Slashdot Mirror
Chromebook Takes Top Place In Laptop Sales On Amazon
rtfa-troll writes "Amazon's latest table of the top selling laptops will be a surprise for many on Slashdot whose first reaction when we discussed this before was 'so what,' with pundits describing it as 'an enterprise contender.' Given the recent launch and huge advertising campaign, you might expect that the top selling consumer laptop would be based on Win8. If you read recent discussions about Microsoft's troubled new system you might expect a Mac to be leading, but Google's Chromebook topping the sales chart on a consumer site without any major advertising campaign is a major surprise. We've discussed before that apart from its web based ChromeOS, Chromebooks are also very fast running Ubuntu Linux and have several other distributions already ported."
so what
Soon the tech industry will proudly proclaim
Declared "Lame" by Slashdot! ... with whatever that time's less space than a Nomad and having no wireless are.
My mom's laptop failed, so I convinced her to get the Samsung Chromebook. So far, she says she really likes it. It's dead simple to use, as it pretty much only does what she needs--web browsing and email. There's no settings for her to mess up, updates are silent and automatic, and it's next to impossible to "break" the OS. I offered to set it up for her, but all I actually had to do was enter her Gmail password and the WiFi password. The only setting I changed was to enable Google Instant.
From my own observations of playing around for 10 minutes, the hardware itself leaves a (very) little bit to be desired. The trackpad feels a little rough (though I'm comparing it to a MacBook Air, so it's hardly a fair comparison), and there is a noticeable delay when switching tabs. Again, though, I'm comparing a $250 machine to a $1400 machine, so it's hard to complain. Software-wise, accessing the settings page is slightly unintuitive (from the "desktop", click your username; it's not in the app list). Also, there's no caps lock, which may or may not be annoying. It's been replaced by a search button which doubles as the Windows key on a PC keyboard.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
My big question is what the return rate will be like. I suspect that some people are expecting a full desktop OS, like Windows.
what with all the hoopla surrounding windows 8
the unacceptable reality field apple is emanating,
bad press from the ubuntus for different reasons
android still does not have a good office suite--even abiword would be good
they still remember all those laptops network cards that sent them back to windows
this cant be a "bad" thing any way i look at it
1. Chrome
2. OSX
3. Win 7
4. OSX
5. Win 8
6. Win 7
7. Win 7
8. OSX
9. Win 8
10. Win 8
So, certainly, laptops come in so many different flavors that the OSs that circulate in "one size fits all" SKUs will float to the top. We'd expect Macs and Chromebooks to sell more of a given configuration than a Microsoft box. But two months after the launch of Win 8, to see Win 7 beating it in the retail channel, that's news.
Let's put it in perspective. Three of the top ten are Apple Macs.
a few models vs thousands of models and the story submitter is surprised that it can be the number 1 selling model? The only thing I am surprised at is that it beat out the also limited model ranges of Mac's.
I suspect this is about as good as when Zune topped the Amazon sales chart.
What I can't get my head around is, why isn't this running Android?
I have been using the new ARM Chromebook with ChrUbuntu Alpha + refinemeents for almost 2 weeks and I have to say that it already a usable configuration. Most of the important desktop stuff already works (suspend-resume, playing videos...etc) and with good speed. This new Exynos 5250 is really a desktop class processor (at least as strong as the one in my old Toshiba Portege m200). For example: it cold-starts LibreOffice Writer in 5s which is pretty unheard of in the ARM world. If I manage to setup hw accelerated video playing and Oracle's Java, I will be an extremely happy Chromebook owner but I already consider it a good purchase in its current state.
Just like Android, this OS will bring $100 Chinese laptops, that would be great for Linux users, and also provide great OLPC solution as a side effect. Only feature I need in future ChromeOS editions, is integrated VirtualBox, so that I can launch Ubuntu from within ChromeOS.
839*929
...And six run Windows?
People are tired of virus and malware laden Windows laptops.
Captcha: cheaper
It's cheap and do what most people want a laptop to do - check emails, surf the web and type up the occasional letter. It's also a good machine for geeks, since it's not locked down with Windows or OSX - meaning you can stick any flavour of Linux you want on it if you know how. In the current economic situation it taps into the same markets as the original netbooks - the 7" and 9" Eee - did; people needing a cheap machine to get online and geek-heads wanting a toy.
