Comment by jerojero
18 hours ago
I think if I wanted a cheap laptop I'd probably get the macbook neo, and if i wanted a non-gaming expensive one i'd get a macbook pro.
I really don't see the market fit for this, I guess the android integration. But my god, I'd die of cringe if someone asked me about my laptop and I had to say "googlebook". Believe it or not, these things matter a lot, particularly if you're trying to target a young audience.
Chromebook users.
I loved my Pixelbook, fantastic piece of hardware. When that ended, I went with an Acer Chromebook. Works fine, just not the same.
I would go for a Mac Air or Neo, but only if I could install ChromeOS.
I will most likely get a Googlebook, and would be more likely to do so if it was not named Googlebook and did not have Gemini built in.
> I would go for a Mac Air or Neo, but only if I could install ChromeOS.
To each their own, but this is absolute insanity.
I used DOS,then Windows, then Mac for a total of almost 40 years. I think using Windows and OSX are insanity, but to each their own.
I now have a machine that boots almost instantly and just works without maintenance, upgrades, or compatibility issues. I can throw it in the river, and for $300 get a machine that will be up and running in about one minute. I can use multiple machines (small/cheap to bring on a trip, laptop for casual working, larger machine for more serious work, even at the same time. I have full access to everything from my iPhone, or access to some computer anywhere. I use remote VSCode via Crostini to do development work (terminal, vi, Codex, Claude Code) on a bunch of beelink boxes and Hetzner servers.
I cannot run installed software and I am dependent on Google for email, files, photos. For the latter, I have backups of my email and files (photos are not as easy).
Life is simpler this way.
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ChromeOS is a very competent, fast, and easy-to-use operating system. For my family, it's basically perfect. It's virtually unbreakable and anyone can pick it up quickly.
Windows is a hot mess and frankly I wouldn't recommend it to anyone outside of gamers. For the technically competent, there's nothing to gain on Windows, and it will just get in the way. For the those less technically inclined, Windows means complexity and viruses. Also most Windows laptops suck major ass.
MacOS is better, especially if you have an iPhone. But even MacOS is a bit too complex for the less technically inclined. If you have an android phone, then a chromebook is 100% the way to go for those people. Also, chromebooks get crazy software support these days, on par with macbooks.
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Please refrain from making claims like "absolute insanity" without backing it with some sort of commentary on the claim. It really isn't worthy of HN.
see guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It's the only OS for my 93 year old mother. I can manage it remotely, too, and she can't mess it up.
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I work for organizations that spend thousands per year on MDM to turn macOS running on Macbook Airs into effectively ChromeOS.
For certain use cases, a computer that can do nothing whatsoever except run the absolute latest version of production Chrome is better than any other device.
A computer filled with great hardware that gets its hands held behind its back by shit software sounds like the soup de jeure for apple.
The HP Dragonfly Chromebook is pretty good. The Asus models are also very nice. The Acers are hit or miss; quality is iffy on those and there's a zillion models so it's impossible to find a specific one.
I wish Framework would keep supporting ChromeOS but alas. You could put ChromeOS Flex on one - it doesn't have Android apps, which is fine for me, and it does support the Linux environment, which is excellent.
Why would you want ChromeOS and not Linux?
With ChromeOS you get both.
I have used Linux for 20 years, but only for development, and I will only develop on Linux.
For everything else (email, files, photos), I want a browser. Used to be Mac/Osx, but got tired of being managed by it.
Just my preference. You can do everything on Linux, just never felt comfortable with it.
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b/c you don't have to think about the operating system and updates. I posted about my experience here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48051902
...basically, I have "nerd cred" and run linux on my desktop, but for my laptop I wanted: disposable (no leaky hard drive), zero maintenance (no kernel modules for sound drivers), battery-portable.
90% of the time I'm wanting `vim` + `git` + `ssh`, and 20% of the time i'm wanting to run some random stuff locally. Chromebook is basically zero friction and 1/10th the price (and 1/10th the capabilities) of a "very nice mac laptop", plus you can pop into a very capable linux VM (w/ passthrough GUI support) without a lot of ceremony.
