Why Google Needs To Launch the Chromebook Pixel 133
DavidGilbert99 writes "A leaked video of the purported Google Chromebook Pixel laptop has stirred quite a lot of interest but whether or not the laptop in the video is real, Google needs to launch it in order to kickstart the Chrome OS platform." A high-res screen would be welcome, but Google seems to be doing alright with Chromebook sales right now. Warning: IB Times has ads with autoplaying videos and sound; you have been warned.
Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
The article doesn't make a particularly good case for why ChromeOS would suddenly become attractive on a high-resolution touchscreen. Especially given that it's built around Google's not-touch-optimised web apps.
I really keep forgetting about ChromeOS (Score:4, Interesting)
Every now and then I see one of these ChromeOS stories, and it reminds me that ChromeOS exists. I'm not being catty there, I mean that I really do literally forget about it. That's probably not a good sign for Google. It not only hasn't made a big splash, it's barely made ANY splash at all.
What? (Score:4, Interesting)
Best buy advertises and sells Chromebooks. My mom has one and loves it compared to her slow netbook.
Chromebooks outselling Windows 8 PCs (Score:5, Interesting)
Google doesn't need new hardware for Chrome OS. They just need more marketing, because they're already doing well.
Imagine for a moment that you're a small business, such as a plumbing company. You don't have a full-time IT staff. You have maybe 10-30 computers.
You're probably buying your PCs retail. Then you have to buy a Windows server, and pay someone to set it up. You buy CALs for users and computers. A second back-up server is probably out of your budget. Off-site data back-ups are probably out of the question.
Who administers your network to keep it safe and secure? How to do you prevent malware and viruses? Administer your email?
You pay a bunch upfront, and then never know when you need to bring in an IT company to fix things. Your IT budget is completely unknown.
Or, you get Chromebooks. Google used to offer packages to lease them for $25/$30 a month. Not sure if they still do, but you can get them for $250 if not. You don't have to have your own server, unless you need Citrix for proprietary Windows apps. Your data is in the cloud. You don't have to run a mail server. Anyone can sit at any PC and instantly have their work. You don't pay an IT staff. You can budget easily for IT costs.
http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/business/devices/ [google.com]
Interesting, yet lacking in details.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd say Samsung got it right with the Exynos CPU, and ChromeOS runs very, very well on ARM. Between my home and business we've replaced 3 laptops with Chromebooks, but it seems like the Samsung model is the only one that I would even consider. If you want a cheap feeling, heavy, loud, low battery life laptop, there's plenty of those to choose from. If you want something that runs cool, runs for long time, doesn't annoy you with fans, and doesn't burn your lap, then the Samsung is your only pick.
Google, if you want to release a "powerhouse" chromebook, try the Exynos quad core, and throw in some more memory. Exynos supports 40 bit memory addressing, so the 4G barrier doesn't really exist in a practical sense (32 bit address space exposed to each processes, chrome is multi-process).