The danger is off course that the Chromebook will go down the same slippery slope as the netbooks fif; bigger screens, more beefed up hardware... until they are just another laptop.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
I'd like to think Microsoft are deliberately making a second rate Android version, but I have to admit it's probably just incompetence.
To list the major faults Skype for Android has:
1. Video is upside down, if you rotate the device, then both the camera and video playback are upside down, but the other person does see you right way up in that case.
2. Video is landscape only & very fuzzy, but the camera video is not fuzzy, probably the compression?
3. Audio plays back very very quietly even with full volume.
4. Lag, lots of it.
5. Occasionally Skype gets in a state where the Android tablet won't go into hibernation until you force-kill Skype. This really sucks down the battery juice.
6. Call receive ring is very quiet, even with full volume.
So as far as I'm concerned, there is no Skype that's viable for Android either. It doesn't really matter, there are plenty of messaging/video apps, I just don't count Skype among them.
Let's just wait for it. The strategy will be known soon, right?
To buy that thing, one has to order it via Amazon - and fact is that, even today, not many people know how to order stuffs from Amazon.
It's a self-selecting process.
Those who know how to buy stuffs from Amazon are more in tune with technology to begin with, and many of those who are more in tune with technology want to try their hand on something new.
What's new to that crowd?
They already have desktop PC, laptop PC, Android tablets, iPhone/iPad, smartphones of many kinds, so what is "new" for them, actually, are:
1. Windows8 phone
2. Chromebook
Windows8 doesn't really charm people that much - in fact, there so many negative "reviews" from the Net - and the logical "toy" for the technologically savvy crowd to buy is left with only one choice ---
Chromebook
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Does the basics (but don't look for serious application software for it soon, if ever), is as cheap as an old netbook was, and by being largely cloud-based, is probably "safer" in a lot of ways - not just malware, but the potential for corporations or institutions to remotely configure, update and "manage" (control) what their users can access.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
I mean, can I install Ubuntu, Debian or Fedora on the Box? Is it locked down or can I just boot from USB stick?
Thanks for the info.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Same as Ballmer did the last quarter, find something Bill Gates bought, write it down by a massive amount that could never be justified*, then claim the profits would be higher than ever if only the write-down hadn't happened, and blame Bill.
He can't make profit, but he can inflate write-downs, and with a bit of spin, those can be pretend profits!
* Last quarters loss was blamed on a massive write-down of the online advertising company bought by Gates. Basically all the bad performance of all the online businesses was assembled into one big write-down, and dumped on the only business (advertising) that could ever have brought in money to pay for it. It was also a major over the top write-down, since that business only needed 2.5% of Googles revenue to justify it's price.
Those stats from the other day compared percentage of all machines at the time running Vista, and a % of all machines now running Windows 8, with the % now after 2 months of W8 users less than it was after the same time period of Vista being out. There are a lot more PCs now than there were then so it was a false equivalence. Windows 8 may or may not be the most popular Windows ever; it's very different on some levels (not on others) for one thing and people don't like change, but for sure it's not tanking as many on here would love everyone to believe.
I appreciate much of Slashdot don't want Windows 8 or Microsoft to survive any longer than necessary but has it really come to creative number massaging to convince the world of a narrative you're going to believe anyway? How are /. nerds any different from any PR/sales drones at this point?
throw new NoSignatureException();
What qualifies as major? I know i've seen ads for it a number of times. Admittedly i can't remember now if they were on TV or YouTube. Obviously putting self-promoting ads on YouTube is pretty easy for Google, but it's not like a lot of people wouldn't see them there.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
My big question is what the return rate will be like. I suspect that some people are expecting a full desktop OS, like Windows.
The big question is how few will tell the difference. Apple knows this, Microsoft knows this, google knows this. Slashdot doesn't.
Anyone who has ever had to do any sort of tech support with the general public will have this sort of conversation:
Tech support: "What operating system are you running?"
Jane Q Public: "HP."
It's not an exaggeration.
Yes I know, Chipzilla is doing just fine, thankyaverymuch. But think about it: about 10 years ago we thought AMD would be the big challenger that would compete with Intel and reduce the Wintel monopoly. But AMD only did that semi-effectively. Yes it helped control costs (God help us to think what we'd be paying for computers these days if Intel were allowed to set its prices in a world without competition). But Android on ARM, some netbooks not long ago, and now Chromebooks seem to be the ones challenging the dominant computing paradigm. That means ARM has actually been the chip(s) that is currently causing the folks at Intel to sweat a little bit. Interesting times we live in.
