
Chromebook (Exynos 5, 2GB) Takes Top Place In Laptop Sales On Amazon - 6ren
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-Laptop-Computers/zgbs/electronics/565108/
======
samstave
My mom was recently diagnosed with cancer, shortly thereafter her house was
burgled and someone stole her laptop and phone.

I bought her the chromebook off amazon and brought it to her. I had to create
a gmail account for her as she was required to have one for this machine.

While the price was right, I was REALLY disappointed that the farking camera
doesn't work in these yet! Neither does chrome Remote Desktop.

My mom has a tracheotomy right now and cannot speak, so doing
Skype/FaceTime/video calls is important for her to see my kids.

Overall, I'd rate this machine a 4/10 based on the limited functionality, the
limited storage and apps and the rather clunky UX.

The physical form-factor is really nice, but the thing, at half the cost of an
iPad has maybe 1/100th the functionality. I can browse the web and create a
google doc. That's it.

~~~
subway
The camera works just fine... I've used mine regularly for meetings via Google
Hangouts since I picked it up a month after release.

As for storage, what exactly are you trying to store on the device? It really
seems to only be intended for use as a dumb terminal to Google services, and
in the current iteration I've yet to find a reason to use the local storage.

My biggest beef is the inability to locally cache music and video from Google
Play. I think if this functionality existed, I would agree that the local
storage is inadequate.

~~~
mtgx
I think you also get 100 GB of Google Drive storage with the new Chromebooks.

~~~
dnu
But it's limited for 1 or 2 years. After that you have to pay if you want that
extra storage.

------
ConstantineXVI
Worth pointing out that CrOS's "secure boot" is somewhat unique among
mainstream OSes in that it still respects the user's wishes by design[0] (aka
developer mode), unlike iOS, WinRT, and (with some exceptions) Android
devices.

[0] [http://dev.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-
docs/f...](http://dev.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-
docs/firmware-boot-and-recovery)

~~~
drivebyacct2
New HTC, Motorola and Samsung devices have unlocked bootloaders, not to
mention the generally superior Nexus brand anyway. The "exception" is locked
bootloaders and that's pretty much a Verizon thing these days.

------
kjhughes
The success of the Chromebook contrasts curiously with the death (?) of the
netbook:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/dec/31/netbooks-
de...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/dec/31/netbooks-dead-2013)

I never bought a "netbook" -- always had top-end notebooks for travel and
desktops for home/office, so there never was a reason to consider a netbook
for myself. However, I just bought three Chromebooks for family members this
Christmas because, compared with tablets, Chromebooks are nearly as good for
content consumption and far better for content creation.

Tablets, combined with popular online destinations and SaaS offerings, appear
to have changed the market potential for newer netbooks such as the
Chromebook.

~~~
lmm
Netbooks were great for travel where you didn't want to lug around a big
laptop, and I'd argue that ultrabooks are essentially a new name for netbooks.
Even full-size desktop-replacement laptops have got a lot thinner (and with
better battery life) than they were five years ago. So I don't think the
netbook has failed; it's just been subsumed into the wider laptop market.

~~~
muuh-gnu
> ultrabooks are essentially a new name for netbooks.

The raison d'être of netbooks was not portability, it was the ridiculously low
price.

