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Chrome Hardware Technology

Chromebooks Are Problematic For Profits and Planet, Says Lenovo Exec (theregister.com) 46

Laura Dobberstein reports via The Register: Lenovo won't stop making Chromebooks despite the machines scoring poorly when it comes to both sustainability and revenue, according to an exec speaking at Canalys APAC Forum in Bangkok on Wednesday. "I don't know who makes the profit," commented Che Min Tu, Lenovo senior vice president and group operations officer. "Everybody struggled to sell the Chromebook." Tu further remarked that the laptop is not great from an environmental standpoint either -- recycling its material won't be easy, or cheap. "But I think we'll continue to sell the Chromebook because there's a demand," explained Tu, who added that the major driver of that demand is coming from the education sector. [...]

While the number of Chromebooks being sold has dropped since the pandemic, the education market has kept it afloat. In the US, education accounted for 80 percent of Chromebook sales in Q2 this year. IDC estimated that Q2 Chromebook channel sales shrank 1.8 percent to 5.8 million units in that quarter as many customers had refreshed in the previous quarter to avoid a licensing increase in the second half of 2023.

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Chromebooks Are Problematic For Profits and Planet, Says Lenovo Exec

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  • Nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)

    by NaCh0 ( 6124 ) on Friday December 08, 2023 @06:25PM (#64067479) Homepage

    If you really thought they were a poor use of resources, you wouldn't be making them.

    I don't trust your words. I trust your actions.

    • by Anonymous Coward
      BS, if there is a profit to be had then even if a poor use of resources they will do it as long as it isn't negatively impacting their higher profit margin items.
    • by leonbev ( 111395 )

      I'm sure that Lenovo would rather be selling schools a bunch of Thinkpad T series laptops like they do for large businesses, because the profit margins on those are much better.

      PC sales are down across the world, though, so they'll take whatever orders they can get.

  • by Goodsuburbanite ( 10439816 ) on Friday December 08, 2023 @06:40PM (#64067511)
    I know everything is geared towards profits and not much else, but we could start designing things with recycling in mind, you know, because it's important, to some of us.
    • we could start designing things with recycling in mind, you know

      Perhaps. But you consumed way more resources driving to the shop to buy your Chromebook than the Chromebook will use during all the years you use it.

      because it's important, to some of us.

      It shouldn't be important to you. You should instead focus on things that matter.

      Working from home one day a year saves way more resources than recycling a Chromebook.

      People often have crazy ideas about environmental responsibility, like driving a four-ton SUV to the recycling center to drop off a dozen grocery bags weighing a total of a gram.

  • Absolutely right (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bubblyceiling ( 7940768 ) on Friday December 08, 2023 @06:44PM (#64067515)
    Pretty much. I don't get why people even buy them when Intel/AMD laptops are discounted to similar prices so often. Cant even load another OS on most of them
    • The models that do run another OS don't run it very well. For example if you want to run the OS bare metal you have to flash the bios. Doing so requires opening it up, disconnecting the battery, powering it up from the adapter, running the write enable command, powering it back down, reconnecting the battery, and finally re-assembling. Now you have a whopping 16Gb of eMMC space to install the distro of your choice. Don't expect sound, sleep mode, or the webcam to work. At this point for shits and giggles I

    • I have 4. One for each room. I use them as dedicated web browser appliances that require no installation or maintenance. They are always available without having to "open up a browser" or rearrange some windows, they are always charged up via usbc, but if I feel like sitting somewhere else while browsing I just take the nearest one with me, or leave it and go use the one in another room. By keeping one in each room I don't have to go find it where I last left it. The models are all nearly identical, precise
    • by tudza ( 842161 )
      I've had two Chromebooks. The Acer C720 was coincided a good machine at the time. I eventually put Xubuntu on it and gave it to a relative who had no computer. So far as I could tell it was a decent Linux machine. To convert that device was an easy task. Someone had already developed an installer for the process and it required jumping through very few hoops. The second machine was an Acer CB5-132T. I found this machine very useful and only converted it to Xubuntu after support for Chrome OS for this mod
    • Re:Absolutely right (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Saturday December 09, 2023 @03:28AM (#64068121)

      Cant even load another OS on most of them

      That's a feature, not a bug.

      Schools don't want computers that kids can goof up. They want a cheap, low-maintenance window to the Internet.

      Chromebooks work because there are limits on what the kids can do, and everything is stored in the cloud. Even with a factory reset, nothing is lost.