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
So the number 1 selling machine is also the cheapest one... during Christmas, now that every kid and his grandma' wants a device to check Facebook... BIG SURPRISE!
I remember the same thing happened when the first netbooks arrived with Linux at a very cheap price-point. What happened after a few months? The price dropped for the Windows netbooks and we all remember the rest.
This doesn't surprise me for a number of reasons:
- There have also been plenty of prime-time ads for Chromebooks on TV - at least in the UK, and I imagine elsewhere.
- IME, most people don't really like Windows, they see it as a necessary evil. The advent of smartphones and tablets has very efficiently demonstrated that it's no longer necessary.
- Why don't people like Windows? There's a number of reasons, but most of them relate to incomprehensible and/or nonsensical error messages, a death-by-a-thousand-cuts of other expenses you pretty much have to incur like antivirus software, cheap hardware that's so damn nasty it doesn't look very cheap once you start trying to use it and dealing with the fallout when despite all of that you still click on the wrong thing and need to get someone in to fix it. (Yes, I know Android, iOS and ChromeOS are all hypothetically susceptible to similar issues. But the important point is they're not being actively exploited today).
- What is the recommended fix for these issues? Go out and buy the next version of Windows! (Which many people automatically assume means "buy a new PC", even if that's not true. You'd be surprised how many people honestly have no idea that you can replace Windows with a different version or even with something else entirely).
- Google has carved out an extremely strong brand. People see the word Google and associate it with finding what they want quickly and easily with a minimal amount of bullshit getting in the way. Associate Google with a laptop that doesn't do any of the things people dislike about Windows and you have a very interesting product indeed.
For either $200 or $300 you can get an Asus Chromebook with an Intel Celeron and a big hard drive. Or you can stick with the ARM devices. Lots of choices.
AMD did one very important thing though. It made people realize that Intel is not a given, there are alternatives. Before K5 and K6 processors, the only choice people thought existed was choosing between P-I and P-II.
"Never try to tell everything you know. It may take too short a time."
Maybe by then desktop will lose its meaning or be irrelevant, but many signals are pointing in the direction that in a not so far future will finally reach the year of Linux in the desktop. Is already the main OS for servers, supercomputers, mobile, computing devices in general (those last 2 mainly because Android), and not sure about embedded. And Chromebooks, Steam and Windows 8, among other factors, will be giving it a nice push this year.
The next debate probably will be that what is in the desktop (over the linux kernel) won't be a "traditional" linux desktop, KDE/Gnome and others will still be around, but the mainly used user interface/programs could be something not so native like android or html5 apps, but being Linux probably will be options to use what you prefer.
without any dependence on Microsoft, Adobe, Google, etc.
He he he
You running Linux on that laptop? Count the lines of Google code in your linux kernel.
Even running Linux you are depending on those evil corporations.
You should build your own kernel and rip out every google code contribution and every microsoft one too.
After all you don't want to be depending on google.
Good luck with that!
"without any major advertising campaign"
Regular Chromebook TV ads here in the UK. There is a big wide world outside of the U.S.A.
That's mainly Intels own fault. With the Pentium they started to promote their own brands and try to keep competition from copying their products. Before that, you could get your 80386 or 80486 from lots of vendors, including but not limited to Intel and AMD.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Chromebook has one choice to make, within the item - Wifi or 3G. 90% of the other items in the list are fragmented by model number, and thus don't fully represent their brand/OS/display/HDD/insert_option_of_choice_here as a single data point.
Has anything changed?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The point being that neither is news. One Chrome book? Please...
The linux installs are all hailed as awesome - even if all / most are left with no video acceleration. And when you read they have variable working levels of sound, touchpad, wireless and so on. I've not really seen much update on this, but it reminds me of the toshiba ARM netbook. That started brightly and disappeared up its own rectum as well as a half assed, half supported, half working thing.
I hope that Google in fact deploy a full set of drivers - I don't really understand or comprehend how it is that they have a Linux OS and have built on it, but if you buy the book you are left in a state where the graphics are left in an unaccelerated state. Seems utterly perverse.
