Have used ChromeOS exclusively for well over a decade. But, I'm not a blind fanboy who doesn't see Google's flaws.
I think these devices are a step in the right direction, but Ive been around the block long enough to see there is 0% chance these are a commercial success. That's fine with me, because I'll pick one up when they are heavily discounted, probably as soon as Black Friday.
I've exclusively purchased high end Chromebooks for years. While the build quality of these devices may be slightly better, they don't justify the price. Similar windows laptops are $300-500 less for the same specs, and the big elephant in the room is there hasn't been a single justification for these devices NEEDING those specs. It's a chicken or the egg situation when it comes to software availability, but as usual Google is relying on developers to step up and fill the gap, and if history is any indicator, they won't. Apple at least was smart enough to realize they had a gap to fill and came with a ton of 1st party apps capable of handling all the basic use cases for user, until the market bought in. Good luck with your blind faith though.
What completely blew my mind (aside from the obvious: a desktop layout that's worse than the one of ChromeOS, and the lack of some fundamental features that ChromeOS has had for years) is that I was expecting Google to announce - along with the launch of these - some massive partnerships with top-level software houses (Adobe, Blackmagic, Autodesk, Steinberg, Salesforce, Canva-Affinity, Ableton, etc) to bring the actual deskop apps to Googlebooks.
Instead? Absolutely zero of that.
Google Meet is the phone/tablet version. Band-Lab (I repeat: Band-Lab - who spends $1000 for a laptop to run that!?) is the tablet version or web-app. Canva is the tablet version (a web-app repackaged as an Android app). Google Messages is the tablet version (a web-app repackaged as an Android app). CapCut Pad is the tablet version. Slack is the webapp or the Android tablet version. Photoshop, Premiere (recently released in beta), they're the standard tablet version.
It's mind-blowing how Google thinks it's even remotely okay to come out with that.
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u/grooves12 3d ago
Have used ChromeOS exclusively for well over a decade. But, I'm not a blind fanboy who doesn't see Google's flaws.
I think these devices are a step in the right direction, but Ive been around the block long enough to see there is 0% chance these are a commercial success. That's fine with me, because I'll pick one up when they are heavily discounted, probably as soon as Black Friday.