    • If you bothered reading the article, it's schools keeping it afloat... not end users. Presumably, nobody's targeting them for malware attacks
  • by Gordo_1 ( 256312 ) on Friday December 08, 2023 @06:45PM (#64067519)

    ...which he absolutely hates. It's made with bottom of the barrel parts. Small screen with bad contrast, underpowered CPU, low RAM, bad keyboard. it's slow to browse the web, slow wracked by latency to do even basic things. Local apps are very limited.

    I'm not saying it isn't possible to make these a lot better, but it seems schools buy them because Google created a cheap eocsystem with somewhat standardized parts like screens and chargers, centralized security controls which allows the school to sandbox devices easily and sufficient webified versions of basic desktop apps as to be workable in a school setting. Nothing about them is "good for students". It's all about being good for school boards pockets.

    • Well said!
    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Friday December 08, 2023 @06:52PM (#64067529)

      That's the point of the OS. It's a google's-browser-as-operating-system. That makes it so crappy that almost no one wants to steal it, and it's so locked down that it's really hard to install malware on it that would actually matter. That makes them far better as a system for deployment in schools compared to fully functional OS based laptops.

      • I always assumed the point of the Chromebook was to provide an all in one solution for google workspace subscriptions
      • The main draw is the hardware being dirt cheap so when it gets mistreated and broken it's inexpensive to replace. Students destroying school issued laptops is practically a category on TikTok. I suppose being so awful that they won't be stolen is also a draw in some cases as well.
    • My kids' school started issuing these to the kids (grades 7-12), and they are a royal PITA. Not only are they horrifically underpowered, but if you look at them cross eyed, they refuse to work, and after that are further crippled by the security policies forced on them.

      I've also lost count the number of times my kids had to submit something, couldn't get the things to cooperate, and had to resort to using their personal devices (usually in the form of a photo of their assignment, emailed to the teacher).

      Th

      • by tbuskey ( 135499 )

        My kids had chromebooks, lenovo 11 IIRC. And also had desktops, etc. The school ones are ok.

        My daughter opted for a touch screen after the OS updates stopped but it is still her preferred.
        My son does gaming & got a Windows laptop for college. But he's not doing tech and everything there is Office365. A chromebook would work for him.

        I used one of the lenovo until the OS updates stopped. It was fine for youtube.

        If you're having the problems you talk about, there is something systemic about the submit

    • It costs a lot of money to give every student a disposable web-capable computer for free. You could easily have bought a better one for your son, they aren't very expensive.

    • by xwin ( 848234 )
      My kid has Lenovo IdeaPad 3 11 chromebook. And she loves it. She has an Intel laptop with a large screen and NVIDIA GPU and she uses chromebook for most of her school work. It is portable, 11 inch screen, light, battery lasts for a long time, pretty much all day of use. There is no need to save any files or backup anything. All goes to cloud. She edited video on it, made documents, spreadsheets, edited sound, edited images. Most of the things average student can do on PC, chromebook can do. Definitely enou
    • Chromebooks are the only laptop you can actually secure against kids who take them home. There is nothing else on the market. They are made for a market where they are given to kids who smash them for fun and they are only expected to function for a few years and barely function at that. They suck, but there are legitimate reasons they are the way they are and there aren't better options for what they are used for.

    • Ultimately if you want to do one device per child, cost per unit is probably the deciding factor for most schools. A close second is that non-technical staff can usually be taught enough about the google education ecosystem to accomplish what they need to in their classrooms in a 60 minute session. A student dropped it off a table? Hand them another one and have them log in again.
    • by Monoman ( 8745 )

      NEWSFLASH - You Usually Get What You Pay For

      Typically, if you buy low end gear you're going to get a low end experience and a shorter lifespan of usefulness.

      I bought a midrange Dell Chromebook 4.5 years ago and I have been very happy with it. I use it every day for what it is .. a laptop dedicated to running Chrome. I have played around with running some Linux apps and use them occasionally. I will probably buy another when it is time to replace this one.

      I also have an sister that I have setup on a Chro

  • So everyone is struggling to sell them; but there's so much demand that you won't stop making them? Tell me another.

    I'm not expecting a PC OEM to like a product category that is basically tailor-made to be a low cost, low margin, comparatively heavily standardized platform for Google to sell services to institutional customers; but talking about a differentiation and margin problem as though it's a struggle-to-make-a-sale problem sounds like a combination of dishonest and confused.
  • Use them at schools, theyâ(TM)re basically disposable in the hands of kids. Google sold a huge bunch of these when the SBAC required all students to complete their test online, and another boatload for COVID. Browser-as-computer is interesting but not really robust for file management, backup, etc. outfitting an iPad with real resident storage, all three popular ecosystems (aapl, msft, goog) and work suites is a far more forgiving solution.