That being said, there is no questioning the base hardware - it seems a good bit of gear at a good price. Its just a shame that its seems to by design be left crippled if you choose to try and use it in alternative ways (the strength of x86/64 PCland) - and until addressed will remain a caveat emtor on all ARM based gear!
We`re all equal
Always nice to see the price gouging by third party sellers on Amazon: Amazon price $249 - Temporarily out of stock. 45 other sellers available starting at $322.62 + $6.37 shipping. Awesome.
And their list of "Most Wished For" laptops is even better, including two G4 iBooks.
An apple like laptop for $300 bucks seems to be a bit of a no brainer. Like many slashdotters I am the technical adviser for most of my large family as well as work. With the exception of those who need specific Microsoft Programs or iTunes a Linux desktop on a machine with those specs would nicely meet the budget and needs of at least half my family. For my self I would love it as a second laptop. There are so many specs in the typical computer that far exceed the typical user's needs. My sister for example just bought an asus machine that I suggested as staples had a pretty good deal and her 7 year desktop really needed replacement. She is one of the people who must run a Windows machine so the specs are more demanding yet her 2TB HD is extreme overkill as she might need 20GB between the OS, MS Office and whatnot. I am willing to bet that in 2018 when she replaces this machine that the vast majority of her machine will be empty. Thus the tiny storage capacity of a Chromebook should be little detriment to most. But the better construction and lighter weight are far more important features that make the chromebook comparable to staples machines priced closer to $1000 as most of the sub $1000 stapes machines are clunky with cheap features such the split left shift key and load of bloatware. The same with many of the other lesser features of the chromebook as compared to "better" machines; most of the features where the chromebook is lesser are unimportant. The fact that at a glance the thing looks like a macbook won't hurt sales at all. So for anyone to be surprised that the chromebook is kicking ass is a surprise to me.
I am willing to bet that the MBA-types at places like HP are scratching their heads saying HP entry models are better than that damn thing as they go through a check list of how their machines are so much better feature for feature not realizing that 98% of customers don't even know what RAM does but their customers do know what they like when they see a friend with one and see that it runs a HD youtube video just as smoothly as the HP machine that has way more "L2 Cache".
The other thing that the MBA types are not realizing is that they are no longer competing with the laptop next to theirs in the display section of Staples or Best Buy but they are competing with the cell phone in the person's pocket.
when you can plug your wares on YouTube next to Gangnam Style?
- and about one in five of the other videos I watched in the run-up to Christmas. I think Google's ad machine has finally got the message that I personally won't be buying, instead they're now trying to flog me laminate flooring.
For a long time the PC industry's been selling more power than people need and charging for it. What we're seeing is a straightforward market correction, beginning with netbooks and continuing so long as austerity continues.
Actually it doesn't surprise me. How many different laptops are there that run Windows 8? Thousands probably, so anyone wanting a Win 8 laptop has so many choices that the individual sales for one sepcific laptop will be small, but summed over all the possible Win 8 laptops I'm sure it would eclipse Chrome book sales. More interesting would be if it outsells the Mac which has a much more limited hardware choice.
However the article says there has been no major advertising. Here in the UK, the chromebook has been heavily advertised on TV for the last few weeks so I disagree that there isn't any major advertising going on.
In the USA, I'm not sure I can agree with the original post saying that it's "without any major advertising campaign". I've seen ads on TV for it. I guess it depends on what the OP means by the term. If you want to argue that Google hasn't run their ads into the ground like Samsung does for its phones where they will sometimes show the exact same ad twice during the same 2-4 minute commercial break and show it at least once in all 3 breaks during a 30 minute segment, then yes, I agree with that. Google runs enough ads to get it noticed without making you hate the product like Samsung does.
And they say there is no demand for netbooks.
AMD is turning into the chip for Linux this round. Bulldozer has a big, mixed TLB for any size page; while Linux allows you to set automatic defragmentation and consolidation of RAM to make transparent huge pages. This means instead of reading a bunch of TLB entries for 4KiB pages and yanking 32MB of RAiM just to read 1GiB of RAM and having a 64 entry TLB that has to constantly rotate out cache because you're all over the place, Linux will automatically take 2MiB or 4MiB (or on some platforms a very wide range, 2MiB 4MiB 8MiB 16MiB) of VMA and clear out a 2MB aligned contiguous physical RAM space, move the VMA mappings there, and then map those as one big page. Upon swapping or freeing or whatnot, Linux will remap the whole thing as a bunch of smaller pages--on multi-size archs (i.e. where you have not just 4MiB huge pages, but also 2MiB and 8MiB and such), it'll break them down into smaller huge pages; anything that doesn't work out that way, it'll break into 4096 byte pages.