> I don't think the netbook has failed; it's just been subsumed

No. Netbooks were new, trendy, selling well and overall successful. Everybody
and their dog had them, bought them and would have kept buying replacements if
they werent panically removed from the market and replaced with
subnotebooks/ultrabooks at 2-4 times the initial netbook price.

~~~
DanBC
Smart phones had a significant impact.

The original eee pc 701 had a small keyboard; a small (but I think nice)
display and limited soldered in SSD storage. (4 gb). This was released 2007.

That's the same year the first iPhone was released. While netbooks are useful
for some people a lot of people just need to read email, noodle about on the
web, and play games.

I agree that it's really annoying that really cheap, portable, limited
function machines are not available. Chromebooks are probably the closest, but
the cloud thing is a bit of a worry for me.

------
saljam
A few commenters are asking about running their favourite distro on these.
I've installed a Debian chroot on mine. I've been using it as my main machine
for almost 2 months now. I'm quite happy with it, but I mostly use it as a
terminal to bigger machines at the university.

To get X I hacked together a Chrome App[0] VNC client, based on noVNC. It's a
bit laggy sometimes, but does the job for my purposes.

Ron Minnich (of Coreboot fame) wrote a guide for doing the same with Arch[1].
And there's Crouton[2] for Ubuntu, but I'm not sure whether it does ARM or
not.

[0] <https://bitbucket.org/saljam/vnc>

[1]
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IVABFl9TJMFPqoE_c0vWP7Yh...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IVABFl9TJMFPqoE_c0vWP7YhA_mXdpThG2UIZsYOCgU/edit)

[2] <https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton>

------
cake
Nowadays I'm very douptfull about those rankings, I've seen a seller that we
set up with Amazon in the top 3 in a category despite having done no sales.

~~~
huxley
They aren't straight rankings. They have a complex algorithm that has several
weightings and probably include some velocity variables that affect placement.

There's been lots of speculation but Amazon rarely gives more than hints about
how they calculate their best seller lists:

"We base rankings on all-time sales, as well as recent sales that are weighted
more heavily than older sales, so that our lists are timely and aren't always
dominated by all-time best-sellers like Harry Potter." \- Amazon Spokeswoman

Source: [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32336521/ns/business-
us_business...](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32336521/ns/business-
us_business/t/secrets-amazon-best-seller-list/#.UORW7KUshn8)

------
archangel_one
As much as I'm pleased* to see this, I don't think "without a major
advertising campaign" is fair. There are no end of Google ads in the
Underground at the moment, featuring Chromebooks front and centre, and I
assume that's not the only place.

*disclaimer: I work for Google, so I may not be totally unbiased on this point.

------
tedunangst
How many people buy laptops through Amazon? I always found the selection
impossible to sort through, let alone figuring out if I'm getting this year's
model or last year's model.

~~~
brown
I do. I do research elsewhere, and then go to Amazon for price shopping. Asus
in particular was best on Amazon.

------
chayesfss
I'm a little surprised it's happened so early but I'd attribute it to the fact
that it's actually cheaper than an iPad. I've got the Acer c710 and actually
like working with it even though it seems like the processor is a little
slower than my old cr-48.

~~~
mtgx
The price probably played a role, but I also think they address pretty
different markets. Not everyone wants to hold a tablet in their hands all day,
while others would rather use a tablet than a normal laptop.

------
duck
What is crazy is they have been sold out since early December (or maybe even
before that).

------
mtgx
Has Portable NaCl arrived on the ARM Chromebook yet? Google promised it by the
end of the year:

[http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57534803-93/google-
offers-l...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57534803-93/google-offers-low-
budget-arm-based-chromebook/)

------
habosa
Interesting because for me it is showing up as $324 and not the famous $250
price. I am definitely buying one of these when it comes back in stock. I
think I'll replace my Asus Transformer with a Chrome book and a Nexus 7

~~~
dannyr
It's because it's from another seller.

If you look on the right side, you'll see $250 from Amazon but it's out of
stock.

------
joezydeco
I tried one at Best Buy earlier this month, since nobody else has one that you
can actually put your hands on. They were sold out but they had a live demo
model working in a display.

The keyboard just felt... _odd_. I don't know if it was because the keys were
slightly larger and spaced farther apart than a similar low-profile Mac
keyboard, or if it was the different placement of keys (no Alt key, but a
large "search" key in it's place)

Anyone else have some opinions of the keyboard?

~~~
saljam
The Samsung ARM Chromebook I have has 2 normally located Alt keys. The Search
key replaces Caps Lock (Good riddance!)

