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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 It's been replaced by a search button which doubles as the Windows key on a PC keyboard.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.
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.
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?
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?
that is some twisted perspective considering 6 of the top 10 are windows lol.
I think he meant that this would be news if there were more Chrome-books on that list than Apple Macs since Apple is a smaller competitor to beat when it comes to laptop sales than the 800 pound gorilla that is Windows Laptops. Chrome-books displacing Windows laptops on the top 10 most sold list would be the next hurdle. Personally, I'll be impressed one of these Chrome-books managed to stays on that list on for any length of time, not that I'm especially impressed by that list, the one for music players still has third place on the Amazon list and it is discontinued.
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-Hard-Drive-Based/zgbs/electronics/15752041
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
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
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
that is some twisted perspective considering 6 of the top 10 are windows lol.
I think he meant that this would be news if there were more Chrome-books on that list than Apple Macs since Apple is a smaller competitor to beat when it comes to laptop sales than the 800 pound gorilla that is Windows Laptops.
Interesting way of putting it - 800 pound Gorilla. The fact is that even if those Windows laptops are 800 pound Gorillas, the macbooks are probably 1200 GBP gorillas.
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.
Freaking percentages! How do they work?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
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.
Na - I got mine from BestBuy. I walked in and asked for one - had to order it and wait for two days. The store guys said they can't keep the store inventory up with the demand, but they keep getting them in the distribution warehouses.
Nah. It's just so lightweight, and it works real well. Nicely designed product.
You've split some pretty major hairs there to explain why the Chromebook is on top.
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."
No, it really isn't doing fine. Instead of the usual uptick in sales with a new Windows release, PC sales dropped 21% during the month after Windows 8 was released.
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
Not to mention in every town there is one or more shops that are happy to sell you Windows 7, be it on desktops or laptops, and of course for the past...ohh I'd say at least the last 5 years or so, computers have frankly been so insanely overpowered compared to what the customers actually do with the thing there simply isn't a real reason to upgrade before they die which can be quite awhile. Hell most of my customers simply had me install Win 7 on the systems they had bought from me with XP, why? Because they were duals,triples, and quads and so overpowered that they do everything they want them to so why buy another before that one dies?
But for any of those that think "Win 8 is just the 'Star Trek Rule' in action" nope, take a gooood look as Ballmer has made it clear in his "Windows Blue" memo that this is it, you can have Apple or overpriced MSFT hardware pretending to be Apple, they are gonna copy everything down to the stores and making their own hardware and trying to lock everything down into a black box appstore centric model, so Win 7 is pretty much the last real copy of Windows if Ballmer doesn't get fired.
Frankly I don't see how the OEMs have any choice, MSFT is already fucking the living hell out of them when it comes to Windows licenses (now rumored to be over $50 a copy for Windows Home, with NO breaks on price no matter how many they buy) and is gonna be trying to actively destroy them with their own MSFT branded hardware in 2013. So they really don't have a choice here, either they close their doors or they find a new supplier and I have a feeling Google will be happy to take that business. I predict if the board doesn't quit smoking crack and fire the Ballmernator that in less than 3 years you'll see all the OEMs pushing ChromeTops and ChromeBooks and they'll have a few VERY expensive Windows machines in the corner that they won't advertise and won't give a shit about because it would be like Kmart pushing Walmart brands, all you are doing is helping the company that wants to put you out of business.
So while the ChromeBooks are limted to online now I have a feeling by summer of this year you are gonna see a TON of new models, in all different sizes and prices, all over the retailers and the online. I mean what else can they do? Its that or do like Nvidia did with chipsets and just close the doors, MSFT has made it clear the "future" of Windows is MSFT OSes running on MSFT hardware sold from a MSFT store with a very high MSFT markup, no way they are gonna sell Windows licenses cheap enough for the OEMs to keep selling against them.
To me the sad part will be the death of DIY and the little shops, because as we have seen with the latest Chromebooks they are getting more and more locked down (hell you can't even run Linux on the things without 3 pages worth of CLI and a LOT of finger crossing) so what you will end up with is disposable black boxes, more like cellphones than today's desktops and laptops.