64KiB instead of 32MiB of data to read to access those pages; and there's as low as 256 entries instead of 4096 entries, so even if you're all over the place it's a lot less TLB faulting and a much higher chance of finding the same entry in cache. Redhat's worst case benchmark was an 8% speed gain using automatic transparent huge page.
Intel added support for 1GB huge pages, but didn't add a mixed TLB that takes an entry for any size page. AMD's TLB on Bulldozer (this is entirely internal and its structure is not known by the OS) marks down the page size; Intel has a separate TLB to handle a few huge pages, and you can only use one size.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Google advertised the crap out of Chromebooks on Hulu.
It's only one website even if it's one of the biggest places to buy things online. It also doesn't show numbers. The Chromebook might have sold 10 units, the Mac 8.
There are 3 Macbooks on the list. One at the number 2 place another at 4. There are two Chromebooks, one at 1st place and one at 19th. It's a pretty safe assumption that more macs are sold than Chromebooks. It's also safe to say there are more windows laptops sold too.
If most people are replacing it with Ubuntu or returning it because they didn't realise it's a shitty OS that requires an internet connection then that doesn't say much for ChromeOS.
ChromeOS will die. No one wants it. That is why Google is resorting to dumping it on schools. Schools seem to be really stupid and will be any old POS.
Also, while I don't remember seeing any TV ads (which doesn't prove much since I have Tivo), I've seen ads out the wazoo online.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
What is the major difference between Windows 7/8 and XP or a Linux distro? Just the GUI
I truly wish that was the major difference. If that was all that was different I would have switched our company away from Windows years ago and so would many others. The major difference is the applications and that is the only difference that truly matters. If everything was written cross-platform, then you would have a credible argument.
For better or worse there are a LOT of applications (including games) that only run on Windows and it remains sadly true that there often are no acceptable replacements. Our accounting software, MRP software, CAD software and some others simply are not available on linux, nor is there any acceptable substitute. We use LibreOffice, GIMP, Scribus, Inkscape, Chrome, Thunderbird, VNC, and more but there simply is no way we could get rid of our Windows boxes in the near future because of the applications we need to use. The moment there is a linux version of Quickbooks Enterprise and a compatible MRP system, I'd dump windows that minute but that simply isn't going to happen in the foreseeable future.
Amazon has been out of Chromebooks for weeks, or maybe months. So is bestbuy, google play, and everybody else, as far as I can tell.
Slashdot discussions exist for pushing your favored social and political memes, not for your troublesome facts, you backwards heathen!
As Homer Simpson teaches us, "Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!"
if i can't block ads then it might as well be windows 8.
if you're such a badass anti-capitalist why don't you use a non-profit os like Debian or Freebsd instead of newbuntu? you sound like a little bitch.
but with all the thousands of Android apps ported to Chrome
How exactly does this work, apart from applications built with Cordova or its predecessor PhoneGap? Android applications are written in the Java programming language or an NDK language or both, not JavaScript, which is what Chrome apps use. So how are Android apps ported to Chrome?
After reading the comments, I found that the more happiness buyers was who bought to young people (girls mostly). I anyway is nice to see that people are looking solutions that fits theirs need not only the common used OS (Win/Apple).
At least Microsoft and Google are public companies meaning I can invest in them and share in their profits but Mark Shuttleworth can just take all the money he made spying on your searches and spend it on hookers, cocaine, space tourism, whatever. Gee, would I rather support a huge public company that employs millions of people or some jackass space cowboy wannabe?
But then you need to buy a copy of Windows XP to run in the virtual machine and keep it updated. And the updates will end in 15 months.
I guess you don't watch TV because I see this and other Chromebook ads all the time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S95J5BowMmk
I was under the impression it was heavily advertised. I don't remember what show my spouse was watching a few nights ago, but a Chromebook ad was part of every ad break. Given how little we watch stuff, from my experience the Chromebook is heavily advertised.
