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- Hacker News
- I purchased a Chromebook several years ago. There was a helpful Googler standing right next to the demo machines at the local electronics store. My Chromebook is designed for gaming, and therefore had higher specs than bargain-basement ones. Even though I don't game at all, I have been pleased with its performance in any task I could throw at it.
Furthermore, when the "Chromebook Plus" was introduced, a ChromeOS update gave me a free upgrade to the Chromebook Plus features. It felt like a gift and I felt like this machine was well-cared-for, even after I plunked down the money on it.
10-year or 8-year update pledges are a great thing, but let's face it. I never expected this notebook to last 10 years! Many Chromebooks are sold to children and schoolkids! It's not a rugged or tough construction, but I treat it much more delicately than my smartphone, so it should last until the battery becomes a spicy pillow.
I sort of miss Windows for its Microsoft ecosystem, but I don't miss being a Linux sysadmin, or a Windows network admin, at all. And I can still run Linux on ChromeOS. In fact, I need it for my printer now, but that's a long story!
- Intentionally misleading title.
They are changing the support horizon for new sales only, not ending anything early.
by ltbarcly3 - There's simply no real reason that a mobile device can't function as a desktop from a technical level either in software or hardware. Simply dock your phone or it could be even wireless. Boom! Go from mobile experience to desktop experience. It seems they want to cram the mobile experience into a traditional desktop environment (mouse and keyboard driven with windows paradigm). IOS and Android have not embraced desktop paradigm. We simply need a unified SDK to support both experiences and the store downloads the appropriate assets. We're beginning to see somewhat of these concepts with foldables phone coming into the market.
- So for new devices, they will support ChromeOS for another 8 years and then offer an upgrade to Googlebook OS.
I get that this is not 10 years support for ChromeOS. But it is 10 years of supported software upgrades for these devices.
Perhaps the real issue is not the OS that runs on the devices themselves but support for the existing device management approach.
- Of course they are.
One more datapoint to reference in the future when evaluating Google's long term promises and commitments. "No, we mean it this time."
by sjs382 - > it’s hard to imagine many Chromebooks currently in service or acquired in the next year or two will still be in service come 2034
While there won't be many there definitely will be some; I know of an ~8 year old Chromebook currently in active use.
by bryanlarsen - Extremely sarcastic take but - shouldn't the 10x productivity boost of LLMs like their own in-house Gemini make maintaining software easier?
Nothing in terms of feature release / quality / maintenance I am seeing out Big Software would lead me to believe there's been any productivity increase.
by steveBK123
So they have introduced a major change and said any older Chromebooks bought going forward will only get 8. So its not a retrospective reduction for existing customers.> Googlebooks are the Google's replacement for Chromebooks, the web-centric computers it launched in 2011 and which run ChromeOS.... The newer Googlebook range uses more powerful processors than their predecessors, plus a new OS called Googlebook OS that bakes in Google’s Gemini AI – a product the Chocolate Factory is very keen to see succeed as the great AI land grab continues. ...If you buy a Chromebook today, updates will end in 2034 eight years into the futureSounds reasonable.
8 years is still a long time for a cheap Chromebook.
by TheqO