And sorry about the length but this really fucking depresses me, not because of the shop as I've been moving more into home theaters and security setups anyway, but because it looks like we are going back to the 80s with everything locked down and proprietary, its all gonna be soldered chips that boot from locked BIOS into a locked OS that requires everything go through an appstore owned by the company that owns the OS, but people standing in line to buy overpriced iToys have convinced the IT world that that is what people want,locked down appliances instead of general purpose computing. Fucking shame and I have a feeling the next decade or two is gonna really suck balls and computers will pile up in the landfills like old gaming consoles because you won't be able to do jack shit with them when the corps stop supporting it, but that is what the consumer seems to want.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You get a gaming PC (hardware only) for £600, but Windows 7/8/whatever costs an extra £200. Same in Norway, Get a gaming PC for 6000 Kronar, but Windows whatever costs another 2000 Kronar, which amounts to the cost of another GPU card, external backup drive, some extra memory or simply 2/3 weeks food shopping.
What is the major difference between Windows 7/8 and XP or a Linux distro? Just the GUI
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Out of linguistic curiosity, where does your "kronar" come from? Norway uses "kroner", and Sweden "kronor".
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
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.
Well, Ubuntu can help with that! If you search for drivers for your NVidia card, it'll return a link to golf clubs on Amazon.
With the one-click ordering they plan for 13.04, a search for NVidia drivers will see the golf clubs show up at your door the next day. With customer service like that, Canonical will be unstoppable.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
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.
It measn "crown" in those various Klingon dialects.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
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.
Out of linguistic curiosity, where does your "kronar" come from? Norway uses "kroner", and Sweden "kronor".
"kronar" is the plural form, perhaps?
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.
Actually, if you look, the machines are low-spec machines for $350-$500. These are dual-core Celerons with 4GB RAM and a 16GB SSD. The Chromebox particularly, a $450, 16GB SSD, 4GB RAM, Celeron 2x1.9GHz, no peripherals, compares to a $550 home-built box on a $150 Shuttle with a $200 Intel Core i5 2405S at 4x3.2GHz, $100 128GB SSD drive, and $100 16GB RAM. That is to say, it's a piece of junk worth about $100, sold for what you'd pay for a machine that can touch the specs of some servers from the last five years (hell, at those specs, I could run a dozen servers in VMWare on it for a large enterprise network--Exchange excluded, but a large Web server hosting hundreds of sites sure).
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So while the ChromeBooks are limted to online now
I bought both of mine at Best Buy. Had to drive to another city, though. Six of the seven Best Buy stores within 30 miles of me were sold out.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
And they say there is no demand for netbooks.
No, it really isn't doing fine. Instead of the usual uptick in sales with a new Windows release, PC sales dropped 21% during the month after Windows 8 was released.
That means PC sales aren't doing fine, not that Windows 8 isn't doing fine. In fact, that sort of a drop makes perfect sense -- Windows 8 was cheap and runs very nicely on existing PCs. The problem isn't Windows 8, its that PC manufactures are struggling (and have been for years) to justify the constant upgrade cycle. Until my photo library ticked over 400GB, my six year old laptop worked fine for me. I had to get a new PC when I needed more storage space than a laptop would handle. But for most people? If you don't need the latest-and-greatest, why would you have bought a new PC in the last five years?
40 million Windows 8 licenses sold in the first few weeks were 40 million people who didn't need to buy a new PC. That's a win for Microsoft, and a fail for the PC makers.
"kronar" is the plural form, perhaps?
No, that was my point. Norwegian and Danish form -er plurals. The plural of "krone" is "kroner".
It stands out as much as if someone said "penca" instead of "pence" in English.
Because it was consistently done, it's not a typo either. It could be a dialect I am unfamiliar with? :)
It's not important, I'm just curious
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.
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Google advertised the crap out of Chromebooks on Hulu.
The new Samsung Chromebook has that quad core ARM SoC for $250. That seems like a fairly decent price/performance ratio to me.
Generally when Microsoft wants something to look good internally they bundle discounted licenses with as many deals as possible to inflate the numbers.
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.
Another simple explanation: the poster doesn't know kroner is spelled.
--
Promoting critical thinking since 1994.
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.
"Kronar" is a common misspelling when writing Nynorsk (new Norwegian).
The monetary unit is called kroner in both Norwegian languages; but the coins are (sometimes) called {value}kronar in new Norwegian (tikronar - has a value of 10 kroner).
Confusing.
---- Sig. gone.
I learned something new - thank you!
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!"
I'm surprised I'm mostly agreeing with you but you are wrong on one count, chromebooks are not locked down to the people who want to get out of the garden.
Chromebooks have a developer mode which allows you to dualboot linux and chrome os.