Windows laptops are out of the question, and pure linux laptops (until only very recently) were of marginal support and low battery capabilities (especially "close it and stuff it in a backpack for 3 days").
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ChromeOS is linux. It's a Linux distro that works correctly out of the box, setting it apart quite strongly from all other Linux distros.
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You can install ChromeOS on a Mac: https://chromeos.google/products/chromeos-flex/
It's a great stopgap OS for older hardware.
> I would go for a Mac Air or Neo, but only if I could install ChromeOS.
Similarly, but I would extend that to mac mini/studio, but I would like Linux on it. I like hardware, but I hate the OS there.
As a linux desktop user, I would buy it only if I can wipe ChromeOS out of it.
> I would go for a Mac Air or Neo, but only if I could install ChromeOS.
Is this satire?
We tried Chromebooks for our kids, and the instant I could buy Neos I did. It might just be that we're fully bought into the Apple ecosystem, but I had a hell of a time trying to get stuff like parental controls figured out on ChromeOS.
You don't need parental controls at all. Google will make sure they see exactly what they need to see...
/s
I think it's a successor to the Chromebook. In the vast majority of modern K-12 public schools, the school district owns the hardware, not the students.
Everything on this page suggests it's not for education.
Emphasis on AI and connecting to your phone. How many Iceland trips do students make?
Well Chromebooks are primarily EDU products yet still marketed and sold direct to consumers.
Presumably school districts are just going to see different marketing.
Now that I look closer at the Googlebook, I think you are right.
The target is definitely not the K12 education market. It looks more like a premium device which most Chromebooks are not.
On second thought, I think it's not for K12 after all.
I recently heard from couple of Technology Directors at schools that they are looking to procure Macbook Neos replacing their Chromebooks. This might be a strategy to defend their Chromebook market in schools.
Why would an organization want to move from a centrally managed fleet to an unmanaged fleet?
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Pretty sure when they talked about "very high build quality" and such they're saying this is not a replacement to the cheap chromebooks (which I think the macbook neo is eating anyway) but a higher price point.
Yes, you are probably right.
I don't think these are Chromebook successors. This is supposed to be a premium line according to the "Android Show" video. But I suspect future Chromebooks will use this OS eventually.
Unless they're cheap, it's not going to sell well for K-12.
I used to work for an ed-tech company that was specifically focused on software for chromebooks and in talking with customers the biggest selling point of chromebooks for schools what their price. The school issued devices get absolutely beat to shit and they just expect a certain number to be decommissioned at the end of the year. Most schools are looking to buy the cheapest thing that does the job and the small group that have the money to actually buy premium devices are going to gravitate toward Apple products.
If Google is selling these for less then $500 then maybe there's a place for them, but like we saw it with the Pixelbook, there just isn't really demand for an $1000 chromebook
Is the value of the Chromebook in education that it is 1) cheap or 2) doesn't do anything except have a browser?
If it is both, then all the Neo needs to do is have a browser only mode and goodbye Chromebook market.
A Chromebook is far cheaper than a neo. It could be less then a third the price, and that makes a big difference when you're buying a thousand of them.
Googlebook is cringe? It's just the name of the company, calm down.
They used to have something called the pixelbook, which is the most generic name you can possible have. Neither of these names are unarguably better than the other.
If this ends up being great for developing android apps, and running them on the desktop, plus having 15+ hour battery life, it could be interesting. Knowing google, it probably won't though.
Gembook or Geminote would've been cooler. But no one asked me unfortunately.
Google MegaPixel!
Googlebook Pixel? Or PixelBook running GooglebookOS?
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I'm a happy Apple ecosystem user. However, there are many more Windows and Android users worldwide.
