Acer has announced a brand new Chrome OS-powered notebook this morning, and despite being a familiar looking design, boasts a few company firsts including an attractive metal build and 14-hour battery life.
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How-to: Use your car and an inexpensive inverter to replace the need for a home generator
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After launching Skype for Web worldwide back in June and also bringing it to Chromebook users, today the previously chat-only web app is adding support for making phone calls and other new features.
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Seiki 42-inch 4K Ultra HD LED HDTV for $299.99 with free shipping (Reg. $400)
Update: Leung has resumed testing with a repaired test device, but for now can only weed out bad cables for now as he still doesn’t have a working Chromebook.
Google engineer Benson Leung was doing a great job at distinguishing the good, the bad and the ugly where USB Type-C cables are concerned, exposing ones that failed to meet the proper specs as well as others that were just plain dangerous.
Unfortunately his testing has now come to an abrupt end as one particularly bad cable resulted in significant damage to both his Chromebook Pixel and the USB PD sniffer devices he was using …
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Work Faster & Smarter on Your Mac with 12 Apps to Clear Your Hard Drive, Enhance Audio, Track Device Activity & More
Last week, Chrome 48 for Mac, Windows, and Linux brought few user facing updates. Now, version 48 of Chrome OS was just released and brings improved download notifications, a Material Design Video Player, and other updates, in addition to security fixes.
Google has announced a new philanthropic partnership with NetHope aiming to help Syrian refugees in Germany get reconnected by making 25,000 Chromebooks available to nonprofits. The goal — as described on the Project Reconnect home page — is “to help refugees as they strive to rebuild their lives, by facilitating access to education and information resources on the web.”
HP today announced a new Chromebook designed specifically for students and teachers with an ‘Education Edition’ model of its Chromebook 11 G4 starting at $199.
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As of today, the ability to cast content to your Chromecast from the desktop comes in the form of a Chrome extension called Google Cast. As of the latest beta build of Chrome, though, you can now cast content from the web without said extension installed. All you have to do is right-click the content and use the “Cast…” menu…
Apple for a time led the tech market in education, even making education-specific Mac models. More recently, the company made a big push on iPads, signing a $30M deal (that would eventually have been worth a quarter of a billion dollars) in 2013 to equip every student in the LA Unified School District with an iPad.
If that program had succeeded, it would have created a template for rolling out similar ones across the whole of the USA. Instead, it failed catastrophically, and it now appears that Chromebooks are winning where iPads have failed.
CNBC reported last month that Chromebooks now make up more than half of all devices in U.S. classrooms, while Apple’s share of classroom purchases more than halved between 2012 and 2015. Why is that, and what – if anything – can Apple do to reverse the trend … ?
Samsung has joined ASUS in offering a new ultra-portable Chromebook for the masses this year at CES 2016. While ASUS went with a ruggedized look, Samsung has gone with a more sleek appearance, while still promising a durable and long-lasting build.
The new Chromebook 3 weighs a little over 2.5 pounds and has a reinforced metal body and 180-degree hinge to ensure that it’s not easily broken. What’s more, its shape and grippy finish are designed to make it easy to carry, but difficult to drop accidentally.
“We’re seeing more and more people flocking to Chromebooks as families, students and other consumers seek out easy-to-use, highly portable and affordable laptops as resources for personal use, education and even work,” said Gary Riding, senior vice president, Mobile Computing at Samsung Electronics America. “Samsung recognized that demand when we launched the first-ever Chromebook in 2011. We’re continuing to keep up with evolving consumer needs with this new iteration, which offers even more convenient features that solve consumers’ pain points, like all day battery life and fast charging capabilities.”
Specifications are typical of the smaller, more affordable Chromebooks:
Although exact pricing and release date details haven’t been announced, Samsung intends to launch the new Chromebook 3 at some point in the next few months. Similarly specced Chromebooks normally cost between $200-$250, anything more than that would surely make Samsung’s latest laptop unappealing.
Over the past couple of years the Chromebook market has really taken off, particularly in education, where kids of all ages are being handed Chrome OS-powered laptops to complete work and research on. Part of the draw is that the platform gives users quick and painless access to commonly-used tools and programs in the cloud. The other part is that they are, mostly, very affordable.
Adding to the range of child-friendly Chromebooks already available is ASUS who, this morning, unveiled a brand new rugged notebook. The C202 has been designed specifically to withstand being dropped and to suffer the kinds of abuse kids often inflict on our gadgets. The entire device is wrapped in a durable rubber bumper, has a spill-proof keyboard and scratch-resistant shell.
As well as having an impact-resistant outer shell, the Chromebook also has a hinge which can be rotated 180-degrees. So, even if a child is a little too enthusiastic in opening it up, the C202 will survive. And if it doesn’t, it happens to be very easy to fix.
