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Real World Stats Show Chromebooks Are Struggling

Posted by timothy on from the show-me-your-pony's-next-trick dept.

recoiledsnake writes "The first real world stats for Chromebooks show that they're struggling to have any traction in the marketplace. In its first week of monitoring worldwide usage of Google's Chrome OS, NetMarketShare reported that the percentage of web traffic from Chromebooks was roughly 2/100 of 1 percent, a figure too small to earn a place on its reports. The first Chromebooks went on sale in June 2011, nearly two years ago, with Acer reportedly selling fewer than 5000 units in the first six months and Samsung selling even fewer. In the past three years, Chromebook sales have been worse than even three months worth of WindowsRT sales. Perhaps users are heeding Stallman's warning on Chromebooks. We previously discussed reports of Chromebook topping Amazon sales, selling to 2000 schools and wondered whether QuickOffice on ChromeOS can topple Microsoft Office." I find ChromeOS good in some contexts (any place that a browser and a thin layer of Linux is all you need), but the limitations are frustrating — especially on hardware that can run a conventional Linux as well as Google's specialized one. We'll watch for developments in the Google hardware world at next week's I/O conference.

4 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I quite like mine. by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Informative

    Very easy to run Chrombuntu on and then it makes the best laptop I know of for that price.

  2. Wait... what? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Chromebooks have been topping the Amazon sales charts. Clearly TFA's numbers are bullshit because you don't top Amazon by selling less than 5,000 units.

    X is dying. Slashdot confirms it. One of the oldest trolls that still works.

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    1. Re:Wait... what? by swillden · · Score: 4, Informative

      Chromebooks have been topping the Amazon sales charts. Clearly TFA's numbers are bullshit because you don't top Amazon by selling less than 5,000 units.

      X is dying. Slashdot confirms it. One of the oldest trolls that still works.

      Submitter here. The 5000 figure is from the first 6 months of sales from June/July 2011.The Amazon sales charts numbers are from January of this year. Also, not many folks buy laptops from Amazon, so topping the sales there is nothing big.

      OTOH, total sales so through Q1 of 2013 are purportedly in the 500K range. Certainly not a Windows killer yet, nor even an OS X competitor, but 100X more than 5K.

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  3. Re:I quite like mine. by Rotag_FU · · Score: 4, Informative

    I wouldn't have it as my only computer, but over all I think it will make one heck of a good momputer.

    Give this man a prize, he hit the nail on the head. Momputing is where it is at.

    After having to perform the drudgery of familial tech support for years, this thing makes my life a breeze. It is simple and straightforward for my mom to use. Currently it has a smaller attack vector cross section due to the smaller user base making it currently "safer" for mom to use with regards to malware. If it does get compromised or the OS gets corrupted, it is easy to reset to a clean state without having to do time consuming reconfiguration. If it actually breaks, her stuff is in the cloud so it is as simple as buying a new chromebook and having her login and she is good to go.

    My mom has been using the $249 Samsung Chromebook with the solid state memory and mobile processor for about a month now and loves it. It has an added benefit of being light and (due to the mobile processor) requires no fan and doesn't get hot on her lap.

    I could also see value in this as a living room/guest laptop, but have not tried that.