed to failure like every smartbook preceding it.
Re:Now with 100% LESS privacy! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's true, though. If you have nothing to hide, privacy is a total non-issue.
The problem is everyone has something to hide: passwords, bank details, religious views in certain contexts, genitalia, their company's trade secrets etc.
The way I see this is (Score:3, Insightful)
The way I see this is this is a business play. For a consumer like me, a castrated variant of a laptop I already own is not particularly exciting to me. As a small business, if I use Google Apps, this would be a huge money saver. You basically don't have to do much (if any) IT if you have this. Your data is always backed up. Your laptops never have any upgrade or virus issues - they upgrade themselves and system partition is read-only. You have endless amount of space for docs and email, and pretty decent collaboration features which will only get better over time. So for a business that can cope with the current limitations of Google Apps, there's quite a bit of value in ChromeOS.
Re:finally! (Score:2, Insightful)
I remember the summer of 2009 when everyone was expecting the wave of ARM cpu netbooks... it never happened. My friend was designing power management ICs for them too. I suspect that the major desktop and notebook OEMs are afraid of Intel's reprisal if they were to market an ARM netbook (same goes for ARM tablets). I wonder what makes Apple so special that they are not afraid of Intel?
Re:I find this awesome... (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if Google is completely beneficial today, even if you are completely mundane today, what makes you think it will stay that way forever? Once the data is in the cloud, there's no taking it back. Are you sure there is nothing in your email that could harm you? Have you ever sent your cellphone number to someone? What if Google decides that revenues aren't high enough and it's time to sell telephone numbers to direct marketers? Have you ever had an argument with someone in your email and said something that you wish you hadn't? What if someone gets hold of those emails and tries to paint a picture of you as someone you aren't? Maybe you get divorced in the future and Google decides its alright to let lawyers see your email for some reason.
You say that you wouldn't trust Sony, but Google openly says what they want to do with your data. You do realize that a company is not a person right? A company is inherently not trustworthy because it doesn't have a character. A company is made up of many, many people, some trustworthy and some not. Today the head of Google may be trustworthy. What makes you think that in 10 years the same guys will be running the show? Or maybe they will get so big that some moron in a small part of the company will be able to get away with shit that the guys at the top don't realize. Or maybe they will decide that they want to change the focus of the company and sell off parts (including your data) to another company that isn't so trustworthy.
Don't get me wrong. I use "cloud services". I even have a gmail account. But I don't put my head in the sand and say, "I'm safe because it is Google". In fact, there are several emails I now wish had not gone through gmail... Forever is a long, long time and pretending that the status quo will last as long as the data is very naive.
Re:Now with 100% LESS privacy! (Score:4, Insightful)
you might be surprised to learn that keeping these things private online is much the same as keeping them private offline.
the problem is that people seem to be more free with their private details online than offline, maybe due to some flawed feeling of anonymity?
Re:Hey, clueless newbies, this isn't 1999 (Score:4, Insightful)
In 2010-2011, you can write highly functional applications using HTML5 and Javascript, make them installable on your web browser, and have them work offline.
I'd say Windows 98 is more highly functional than html5 and javascript.
This is not 1999.
Quite right, you said it yourself... its almost 2011. Why are you trying to promote a technology that's on not even on par in terms of functionality and user experience with what was available in 1999.
I'm well aware that chromeos will work offline. But if docment editing is the criteria I'd rather use Office 98 on Windows 98 than ChromeOS offline... or even online for that matter.
But fortunately Office98 on Win 98 isn't even the alternative I'm faced with; the actual alternative is Microsoft Office on {Snow Leopard or Windows 7} or LibreOffice on {Windows 7, Snow Leopoard, or Ubuntu.}.
Please stop assuming the Web is as it was when you were in junior high.
Not a problem. In junior high I used a TRS-80. The internet existed, but there was no http yet. You really have to stop pretending the Web is a modern operating system. Its come a long way in the last 15 to 20 years, but its not there yet.
I talked about this on Nexus 1 release (Score:5, Insightful)
From January, The comment is here. [slashdot.org]
Google is selling this phone because it advances the technology and their phone partners wouldn't sell it. Expect them to sell an Android + Snapdragon slate for the same reasons.... I doubt Google even wants to sell phones - I think they just want to get the new good technologies adopted so that people can get used to Internet everywhere quicker. This serves their bottom line because when most people use the Internet they use Google services, which Google sells ads on. You can't very well sell Internet ads to be viewed by people who aren't close to a browser. [me]
It links to this interesting article where the CEO of Asus was backing away from the Android smartbook they had recently pulled in mid-computex [pcworld.com].
