

Chromebooks on sale at Amazon for $349  - almightygod
http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=os_chrm_54?&node=2858603011

======
eggbrain
When I first saw the Chromebook, I figured it would be priced around $150, so
that it was a no-brainer decision (especially with it's limitations over a
normal laptop). But at $349, its still $75 more than an Acer Aspire One.

Make it $100-$150, and I'll buy it. As it stands though, its too much money
and too little benefits.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Samsung Series 5 cost $334.32 to make.[1] Your price expectations are way off.

[1][http://www.thechromesource.com/with-what-it-costs-to-make-
is...](http://www.thechromesource.com/with-what-it-costs-to-make-is-the-
samsung-series-5-chromebook-overpriced/)

~~~
watty
I figured Google would try to use their ad-powered business strategy to lower
the profit margin to near-zero or negative rather than competing against
netbooks. Didn't PS3 sell hardware for much lower than cost to manufacture?

These things would sell like hotcakes for $200 and Google would grow in users
and advertising revenue. I was just surprised that they're selling near
netbook prices considering they're limited devices and tied so tightly into
Google Services. I don't see them disrupting the mobile device industry with
Chromebooks unless they decide that # of users is much more important than
profit per sale.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Google doesn't price these Chromebooks, they only price their
business/education rental program. I don't know why it's hard for people to
believe that Samsung and Acer have control over their own products.

------
vnorby
Don't buy one. I got the Samsung Series 5 3g Chromebook a month ago, and I
definitely regret buying even at its low price point. The OS is still very
unstable and not performant. The speakers are very bad (but I wouldn't watch
video or listen to music anyway - YouTube/Pandora/Turntable.fm tend to crash
quite a bit). The screen is not that great. The only upside is the long
battery life but you're better off spending a couple hundred more and getting
an Air.

~~~
shoota
A couple hundred dollars more? A MacBook Air is $650 more expensive than the
price listed on Amazon. For that price you could buy almost 3 Chromebooks.

~~~
eggbrain
The Samsung Series 5 3g is $500, the cheapest Macbook Air is $835. So, a
little more than a couple hundred dollars more, but a lot less than $650 more
(even the cheapest Chromebook at $350 would be tops $485 less).

~~~
jonknee
The cheapest MacBook Air is indeed $999:

[http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo...](http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air/select?mco=MjMzOTQxMjE)

Perhaps you saw an older model that's on clearance.

~~~
eggbrain
The model I saw was here:

[http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MacBook-MC505LL-11-6-Inch-
Laptop...](http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MacBook-MC505LL-11-6-Inch-
Laptop/dp/B0047DVRQW/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1311619643&sr=1-1)

Which could very well be the 2010 model. That being said, the OP never
mentioned getting "the latest and greatest" Macbook Air, only a Macbook Air.

~~~
jonknee
Yes, that model is no longer being manufactured. If you weren't wanting to
compare what a new computer costs, this already silly argument becomes even
sillier.

~~~
eggbrain
To be fair, they are both "new" computers -- IE not refurbished or used. My
point was the intent of the OP could have been what he found on Amazon from
the respective retailers -- in which case the price point was much closer to
what he mentioned than to the price point shoota mentioned. I never meant to
imply that we should compare a new Chromebook to a 2008 Model (or a used one,
a refurbished one, or one being sold from a illegitimate retailer), which it
does seem like it comes across as I reread my comment.

Its a stupid argument to begin with on my part, but I felt it was worth a
meager defense.

------
Ronkdar
> It just works.

Can we stop saying this please?

> "Your apps, documents, and settings are stored safely in the cloud."

Until Google deletes your account for no specific reason and refuses to give
it back (this has happened to more than one person)

> Millions of apps.

[citation needed]

> Friends let friends login.

Every OS ever has had this feature. It's called "Users"

>Gets faster over time.

What does this mean? That you designed it to be inefficient so you can speed
it up and gather favor from your users? That you just stopped optimizing
halfway through and pegged it 1.0?

~~~
MatthewPhillips
> Until Google deletes your account for no specific reason and refuses to give
> it back (this has happened to more than one person)

Google can delete my Facebook account? My Office Web Apps account? How do they
manage this?

> Every OS ever has had this feature. It's called "Users"

No other OS saves OS settings and apps in the cloud, to my knowledge.

> What does this mean? That you designed it to be inefficient so you can speed
> it up and gather favor from your users? That you just stopped optimizing
> halfway through and pegged it 1.0?

They are talking about the auto-update feature.

~~~
kenjackson
_Google can delete my Facebook account? My Office Web Apps account? How do
they manage this?_

If Google deletes your Google/GMail account, can you still login to your
Chromebook?

~~~
MatthewPhillips
You don't need to login at all.

~~~
kenjackson
Nice. For some reason I thought you needed a Google account to use it. Now
that I know you don't that's a plus. Not enough of a plus, but it's one less
thing to worry about.

~~~
saraid216
It's a plus, but is it a Google plus? /rimshot

------
yason
The price is astronomical. I can turn my EeePC into a homemade chromebook with
$0 and I paid much less for that years ago. I would assume that you could
strip the chromebook down to $150-200 precisely because the hardware specs
required for a glorified browser ought to be considerably lower than for
running a full-fledged OS. Perhaps I'll have to wait for some Tegra chromebook
to get the price/perf figure to a more sensitive level: even the latest
smartphones should be able to match the requirements for a chromebook.