For mum and dad a walled garden of a mostly self administrating system is very appealing log into your gmail account enter the password for the router (its written on a label on the back of the router) and thats it setup.
compare that user experience with the one that you go through with windows all the trialware, hardsell and the rest its scary.
I bet you are asked everyday if you will setup a new windows machine for someone mostly because of that preinstalled junk.
What Google has wisely chosen to do is allow for an alternative Linux install for those people who want a bit more than the chromebook offers. For years people have been ripping out windows or moving to dualboot systems so they can scratch their itch.
Foolishly Microsoft has made an error in judgement which I think they may regret. I can't run Linux on an arm based windows system and its become a major pain to install on an x86 system with secureboot.
However Google is giving me options the chromebook is open to me to install Linux and do the stuff I want to do.
Maybe you should be looking to sell Chromebooks, perhaps even offer an alternative install. Mum and Dad won't care about the alternative but some of the kids might. I wouldn't be too surprised if steam makes it onto chrome os in the next year too, wouldn't that be ideal.
Pirating software so I can do on Windows what I can do for free on Linux is not an acceptable option. I think if i'm going to buy a laptop in the next 12 months it will be a chromebook. Don't give a monkeys about chromeOS same as for windows but I will have a nice bit of hardware to do with as I please and no microsoft tax.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
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).
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
hell you can't even run Linux on the things without 3 pages worth of CLI and a LOT of finger crossing
Chromebooks have a developer mode which allows you to dualboot linux and chrome os.
So it takes "3 pages worth of CLI and a LOT of finger crossing" to run an application without the overhead of a JavaScript interpreter. And is the hardware warranty still valid after that point? I'd hate to have to buy another laptop because the power socket has become loose or one of the keys on the keyboard has stopped working.
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).
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.
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).
and fact is that, even today, not many people know how to order stuffs [sic] from Amazon.
Not sure what 'fact' you're citing, but this is just plain wrong. Amazon is one of the largest retailers in the world. Almost everyone I know orders from Amazon, and that includes my parents in their 70s - And this is in the context of amazon.CA where the selection is greatly reduced compared to amazon.com.
Well, no. Chrome -- and therefore ChromeOS -- supports in-browser native applications via NativeClient.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/12/how-to-install-ubuntu-on-acers-199-c7-chromebook/
Take a look for yourself, do you feel your not able to do the install?
There are those that can and those that can't. Most people can drive a car, just because most people can't do much else with it doesn't make for a bad car.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
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?
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.
Windows 7/8/whatever costs an extra £200
A full retail copy of windows 7 ultimate can be had about £170 (including VAT as is normal when talking about end user prices in the UK).
But the price drops a bit as you go down the editions and drops more if you are prepared to buy "system builder" rather than "retail" I'm not sure if you are really supposed to use "system builder" copies for machines you build for yourself (AIUI they are really meant for PCs you build and sell) but afaict pretty much all hobbyists do. Home preumium OEM can be had for arround £73 (again including VAT)
Afaict no public numbers are available on what the big brands pay for windows but the rumours are it's much less than the "system builders" pay.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Good read; thanks. However, you seem to be more of a half-empty than half-full type?
Only looking at your last paragraph, I'd see gold, if I was running a small-town computer shop, or in my university years again. Charge people $100-200 to fix up their computer by installing a GNU/Linux distribution. Or, if that's not interesting, exchange their old hardware, and re-sell that to somebody else. Maybe supplement the business with some courses.
(Just don't patent the business plan though; stories of people doing exactly that have been frequent over the last couple of years).
It's only a dual core (though it is a cortex a15)
Which afaict puts it in the same ballpark as dual core atom based machines and if you think 2GB is enough to last the life of the machine and you don't need lots of computing power on the go it may be a nice device for you.
OTOH If computing power is your thing and you don't care too much about size and weight you will be much better off with a sandy/ivy celeron from the regular mobile (not ultra mobile) range.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
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.
Perhaps it is Icelandic, their currency is the krona as well. Perhaps the icelandic plural is krona.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
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.
..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.
KDE actually isn't that bad, at least as long as you don't install nepomuk. Another nice feature of Gentoo. :)
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.
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.
I'm sorry you are wrong, with Windows you have ONE company controlling the OS and the release has ONE kernel and ONE subsystem, whereas Linux is a bunch of prima donna devs that don't give a rat's ass what the other guys are doing, the kernel devs don't talk to the driver guys who don't talk to X-Server team who couldn't give a wet shit about the DE teams, so what you get is a big fucking mess held together with CLI and duct tape, oh lord the duct tape.