Most poster didn't realize that the netbook simple morphed into chrombooks.
And the reason for this is that Chromebooks are designed to run web applications. Not all applications that I run in Xubuntu on my Dell netbook have been ported to Chrome Web Store packaged web applications or web applications that use HTML5 application cache and HTML5 local storage. And even those that have been ported would incur the overhead of a JavaScript interpreter plus the overhead of the translation process from the language in which an application was developed to JavaScript (such as Emscripten).
Chromebook + NX client = Perfect Remote Desktop!!!
If a tablet had a keyboard AND a great NX client, I'd have been done years ago. There is no NX client for Android that doesn't 500% suck.
A netbook + NX client has been working for me during international travel. Accessing my normal desktop back in the USA from Turkey using an NX client (which includes both ssh private keys AND a password for auth), worked extremely well for 9 days. Sadly, my netbook battery doesn't last anywhere near as long as a tablet battery, even a tablet with an attached USB keyboard.
When it is time to swap the netbook out, a Chromebook will definitely be at the top of my list, provided I can wipe all the google let-me-follow-you crapware off or better, completely load a different OS. When the time comes, I'll do the research. $200 for a good netbook is the highest price I'll pay. Howerver, $50 would be better so that next trip to China I can leave it there and not have any concerns about extra software or hardware finding the way back to our corporate network.
About 6 months ago, I read an article about a guy using his iPad as his remote desktop. I was inspired to try again. I attempted to use a VPN + VNC about a year ago during a 5 country European tour. Out of 5 hotels, 4 blocked the VPN port we used. I've learned, put the VPN on port 443 and use NX as the client. Hasn't been blocked anywhere I've been since that time.
It really is the perfect remote desktop. About 4 months ago, I started using NX from Windows (but Linux qtnx works great too) as my daily connection to my main desktop running in a private cloud with a FreeNX server. I'm using it now. For productivity apps and heavy programming, I LOVE IT. Only audio and video are minor issues. The NX protocol understands different bandwidth and compresses accordingly. From a security perspective, I don't take anything with me on these trips, so there is nothing to lose. If the remote connection doesn't work - oh well. If I have any belief that the hardware I took with me has been compromised, I don't connect. Public wifi is just fine - the keys used are all private, so state-sponsored DNS redirection doesn't work.
Perfect Remote Desktop=net/Chromebook + NX client
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=crown
In Icelandic kóróna means crown and króna is the monetary unit.
The root word for the English Corona is the indo-european gher, which meant shiny. Assuming kóróna has the same origin, then "shiny" also makes sense for coins even if they don't have a Crown imprinted on them.
Sure Google has contributed a lot of code, bit none of it makes Linux DEPENDANT on Google. Google could vanish tomorrow and my Linux machines wouldn't notice.
the x86-based acer chromebook.. shorter battery life (big deal, still good enough) but you get a dual core intel processor (faster than most budget laptops bundled with windows) and a larger, real hard drive... for less money.
People running Linux know the difference between hardware and software
Even if a user knows, the manufacturer's technical support department might not, and manufacturers will do everything short of a flagrant Magnuson-Moss violation to make the hardware warranty disappear if the user installs another operating system.
Yes, you can flip a "developer mode" switch to disable the hardware lockdown
Does the developer mode switch also disable the warranty on the hardware? If I have flipped the developer mode switch, and the power connector wears out, am I out the full cost of replacement?
"you might expect that the top selling consumer laptop would be based on Win8"
Looking for chromebooks on amazon.co.uk, I see 4 laptops, 2 by Acer (C7 and C7000, not sure what the differences are), 2 by Samsung (3g and non-3g). If I search for windows 8 laptops I get hundreds. It's obvious that a Chromebook would be higher selling simply because you're comparing a a range with an incredibly long tail to one with very little choice.
Also, "without any major advertising campaign"? What the hell? Does the submitter even watch TV? Over here we've been bombarded with that annoying "quirky" advert of youtube clips pretty much every single ad break. Google have spent a fortune on their ad campaign.
Not only do they constantly track your browsing habits, but there are indications that the latest models constantly record all audio in the vicinity and upload it to Google for further processing.
iMac nickeled and dimed me for 20$ to get QuickTime to play mpg, after I pluncked down 1300$ for their machine. And I have not forgiven Steve for that yet.
