Good for them, but this is like… the exact opposite of what I want. XD
And I’m not expert but considering that margins are low and competition is high at the low-end, this seems like a poor strategic move. Hopefully Google is paying them well for it.
This is like making a ceramic Solo cup. Who wants a high-end Chromebook? Who wants a Chromebook that can be serviced easily? The whole point of Chromebooks is that they are disposable and have no local state.
I imagine there are people who like Chromebooks and do not think computers should be treated as disposable. I don’t know that there are many, but that’s because I don’t get Chromebooks.
I think it’s not about” disposable”, it’s about “replaceable”. I had one of the first Chromebooks and for non-dev work I loved it. I could use all my favourite websites, read all the articles, do most of the stuff I do on a computer when I’m not working. And when coupled with the (then unofficial) SSH extension, i could even do some light work in vim. Not real dev work, but some tests and trying things out and fiddle with the servers.
Think of it as an advanced tablet. It’s not useless, but it’s not usable for everything, at least not as a primary computing device. I almost never had a tablet, but i liked my Chromebook.
And as such, why not aim for high quality product and high end market? People but iPads and surfaces and I never would, and I don’t think ms or apple or their customers are stupid.
The whole point of Chromebooks is that they are disposable and have no local state.
That was certainly the original sales pitch, but there’s a concerted effort away from that in the past few years. The new pitch is that Chromebooks allow you to give an always-up-to-date, easy-to-lock-down tool to everyone in your company/school that, when damaged, loses no data. Throw in their ability to run Wayland and Linux, and I’ve seen a couple of full-on web dev companies that give all their employees powerful Chromebooks, rather than MacBooks.
Do I want that? Hell no. But But apparently some people do—and since “some people” seems to overwhelmingly be large school districts and massive companies, there is money to be had there.
I’m not seeing those types of places wanting to buy a trivially hackable laptop, though…
I’m also baffled by this. Who are these people that will pay a premium for full control over their hardware but don’t care at all about controlling their software?
I would not classify the Framework laptop as “Free Hardware,” but would say that some people want to be able to lifecycle their machines forever, no matter the OS. I further doubt it would be hard to install Linux on the mainboards on these Frameworks.
Putting on my tinfoil hat, this was a part of the long-term bet of Google getting Chromebooks into the education system. Now with children growing up and indoctrinated into the Google ecosystem, they’ll find this just a hardware transition lessoning the burden of a software transition too—especially with all their data in the cloud. This is probably why I see a lot of younger folks here just using iPads and aren’t sure how to handle when there isn’t an app for that (sent an AsciiDoc file and there was no way to ‘open’ it).
This is another reason why FxOS was too ahead of its time. Boot2Gecko being in the hands of children would make me feel a lot safer than its Google alternative.
I wish I understood better what the changes were. A different os and back plate? A different main board? Maybe they’ll come back with a followup blog post for the curious that covers this information.
Good for them, but this is like… the exact opposite of what I want. XD
And I’m not expert but considering that margins are low and competition is high at the low-end, this seems like a poor strategic move. Hopefully Google is paying them well for it.
This is like making a ceramic Solo cup. Who wants a high-end Chromebook? Who wants a Chromebook that can be serviced easily? The whole point of Chromebooks is that they are disposable and have no local state.
I imagine there are people who like Chromebooks and do not think computers should be treated as disposable. I don’t know that there are many, but that’s because I don’t get Chromebooks.
I think it’s not about” disposable”, it’s about “replaceable”. I had one of the first Chromebooks and for non-dev work I loved it. I could use all my favourite websites, read all the articles, do most of the stuff I do on a computer when I’m not working. And when coupled with the (then unofficial) SSH extension, i could even do some light work in vim. Not real dev work, but some tests and trying things out and fiddle with the servers.
Think of it as an advanced tablet. It’s not useless, but it’s not usable for everything, at least not as a primary computing device. I almost never had a tablet, but i liked my Chromebook.
And as such, why not aim for high quality product and high end market? People but iPads and surfaces and I never would, and I don’t think ms or apple or their customers are stupid.
That was certainly the original sales pitch, but there’s a concerted effort away from that in the past few years. The new pitch is that Chromebooks allow you to give an always-up-to-date, easy-to-lock-down tool to everyone in your company/school that, when damaged, loses no data. Throw in their ability to run Wayland and Linux, and I’ve seen a couple of full-on web dev companies that give all their employees powerful Chromebooks, rather than MacBooks.
Do I want that? Hell no. But But apparently some people do—and since “some people” seems to overwhelmingly be large school districts and massive companies, there is money to be had there.
I’m not seeing those types of places wanting to buy a trivially hackable laptop, though…
I’m also baffled by this. Who are these people that will pay a premium for full control over their hardware but don’t care at all about controlling their software?
You can have Free software, or Free hardware, but apparently not both at the same time?
I would not classify the Framework laptop as “Free Hardware,” but would say that some people want to be able to lifecycle their machines forever, no matter the OS. I further doubt it would be hard to install Linux on the mainboards on these Frameworks.
they make ceramic solo cups and they’re kinda cool :D
Putting on my tinfoil hat, this was a part of the long-term bet of Google getting Chromebooks into the education system. Now with children growing up and indoctrinated into the Google ecosystem, they’ll find this just a hardware transition lessoning the burden of a software transition too—especially with all their data in the cloud. This is probably why I see a lot of younger folks here just using iPads and aren’t sure how to handle when there isn’t an app for that (sent an AsciiDoc file and there was no way to ‘open’ it).
This is another reason why FxOS was too ahead of its time. Boot2Gecko being in the hands of children would make me feel a lot safer than its Google alternative.
amazingly, this chromebook has enough local storage to actually be usable
I wish I understood better what the changes were. A different os and back plate? A different main board? Maybe they’ll come back with a followup blog post for the curious that covers this information.
Wait, why did they keep the terrible arrow key layout?
I really want the original, and I would buy this if it were a third of the cost. This just seems way too expensive for a chromebook.
Oh good chromebooks come in even more expensive, like the HP Elite chromebooks, coming in over 1500 USD.
Sure, it’s just not something I’m personally interested in. If I want high performance, I wouldn’t buy a chromebook.
Why would it be any cheaper? It’s a full set of hardware, no?
Because I would expect a chrome book to have reduced specs. I’m not going to be doing video editing or local compilation.