This is why Google will be able to succeed with Android and ChromeOS where Linux has failed, they have the money to fork the whole damned thing and say "Fuck you prima donnas, either you STFU and get your ass on board, using OUR SDK to build for OUR OS, or you can fuck right off because we don't care about your bullshit" and will be able to bring real quality control to the platform. Hell even Canonical couldn't pull this off as while they had their own bits on top they were still at the mercy of guys like the Pulse team and the kernel devs, which is why Dell has to run their own (badly out of date) repos just to support the piddling handful of hardware they sell Linux on, because the devs keep shitting all over their drivers. That is pretty fucking sad when you are talking about less than 2 dozen machines in the whole fucking line up.
That said you are 100% right that Windows IS too fucking high, which is why so many gamers pirate their OS. For quite awhile now MSFT under Ballmer has been fucking everyone, the OEMs, the consumer, the SMBs, the enterprise, because all Steve "Did you know I have a degree in marketing?" Ballmer gives a flying fuck about is Wall Street and the stock price, NOT selling a good product at an affordable price and thus gaining his company more share. He is the classic PHB, more like short sighted assholes like Bobby Kotick at Activision than Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, all the Ballmernator gives a shit about is squeeeezing every last red cent out of every thing he can to try to please the street and bump up the stock.
How many times have we seen this kind of ass cancer on American business, the CEO that only cares about fucking the customers for every dime he can and trying to pump up the stock price? And it ALWAYS ends the same, with the company in ruins. Westinghouse, Circuit City, EA, Activision, AMD, the list goes on and on of short sighted CEOs that only cared about shaking the customer for every cent and pumping the stock, it has NEVER ended on a happy note, just as it won't here.
Final prediction for MSFT, from the guy that called both Vista and Win 8 months before they came out (I got it half right on 7, I said fixing UAC did a BIG help to the OS but I didn't predict all the third party support for jumplists and for the OS itself making it such an easy drop in replacement for XP, I thought they would drag ass like they did on Vista) and my prediction is this: If Ballmer isn't fired in 3 years you'll see the desktops and laptops all but replaced by ChromeTops and ChromeBooks because the OEMs won't have any choice, it'll be switch or die, Apple will own the high end, Google the low, and MSFT will be the new RIM when they could have been the new IBM. Instead of hanging onto their legacy customers and then slowly moving into new markets like IBM did they are gonna burn the bridges and will end up with nothing but legacy business installs, and like RIM even those will be looking at exit strategies.
Again I have never seen any company just outright destroy itself with such a fundamentally stupid idea before, the closest I can compare it to is THQ putting themselves into bankruptcy by spending $110 million on a drawing tablet for the consoles and thinking that would actually ever be anything more than a teeny niche, or Atari buying more PacMan carts than their were 2600 consoles...but even THAT isn't THIS stupid, here they have 2 fucking years worth of data that says in 50 foot flaming letters that the consumers DO NOT WANT THIS and every single product tied to the new "Hey we'll just become Ap
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Ah, Slashdot: Where having something positive to say about a product means you're a shill. I had a longer response written, but what's the point?
If you can't convince them, convict them.
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.
Linux is a corpse and will be gone in less than 5 years from all places outside the server room, it'll be locked down boxes like ChromeTops and iPads. And you have obviously never worked in a shop or you'd know rep and supporting what you sell is everything and Linux has such a piss poor record when it comes to shitting all over consumer drivers it ain't even funny. I'm sure if you use the power of the Google you'll find the "Hairyfeet Challenge" which i have posted for a couple of years now, still no takers because they know as well as i do what will happen in the end, the Windows machine will have 100% functioning drivers, even after the SPs and hundreds of updates, while the Linux machine will shit all over its own drivers and end up broken.
So thanks but no thanks, my time is $35 an hour and Linux simply costs more than Windows when it comes to after sales support. personally I blame Torvalds as every other OS ON THE PLANET has a stable driver ABI EXCEPT for Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows, OSX, iOS, Android, fucking OS/2 has a stable ABI, Linux is the ONLY one that still has the drivers break on updates.
Its just a shame that ChromeOS is gonna be strictly black box and OEM only as i would be happy to give it a go, Google actually puts quality control into their products and don't break shit with every release like Torvalds and company.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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