I think that the appeal of this product is that the Wintel monopoly of years ago is dying. If the Googlebook is well executed (as the Apple M1 line was), it can be an option for Android users who wish to move away from Windows but are not knowledgeable enough to use Linux. I think the only problem here is Google's track record of abandoning product ideas. A new product like this requires multiple iterations to get it right, but if Google abandons it as soon as the results are not what was expected, it will not have the time to mature in areas like gaming or app support.
Does this thing run Android? There don't seem to be any details in this post.
Yes. https://aluminium-os.com/
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You might be surprised how good cloud gaming has gotten. I play AAA games at max settings on my MacBook Pro through GeForce Now, and with fiber internet it's nearly indistinguishable from native.
The problem with cloud gaming is that there's too many ways for it to go wrong and only one way for it to go right.
It's hard to explain to normal people that if you have a stable internet connection and live relatively near to a data center and you buy a dongle and a cat6 cable to avoid any Wi-Fi interference and you enjoy playing certain genres of games but not other genres of games, then you can get a good gaming experience.
You have to be a technical person to understand the failure modes and most people aren't technical, get frustrated, and just say that it sucks. Cloud gaming is not a mass market product.
I know people in general hated it, but I found Stadia to be quite good. I'm not too upset because Google paid me back full purchase price, but it's almost a shame that they managed to mess up cloud gaming that badly.
I don't know, I saw quite a few positive comments on Stadia, both as a service and the general approach. Most of the negativity was about it being a Google product and not wanting to get invested in a platform they would inevitably kill. Then of course there was the reaction when it was inevitably killed.
It seems pretty inconsistent. I tried GeForce Now on my gigabit internet and it was super laggy with a lot of audio glitching. Maybe I just didn't have a datacenter near by.
You have my attention. I assume this would also work well on a worse laptop (since the processing is done in the cloud)?
Yes, it's just streaming a video to you. The main limit is your connection speed if you're not near a datacenter as you're limited by ping, so controls can be laggy. You can try it out for free though, which will give you an idea of how good your link is.
I use boosteroid, which is just steam on cloud. ~4k @ 120Hz for $12/month. No HDR though (they recently removed it). Such a stupid good deal compared to the price of a gaming PC, that I can't really complain. So many data centers with GPU sitting around...
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The main problem now is publishers have to opt their games in to be playable. Until that's solved cloud gaming is a non-starter for me given my current library.
At this point, if you want a laptop, get a mac and be done with it.
Until other manufacturer step up their game, there will be years and years.
Apple was given a free run by Intel's fab issues. I'm hoping Panther Lake laptops together with Dell's CAMM2 will make Linux on amd64 highly competitive with Linux on the M-series, so maybe months and months - not years and years.
I thought Microsoft had the market cornered on terrible product naming but "Googlebook" is extremely awful.
My suggestion, if they really want to go this route, is to shorten it to "gBook".
I am old enough to remember that iPad was supposed to be a product-line-dooming bad name.
Everyone was expecting "iSlate", which would have been far better according to popular opinion at the time.
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And just a few years before then... Wii.
The first thing that came to mind is "What about all that gobbledygook in your Google-dee-book?"
I'm imagining poultry running around clucking: "gBook! gBook! gBAWK!"
> I think if I wanted a cheap laptop I'd probably get the macbook neo
8GB of RAM for MacOS is a concern. ChromeOS is probably more RAM efficient..
> ChromeOS is probably more RAM efficient
Based on? Chrome tabs taking up gigs of RAM would make me think ChromeOS isn't going to be very light on memory.
You can control chrome tabs, e.g. autosuspend, close them, etc, you can't control MacOS RAM footprint.
>but my god, I'd die of cringe if someone asked me about my laptop and I had to say "googlebook"
i'd hate for my computing choice to lack fashion forward qualities -- I wouldn't want to be embarrassed at Gate A-13 with my new Apple perched on my lap proudly while waiting for the next question from my adoring fans.
I hope they appreciate the new color!
real talk : my favorite excuse for using an Apple product throughout my life is the tried and true "my company stuck me with it and I hate this piece of shit.", so I find it kinda fascinating that they're such cult objects -- and to be fair I am sure i'd say exactly the same thing if I was ever stuck in a company stupid enough to try to make me be productive on a fancy chromebook, too.