    • by xwin ( 848234 )
      You clearly never used one. Chromebook uses Google workspace - all files are online and no backup is needed. You just login to your account and all your files are magically there.
      Ipad can't be managed by school or locked down. Maybe it can be but it will cost you extra. Ipad needs keyboard, and cheapest 10 inch ipad is $329 and does not come with keyboard. Apple tried to get into education market for a while but their products are too expensive to buy and too expensive to repair. Everything is glued shut.
      • My kids both got an iPad from school, the software is very locked down and managed by the school. Since for all kids it's the same, rich kids aren't at an advantage.
  • Chromebooks probably headed in the same direction. I know some people loved netbooks, and that there are people who like chromebooks today but in general it seems like cheap-device classes are not long lasting.
  • Seriously, what they did with the Legion line this year is inexcusable. They made the best line of laptops last year, just to take everything good and make it more expensive to buy their laptops. Not to mention segmentation hell. 5k USD LAPTOPS WTF

  • by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Friday December 08, 2023 @09:06PM (#64067669)

    Nevermind the planet or Lenovo's bottom line.

    But I'm not worried about that: Chromebooks are indeed mostly used by students, and from what I heard, they almost universally hate them: not only are they slow, bad laptops, they'll also forever be associated with school and homework in the young minds they were foisted on.

    In short, Google is leaving an indelible bad experience in the very segment of the population that's most important to create good experiences for.

    I'm all for an entire generation having bad memories of any Google product personally. At this point, anything bad that can happen to this unstoppable beast is a good thing.

  • But it's so difficult to find one that have any oomph. The old Pixels were great, imo, but most others suck wrt performance, as mentioned. However, that isn't an inherent part of a Chromebook.

    Yeah, I have no need for anything other than a browser, but I don't want "slow".

  • "Tu further remarked that the laptop is not great from an environmental standpoint either – recycling its material won't be easy, or cheap."

    The implication is that Chromebooks are more challenging to recycle than non-Chromebook laptops. Why?

    • I don't think recycling laptops is easy or cheap in general, there's a lot of stuff glued or PSA'd together in most of them that has to be separated. Like foil stickers on plastic case pieces and so on. Making them more disposable means more churn means more impact.

      I got a $300 Ryzen 3 Windows laptop, and put Linux on it. I also spent about $40 upgrading the RAM and SSD from 4GB and 120GB to 8GB and 512GB, both with used parts. I was able to get a numbers-matching SODIMM for twenty bucks on eBay, there's ze

      • Its not the cost of the device - its how durable and manageable it is. It needs to be dead simple to manage since its usually 1 guy for a whole school district.

  • Well, obviously Google is profiting in some ways: More personal data gathering, more people using their services, I suppose schools pay some money to use Google's services. Lenovo can stop making them if they think it doesn't benefit them
  • It doesn't matter what the device is. If you've seen the majority (not all) of kids and how they treat their devices, especially ones that are school owned, you know that they toss them, drop them, let the batteries die, and completely mangle them. Heck, even their own personal phones so often have cracked screens and damage. Whether schools choose Chromebooks, Microsoft, Apple, or Android, laptops or tablets, they will all get damaged. The question is how much money you want to spend replacing those items.
  • Netbooks were cute at the time, but the word filled up with next to useless laptops. At least Chromebooks can do something.
  • I work in k-12, and I remember how bad it was trying to use MS Windows computers way back like 10 years ago. We certainly couldn't afford to provide one to each student, so we had a couple of carts that went classroom to classroom. There were a lot of problems that Chromebooks fixed or just don't have. When we had a mix of Chromebook carts and MS Windows carts, students were unhappy if their class ended up with a MS Windows cart.

    Anecdotes are not evidence, but in my experience, students don't have strong fe

  • Unless no one can come up with a cheaper and more accessible alternative that is just as productive, chromebooks will continue to be used in schools. And this is unlikely to happen, because they are more than enough for powerpoint presentations and other basic school needs. Even when I got this from https://edubirdie.com/powerpoint-presentations-writing-service [edubirdie.com] and then ran it on my chromebook, everything worked like a charm. They remain the best choice for students, and I think their position will only str

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