Are you sure you weren't using one of the Intel ones? Maybe it's the
British/American difference...

~~~
joezydeco
Maybe I'm getting mixed up with the Acer C7 model, which was also on display.

------
arikrak
Windows laptops have many different brands and models, and even Macbooks have
been around long enough that there's different types, but there's basically
just 2 Chromebooks. This means they might only be a tiny fraction of PC sales,
but still out come as the #1 specific product.

------
serverascode
Anyone know where I could get one around Santa Clara? As a Canadian I don't
think I can buy one in Canada. But I have to go to Santa Clara for the Open
Compute summit. I checked the nearest best buys but nothing.

------
aidenn0
More interestingly to me is that Apple has all but one of the top-10 laptops
that is selling for over $500.

------
juusto
Would love to get one of these babies and install Ubuntu.

Is it possible to install Java+Eclipse+Android SDK on it?

~~~
osivertsson
Even if possible, for me I think this setup would be a very painful experience
with a slower CPU, low resolution display, and only 2GB RAM compared to what
at least I'm used to, which is a Dell M4500 i7 with 8GB RAM, granted it did
cost five times as much a couple of years back.

~~~
bitwize
If he ditched eclipse, it could actually work. Developing Android apps with
Emacs and the command line tools is really quite feasible, especially since
there's no enterprise shit-ola which is what people rely heavily on IDEs to
generate for them.

But I don't think the Android SDK is available in anything but x86... so,
maybe if he used qemu emulation?

------
cheriot
OS of Best Sellers in Laptop Computers

1 Chrome

2 OSX

3 Windows 7

4 OSX

5 Windows 7

6 Windows 8

7 Windows 8

8 Windows 8

9 Windows 7

10 Windows 8

11 Chrome

~~~
aidenn0
And #2,4,10 are the only 3 over $500

------
batgaijin
I wish I could install arch-arm to the internal drive.

~~~
Inufu
If it's like the other chromebooks, you can if you enable Dev mode.

------
wes-exp
Never underestimate the selling power of cheap crap.

~~~
EwanToo
It's far from crap, it's my standard day to day laptop now, has been since
November.

I still have my lenovo laptop for when I need it, but that's pretty rare

~~~
macspoofing
Do you do anything besides typical "web-stuff" on it? Granted, I spend quite a
bit of time in my browser, but then I have that pesky development-thing I do.
I like my iPad, but it hasn't replaced my laptop.

~~~
georgemcbay
If you find ChromeOS limiting, you can always install a full Linux distro on
the machine.

My Samsung ARM Chromebook has two partitions, one of which loads into ChromeOS
and one which loads into a full Ubuntu/ARM rootfs.

~~~
EwanToo
How do you find Ubuntu on it? I bought by arm chromebook totally expecting to
put ubuntu on it, but I've just never got round to it

------
cooldeal
A few thoughts:

Is it sustainable as a business? Anyone know if Google is subsidizing these or
if there is a profit margin, however small? I think it's all about attracting
people to Google Apps for Business but if a lot of folks just load Ubuntu on
it, Google might have second thoughts on it. I think it is meant as mostly a
bundle with Google Apps for Enterprise to attract companies with cheap and/or
rented hardware.

Also, being on the Amazon bestseller list is not a very good indicator of
popularity. Since Google is very unlikely to release the real numbers we will
have to rely on things like StatCounter, Net Applications or even popular web
sites run by HN'ers to get more data on sales.

Will RMS consider this more or less free than Windows/Apple machines? On one
hand you have multiple OEMs, dev mode to boot alternative OSes, compability
with Web etc. but on the other hand you need a Google account to even use it,
and it's tied heavily to Google cloud services, no native API, no chance of
Firefox for it etc. i.e It can be seen as taking consumers even more away from
independent offline usage to being at the mercy of the cloud providers. What
happens if your Google account gets locked?

~~~
Raphael
The majority of people will use the default OS.