"Currently, I still don't see a clear market for smartbooks," said Jerry Shen, CEO of Asustek Computer, during an investors' conference in Taipei.
So he pulls the Linux Snapdragon smartbook and shows up a few days later at an investors conference - just before the W7 launch - flanked by reps from Microsoft and Intel - probably glancing cautiously from one to the other hoping nothing bad happens to his precious W7 netbooks (little does he know...). And he gives a carefully prepared speech about how Intel and Microsoft are going to crush their enemies, see them driven before them, hear the lamentation of their women...
And now world & dog sees Microsoft as a fading power, Apple mobile platforms - and mobile platforms in general - as the next generation of user interface, and suddenly now he sees a future in it again. Intel is driving as hard as they can to be the thing that gives people what they want. Microsoft? Let's just say the KIN didn't work out and WP7 has a steeper hill to climb than it might have. What a difference a year makes.
I love my Samsung Epic Android phone, but obviously I know I would not have any such thing if both Apple and Google had not dared to bring us change, each in their own way.
That article was about Google's Nexus 1 phones. Remember that Google shopped its candybar phone to every phone vendor and they wouldn't take it, so Google made it, sold a grip of them, and ushered in all this sweet tech we enjoy today. If they had not done so when they did, we'd not have seen the first good big-screen Android platforms until after WP7 launched, if ever. And now those phones are selling 20M units a quarter in the US alone, giving 44% market share, driving every phone vendor that builds it into profitability or record profitability, giving US non-AT&T networks a phone to sell that isn't absolutely pathetic, and putting money in the pockets of a vast economy of app developers and advertising buyers (and of course, Google).
The message is pretty clear. If Google gives you a reference platform, Run With It! Refusing is not going to keep them from bringing new tech to market. They don't want the manufacturing and retail money because they want to leave that business to their partners. It's a messy customer service business with low leverage. It's not their strong point. But if their partners won't give us progress, they aren't averse to bringing it directly and reaping a few billion in hardware revenue along the way. Microsoft and Intel used to be able to prevent progress, to prevent "cannabilization" of their established markets. But now those days are done. Vendors used to be able to hold off the releases with "tomorrow, tommorow" and "any day now". Any more? No. That's not going to fly. We'll have progress now whether the established hardware vendors are ready to give it or not. There will be no stalling any more [engadget.com].
/this is me agreeing with you.
Re:I don't think this will compete directly with i (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry, you must be confused. This is Slashdot. We only tolerate one of any sort of device for all uses. Therefore, if a web-browsing only netbook appears, that means that all computers henceforth will be just like this. Gone are the days of building your own PC, running an OS of your choosing. All computers will be running ChromeOS by the end of the year. So, let's pile on with a thousand and one use cases where this device isn't appropriate. Only then can we stop it and maintain the status quo in computers.
Let's see. Astronauts. I don't see astronauts flipping around in space using ChromeOS. If the ISS were run on ChromeOS, everybody on board would be dead in three seconds. Antarcticians. Last I checked, there wasn't very fast broadband available on Antarctica. ChromeOS cannot overtake the industry until they get FIOS to the penguins down south. My great-grandma in the ICU on a ventilator can't be checking her Facebooks with this thing. They don't even want me to wear a watch in the room with her! Clearly, ChromeOS just isn't ready for primetime. Until they resolve these and many other ridiculous things I can come up, nobody should touch it. Please, for the sake of my gram-gram, don't go near ChromeOS.
Re:Hey, clueless newbies, this isn't 1999 (Score:3, Insightful)
Giving it some real thought I can't come up with a single application the average home user would need that couldn't be run from the cloud right there in a web browser
The average home user would like to sync their ipod to their music libary. I'm willing to bet at least one of you, your father, your mother, or your sister even do this.
You also mentioned you like to "sort out photos"; that's another good example. Even My 8 year old daughters camera does video and has a 4GB card. She likes to sync her camera, and organize her photos and videos too. It takes a few minutes to sync... syncing to 'the cloud' would take hours.
I'd rather user Chrome OS and Google Docs, they are for the average joe functionally identical, except for the benefits that google docs brings of being able to access your documents from anywhere.
We were saving documents to network accessible storage in 1998 too. We didn't need google or chrome for that.
I'm not saying web-accessible stuff is bad. I like having webmail as back up access to my email. That's awesome. I sure as hell don't want to give up my local desktop client though.
You hang on to your computers, I for one look forward to buying one of these document typing / web surfing appliances.
I see the merit in little computing appliances as much as the next person. A webbrowser for sitting on the couch instead of a full laptop makes a lot of sense... but if I am serious about writing a real document (my thesis for example) I find even a laptop restrictive. I want a comfortable keyboard, lots of screen real-estate, and so on.