Neither Apple nor Google can control how much MPEG-LA charges per unit for patent licenses for MPEG-2 (.mpg) and MPEG-4 Part 2 (the most common use of .avi).
Take a look for yourself, do you feel your not able to do the install?
I could do it; I just worry about whether I'd be able to get hardware problems fixed under the manufacturer's warranty after having done it.
Most people can drive a car, just because most people can't do much else with it doesn't make for a bad car.
In a car, does replacing the radio void the warranty?
Duh!
Can't do blah blah ... no one buys from Amazon blah blah ... return rate blah blah ... back to the '80s terminal blah blah ...trailer park Amazon buyers blah blah
STFU. Sales is sales.
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
Who really buys laptops from Amazon? They rarely have the best prices or selection. That the Chromebook took the top spot isn't much of a surprise.
I wanted to like the tablet. I tried Android an iOS. I wasn't expecting a laptop replacement, but I was hoping for a netbook replacement. Both fall flat in that regard. I experimented with a friend's Chromebook. It's not the same as my Asus netbook running Windows, but it's much better than my tablet. Of course, that's just a matter of opinion.
I think there are around 400 to 500 offline apps in the Web store's "offline collection" now - so there's quite a bit of useful stuff. All the core google apps are now available offline - Reader, Calendar, Docs, Books, Google Drive, Gmail, Calculator, Tasks, etc, etc... All kinds of games are, of course, available offline. It's enough software that I'm not stuck with nothing to do on a long plane ride.
All the core google apps are now available offline - Reader, Calendar, Docs, Books, Google Drive, Gmail, Calculator, Tasks
Except for Docs, these largely appear to be applications for "consuming", that is, viewing works created by others. Is there an image editor comparable to, say, GIMP?
It's enough software that I'm not stuck with nothing to do on a long plane ride.
Are there any applications for, say, a high school student to do his computer programming homework? Or say an idea for an algorithm pops into my head. Are there any applications for someone to sketch out an algorithm and test it?
I did not say "run any Android app you want" - so you don't need to put quote marks around it, unless you are quoting yourself. I'm simply remarking that there are thousands of apps for Android that also appear to be showing up as apps on the Chrome web store. If you spent a bit of time browsing through the Chrome web store, I think you would be impressed at how quickly it's maturing, as I was.
It does not mean that at all. Chrome's web store is much more limited than the Android app store at this point.
Apparently Google has learned from M$ that you need your propaganda operatives in every major corner of the inter-tubes.
..are the M$ $hill in this catfight ??
If you are fed up with the Google-only stuff, make it a full Linux machine:
http://www.devchronicles.com/2011/10/installing-ubuntu-on-samsung-series-5.html
It is actually high time to not just fight Windows, but also the other monopolist; Intel. This company has been destroying their only credible competitor by all sorts of uncompetitive measures (such as kicking hundreds of millions to Dell for padding of quartely profits in exchange for dumping AMD).
Kick Intel into their balls and go ARM !
http://www.devchronicles.com/2011/10/installing-ubuntu-on-samsung-series-5.html
Use that instead of the KDE bloat. I used Xubuntu on a very weak machine in the past with a crap SIS graphics card and it was fully functional. Just 512 MB of RAM, 1.5GHz CPU clock.
..because they love to be in a Sado-Masochistic relationship with the Mad People Of Redmond. UEFI and all sorts of other chains and a mighty whip included. From time to time, Ballmer will pull their toenails as an added bonus.
..can release CATIA on Linux any time, because they already sell POSIX-based versions on commercial Unix. That's actually their heritage. CATIA is the #1 CAD/CAM system, wordwide. I know because until recently I worked as a developer for Dassault.
As Linux is POSIX and X11 just like the commercial Unices, that would be a minor thing. Just ask your Dassualt sales rep.
Autocad - that's a semi-professional thing as compared to NX and CATIA.
I've been surprised at how dismissive Slashdot has been of Chromebooks. The main criticism seems to have been how underpowered these things are compared to hardware at a similar price point. The second main criticism seems have been about how limited its apps options are.
The criticism has seemed surprisingly short-sighted. The price point, robustness of the OS (it has an impressively fast hard cycle, and restores all browser tabs that were open when you mashed the power button, should you ever need to actually shut it off), its battery lasts an order of magnitude longer than that of my previous laptops... it has serious appeal. Not just to clueless moms whose other "app" is the solitare game on their underpowered windows desktop, but also to the person who eventually notices that they spend 99% of their Macbook time... in a browser. Plus, chicklet keys.