Why anyone would view a non-upgradeable phone slapped into a laptop case with minimal computing capability for the price would ever consider a Neo is beyond me. At that point, get a damn tablet. It’s literally the same thing but, like, designed with intent rather than a bunch of scrap pieces.
Seriously, what’s the draw? The 8 gigs of ram? The 200 gigs of storage? The major lack of ports?
Have you ever touched a Neo? It does not feel like scrap pieces. That is the magic.
A phone has great battery life and standby power management. What’s the problem with running a different OS on it if it works just fine?
Different stuff for different folks I guess. At work all files are on the cloud, I have a NAS and a computer I can remote into for development. A Neo is just perfect to make all of that mobile.
As for tablets, I’d only recommend one if you need a stylus for drawing or a smaller form factor. I think that is the market where the Neo is competing, that is where you have a point.
In local prices, a MacBook Neo is $800 for a 13" display, 8GB RAM, 256GB storage.
A 13" iPad Air with 8GB RAM, 256GB storage and a Magic Keyboard is $1648.
The iPad has a notably more capable CPU, for over double the price.
An Android tablet isn't a capable replacement for a MacBook/iPad. (And I don't know that you can get even get any 13" Android tablet with a reasonable keyboard case for a discount over a MacBook Neo.)
You get 90% of the MacBook experience for half the price. Most users only need this 90%.
Got a cheap Acer Win11 machine for like $500 last year. I don’t think they even know what the low-end market is like, it is all about getting the most RAM/storage while everything else is reasonable and cheap enough. In which it is really hard to make a profit there because the price is the most important thing
MacBook neo is not expensive but it's not cheap.
Just the build quality on MacBooks compared to your random PC laptop piece of plastic that falls apart within a few years would make me very picky. I have a random “corporate” Lenovo and everything physical in it is way way worse than in my work MacBook
It's $600. In this market that's practically free.
Which machines on the market beats it at the price?
Google Pixelbook from years ago was $999 IIRC. I wouldn't be surprised if Googlebook is more expensive than Neo.
I wanted to like the Pixelbook, but it had a lot of limitations, ChromeOS being the major one. I recall that people were able to run Linux on them, but no idea what that experience was like.
Crossover has allowed me to 100% Spider-Man Remastered on a base M5 MacBook Pro. Gaming is not out of reach.
There's an entire world outside of Silicon Valley and the Apple ecosystem. Apple has a ~9% PC market share. Who is buying the other 91% if there is no demand?
I can tell you they're not going to be buying "googlebooks" plus, Apple has never until this year offered an actual low-price machine.
Of course their market size is going to be smaller when you're leaving out the sub $1000 dollar market.
supposedly macbook pro's M-series are quite adept for gamers these days.
They’re surprisingly powerful for all three games that are available on the platform.
Jokes aside, there are some games with competent Mac ports and if you only have an M-series Mac, you can find some titles that play nice. But most of the stuff that you’d play on a PlayStation or on Windows is simply not available.
But the gaming software market is very heavily biased towards delivering for Windows on Intel. That said, I’m not a gamer so what do I know?
Linux gaming is getting a definite boost from Windows 11 being a shitshow.
And pracically _nobody_ does native Linux games, they're all just running Windows games through Proton, and faster. So fast actually that Proton is Microsoft's performance target :D
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The processing power is there but the actual game support is not, which is the more important part. There are some games that support it but at least 3/4th of my Steam library won't run on a macbook.
Even games which used to run on mac mostly stopped after 32bit support was killed.
I'd like to meet the person that supposed this to you, and ask them what games they play.
The M1 Ultra got 70% of the frames of an RTX 3090 on Tomb Raider[0], so I suppose they're right. Performance-per-watt monsters.
And Apple GPUs have only gotten better.
[0]https://techjourneyman.com/img/blog/m1-ultra-vs-rtx-3090-ben...