------
dstein
I think Google's strategy for ChomeOS is all wrong. Nobody wants low powered
laptops without a proper OS. As soon as the iPad blew up the netbook market
Google should have retargeted ChomeOS as a tablet OS. A lightweight (zero-
weight) OS is perfectly suited for a tablet. I use an iPad almost exclusively
for browsing the net and checking email and I bet I'm not the only one. A
Chrometablet with some decent specs and maybe some hardware WebGL support
might even open a whole new online gaming market.

------
arihant
If they sell this at $49 with a 2-year data plan contract - would rock! Two
reasons:

1 - This is a brick if you don't have internet.

2 - This is a brick if you can't use it on road. People have internet at
homes.

So consistent always on internet with a very low buy-in cost would probably be
better, imo. I mean, this thing needs to sell as a complete experience.

------
nextparadigms
$350 should be the max pricing point for a higher quality Chromebook, not the
starting point. The starting point should be like $200. They should also make
them only with ARM chips to cut the cost significantly. Ideally, it should be
like $200 wi-fi only with Tegra 2 (or other dual core ARM chip) and $350 for a
better built one with 4G and Tegra 3 (or similar).

------
emergence
They've been on sale for over 10 days now. I don't see them flying off the
shelf.

I've been thinking about buying a 12.1" Samsung Series 5 3G or a 12.5" Lenovo
X220 or an 11.6" Macbook Air or an 11.6" Samsung Series 9. If I could get
emacs on a terminal, with ssh access I would be sold on the Chromebook. Does
anyone know if ssh + emacs + term is possible? (w/ the same battery usage -
i.e. I don't want to bother with installing Linux if I can only get <2 hours
of mobile use).

~~~
mdwrigh2
I don't know about the latest revisions, but the CR-48 had a terminal that was
basically only useful for SSH. So if you have a dev box setup somewhere that
you can SSH to, it makes an okay dev environment (for someone who uses emacs
or vi).

------
krishna2
Imagine you have a chromebook, and imagine Google deleted your account, now do
you have a very expensive paper-weight? (or is there some salvation?). I see
some opportunity for two ideas: 1\. insurance against the event that a company
will delete your account. 2\. a backup-for-orig-company.com (browser plug-in?
desktop-background-app?), that backs up (and keeps track of) everything you do
with company X - so you can retrieve it all someday if the need be.

~~~
e1ven
At least for the CR-48's, you could flip the dev switch and wipe them, or
install Ubuntu. I had to use the dev-switch to get a terminal.. Web online
just doesn't cut it when you need to SSH to your servers ;)

------
choko
Wow, that seems a little pricey for what is offered. I would think they would
be able to use an "off the shelf" netbook that already costs ~300 dollars,
without Windows, and sell it for ~200. Windows accounts for a nice chunk of
the price of a netbook, does it not? I know they don't pay store prices for
Windows, but I'm sure they are still paying a decent amount. Does anyone have
an insight in to how much Windows adds to the price of netbook hardware?

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Netbooks are priced what they are because of their component parts. The 2
Chromebooks released so far are the size of a normal notebook/laptop. The
parts are similar (except for the processor) to that of a notebook, which
explains the price. The Series 5 cost $334.32 to make.[1]

[1][http://www.thechromesource.com/with-what-it-costs-to-make-
is...](http://www.thechromesource.com/with-what-it-costs-to-make-is-the-
samsung-series-5-chromebook-overpriced/)

------
ben1040
I've been using a Samsung Series 5 for a couple weeks (I have the 3G model
which is priced at $499).

After having tried this out, there's no way I would call it worth $499. Maybe
I'm just spoiled from my MacBook Air but the Series 5 is heavy and has a
cheap/plasticky feel to it. The trackpad has responsiveness problems and in
general just feels funny to use. All in all it gives off kind of a "toy
computer" impression which is unfortunate.

------
watty
I too struggle with the price of Chromebooks. I do love my CR48 but expected
price to be around $200 considering the OS is very limited.

------
revorad
Chromebooks are like bigger and worse netbooks. Great at doing nothing but
still not the cheapest!

------
hollerith
Is the main market for chrome books (a) people who want to install Linux and
other OSes on them and (b) people who do not want the hassle of adminning a
traditional OS?

~~~
notatoad
the theoretical market for chromebooks is people who only want a computer for
facebook and email and want to buy something simple and cheap.

in practice, i think the market is just nerds who want to play with a
chromebook because it's new and cool. i appreciate what google is trying to do
with chromeOS, and i think it's a good idea, but they have failed miserably at
marketing it to non-techies.

~~~
Zumzoa
In terms of providing simple email, web use and facebook, the Chromebook may
be out-performed by most modern mobile phones.

~~~
notatoad
for general, non-mobile use, a 3.5-4" screen does not outperform a 12" screen.

------
klbarry
The biggest Chromebook advantage, in my opinion, is that it never slows down
because you never change the software in any meaningful way. For the average
person who bloats their computer over time until it isn't usable, that is
huge.

~~~
pharrington
Unfortunately adware/malware Chrome extensions already exist. Granted removing
that _is_ much easier than removing some nasty software installed on a
traditional OS, but the type of user that's not savvy enough to avoid malware
wouldn't know how to remove a Chrome extension :\