You can scan and see that most are from non-owning fanboys. They regurgitate specs and other PR crap ... and don't give any details.
But then you read the low score reviews and you find lots of post with details (and a few from non-owning haters).
[skype video upside down]
Well, if you'd done the search, you'd realize the problems HAVE BEEN REPORTED.
I'm playing with it, I'm videoing it now so I can post a SKYPE IS CRAP show and tell, I'll add another bug:
7. It doesn't handle timezones properly. It is 9am, a new event happened at 2am, it is not listed in the 'Today' section, it is listed in the 'Some time ago' section. What is listed in the 'TODAY' section is from 'YESTERDAY' at 18:48!
"spoutting utter shit like this without any facts"
Do a search moron.
Mr. Ballmer already lost a revenue stream when 10" laptops (most of which were shipped with Windows) were recently discontinued. I'm typing this into a 10" laptop (a Dell Inspiron mini 1012) running Xubuntu 12.04 LTS, and I'm looking for something to replace it now that I won't be able to buy a 10" laptop anymore. I don't see how that makes me a shill for Microsoft. And frankly, the instructions to enable "developer mode" on a Chromebook and boot the Xubuntu install image look more complicated than the instructions to disable secure boot in a PC's UEFI GUI, especially with the requirement to reformat and reinstall rather than shortening an existing partition.
The Chromebook has been top dog on Amazon for months, a fact reported on several times - this is news??
I am a big fan of Google and Android and Linux. I finally scraped together the pennies to get a chrome box. It's inability to play a few different formats of video, such as wmv and dvd, became too painful. From my research I assumed I would be able to install applications in the normal linux fashion. If I do so the automatic updates will cease and the hardware based security will be disabled. Fine, I can live with that. They said they would address any issues that come up so I would not have to. That is the most important thing. They failed miserably. The inability to set the screen resolution and the lack of sound over hdmi and no camera or microphone support equals a broken paperweight. These are really basic functions that should have been addressed before it was every released. Calling tech support is futile. They are trained for chromebooks and have no clue about the chromebox. The high sales figures represent Googles fan base whom they are betraying in massive numbers.
I am a big fan of Google and Android and Linux. I finally scraped together the pennies to get a chrome box. It's inability to play a few different formats of video, such as wmv and dvd, became too painful. From my research I assumed I would be able to install applications in the normal linux fashion. If I do so the automatic updates will cease and the hardware based security will be disabled. Fine, I can live with that. They said they would address any issues that come up so I would not have to. That is the most important thing. They failed miserably. The inability to set the screen resolution and the lack of sound over hdmi and no camera or microphone support equals a broken paperweight. These are really basic functions that should have been addressed before it was every released. Calling tech support is futile. They are trained for chromebooks and have no clue about the chromebox. The high sales figures represent Googles fan base whom they are betraying in massive numbers.
I think it is a continuation of the success story of android. After successfully dominate the market with Android, now probably google trying to dominate other markets with chromebook. And i think the best chromebook for now is Samsung xe303c12-a01us Samsung and google make a good collaboration to make this chromebook, xe303c12-a01us, just like when they make android phone.
There are plenty of alternatives to Quicken
QuickBOOKS not Quicken. Completely different software. Quicken is for personal finance. Quickbooks is accounting software to run a business. There is personal finance software for linux that, while it isn't quite as good as Quicken, is perfectly acceptable. There is NO software available for linux that is equivalent to Quickbooks. None. I'm a certified accountant and anyone who tells you there is an equivalent bit of software to Quickbooks (or Sage 50) available on linux has no idea what they are talking about. It simply does not exist.
The Chromebook definitely has it's place, as there are many people that would be happy with an easy-to-use, fast starting, inexpensive laptop. That being said, not everyone is willing or able to give up on their Windows applications. But there are solutions to overcome that. For example, Ericom AccessNow is an HTML5 RDP client that enables Chromebook users to securely connect to any RDP host, including Terminal Server and VDI virtual desktops, and run their applications and desktops in the Chrome browser tab. Check out this link for more info: http://www.ericom.com/RDPChromebook.asp?URL_ID=708 Please note that I work for Ericom