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Googlebook sounds funny now, but so did iPad when it was announced.
The Googlebook name won't stick around for that long. It'll be like the Nexus and Pixel C, around for 1-3 revisions, canned, then brought back a few years later.
They should bring back the Nexus line. It's more fitting nowadays.
I still remember the Maxipad jokes.
It's sad that the M5 Apple chips don't support Linux better. I'm in the market for a laptop, and I'd buy a MBP in a heartbeat if I could wipe it and put Debian on it.
My 2013 MBP was going strong with Debian until the battery started puffing up last year, and I finally had to recycle it.
I get it, I know I'm not their market, but it still pains me because it was a great laptop.
What is more sad is that no one in the Linux world has taken the bull by the horn like those three former Apple engineers who got a license from Arm to design Arm chips why hasn’t anyone taken the leap in the Linux world to make that happen for Linux OS? In short, that isn’t Apples job it’s been 35 years for someone in Linux land to step up to the plate.
The Neo is amazing as an "AI thin client" the Googlebook seems to be trying to be.
> I'd die of cringe if someone asked me about my laptop and I had to say "googlebook"
A "GBook"? "Goog"? "Gook"? "Glook"? "Boogle"?
So, I'm not usually one to point these out but one of those words is considered pretty offensive by some and I am assuming that was not your intention.
The spelling maybe, but not if pronounced as "book"
What, you mean you don’t want to sound like a turkey when describing your computer to others?
> I think if I wanted a cheap laptop I'd probably get the macbook neo
I would recommend the same. I absolutely love my Neo. It's such a nice machine for the price.
>I really don't see the market fit for this,
Why pay $500-700 for Mac Book Neo for the same low processing power experience that you can get on a Googlebook for half the price? Especially considering you can install linux on it natively.
Other then that, Gemini is the biggest advantage. Google can offer Gemini for free because its TPUs are orders of magnitude more efficient than Nvidia stuff. Even free tier Gemini is really good considering it can integrate with a bunch of your stuff like google docs, and the lower last gen models have pretty generous usage limits.
Overall, if you are in Android ecosystem, you don't really even need a cheap laptop anymore, considering things like Samsung Dex exist.
> Why pay $500-700 for Mac Book Neo for the same low processing power experience that you can get on a Googlebook for half the price?
What makes you think a googlebook will be half the price of a macbook neo?
Also, a used M1 macbook air is $300 on swappa/ebay and will be even better than the neo anyway. It's still more performant than every other non-Apple ARM based laptop/chromebook on the market and will have far superior build quality.
Kompanio Ultra Chromebooks are faster and have a touch screen for use as a tablet or developing mobile-friendly apps. No point in a MacBook Air.
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> Why pay $500-700 for Mac Book Neo for the same low processing power
I pre-ordered a Neo on a whim to use as a couch laptop alongside my work laptop and gaming computer. It's so fast. It blows everything out of the water when it comes to interactivity.
Plus the whole build quality, screen, touchpad and speakers are all so much better than the work Latitude. Linux support is lacking, but it's still a full usable Unix.
> Google can offer Gemini for free because its TPUs are orders of magnitude more efficient than Nvidia stuff. Even free tier Gemini is really good considering it can integrate with a bunch of your stuff like google docs, and the lower last gen models have pretty generous usage limits
Good point, that could work. Buy this and you get so many years of Gemini for free and such. "Why pay Anthropic $200/month for Claude when you can buy this and get Gemini for free for a few years". OpenAI and Anthropic are not going to make their own devices most likely either to compete.
Having seen how people managed to run Cyberpunk 2077 on the Neo with okayish frame rates I don't think there's a single ARM laptop out there that could deliver that performance on Linux. Maybe I'm wrong though.
Surface Pro 11 is slighly more than Neo and runs cyberpunk.
These things are $250?! Where did you find that info?
I would rather buy this shit than anything Apple.
Of course, there are more than 2 options for laptops. Thankfully those two shit companies didn't get to round up that market yet.