ASUS kitted out the Chromebook C202 with a modular body held together by regular screws. Its design means you’ll be able to replace parts like the battery, keyboard and power socket without having to send it to someone who has all the right proprietary screwdrivers.
Spec-wise, there’s nothing eye-watering here, it’s a pretty basic low-end Chromebook. The 11.6-inch resolution display has a resolution of 1,366 x 768 and is powered by an Intel Celeron processor paired with either 2GB or 4GB of RAM, combined with the usual 16GB storage. ASUS states it has 10 hours of battery, which normally means you can expect between 6-9 hours depending on usage. It’s also equipped with an HDMI out port, SD card reader and two USB 3.0 ports.
Pricing for the 4GB model will be between $220 and $230 USD when it launches in February.
If you have a Chromebook Pixel C and are looking for an external monitor for it, Lenovo and Acer have announced the neatest solutions yet, with a choice of 24-, 25- and 27-inch USB-C monitors.
Lenovo’s ThinkVision X24 Pro is the most basic, with a 1920×1080 resolution starting at $399, with availability in May. Acer’s H7 series monitors offer 2560×1440 resolution in 25- and 27-inch variants, and you’ll be able to get your hands on one of those next month, starting at $499.99.
Finally, Lenovo’s ThinkVision X1 is a 27-inch model offering 3840×2160 resolution, again from May, priced at $799 …
Today at CES 2016 in Las Vegas, Acer announced its next lineup of budget-friendly Chrome OS and Android based products. It announced a brand new Chrome desktop with Intel Core processors, a small, durable Chromebook and an affordable tablet…
Prepare for an influx of announcements from all the major tech companies over the coming days, CES 2016 is well and truly upon us. First out of the blocks is Lenovo who showed off a brand new 13-inch ThinkPad. The ThinkPad 13 will come in both Windows and Chrome OS flavors, and is priced right in the middle of the market…
Looking at the Chromebook market, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s just the modern iteration of the netbook age. Small, cheap, underpowered plastic laptops that offer very little to anyone wanting a higher-end experience in a portable and affordable package. Dell changed that with the Chromebook 13. Now you can get a premium Chrome OS laptop without spending silly money on a Pixel. The Dell Chromebook 13 starts at $429 for the base model, and climbs to $899 for the top-tier. In the UK, it ranges from £484 to £856…
Chromebooks are all the same, but in this case that’s a good thing. The minimum hardware mandated by Google results in an affordable computer that runs a capable operating system. Since its inception six years ago, Chrome OS has been continuously updated with useful features, while in parallel, Google’s services have become immensely powerful and feature-rich for just being web apps.
While Chromebooks with touchscreens are not new, convertible Chrome OS devices are just starting to arrive. The Chromebook R11 is Acer’s first contribution to this field and I try to predominantly use it as a tablet in this review.
Of all the Chromebooks that were announced this year, it was the new Dell Chromebook 13 range that caught our eye. Unlike most Chromebooks, it’s not really low-end and cheap, but’s also not quite as extraordinarily priced as the Chromebook Pixel. It sits somewhere in between, right in no-man’s land. The cheapest model will set you back $429, while the most expensive is around $650 currently. In the UK, prices range from £484 to £856…
Google’s new Nexus phones are only a few weeks old, and yet you can already buy them at less than their full retail value. The Nexus 5X has been discounted since Black Friday weekend. Now, the flagship Nexus 6P has also seen a price drop. You can now snag the smartphone with $50 discount in the US or Japan, direct from Google’s online store.
Smartphones aren’t the only products to see a price drop. Google has also discounted the Huawei Watch, Chromebooks and is offering deals on the new Chromecast and Chromecast Audio…
Affirming last week’s rumors, the Pixel C is now available for purchase. Android on tablets have had a varied history and unfortunately this one suffers from the same usual friction of putting what is essentially a phone OS on a large screen. However, the device is not completely without merit on the hardware side and accompanying software updates might change that in the future.
Chromebooks have emerged as the clear leader in the classroom, reports CNBC, leaving former market leader Apple for dust.
Chromebooks now make up more than half of all devices in U.S. classrooms, up from less than 1 percent in 2012, according to a new report from Futuresource Consulting […]
Google’s rapid gains come at the expense of its biggest rivals. Over the past three years, Apple’s market share been slashed by more than half, from 52 to 24 percent and Microsoft’s market share has slipped from 43 to 24 percent.
Chromebooks now make up 4.4M of the 8.9M devices sold to schools and school districts, with Google noting that it is seeing the dual benefit of both increased market share and overall growth in demand for computing devices in schools …
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While the door-busting Black Friday weekend deals are long gone, there are still some great discounts out there for holiday shoppers. One of today’s featured tech deals on eBay is a heavily discounted Lenovo IdeaPad N20p Chromebook. The Chrome OS-based laptop normally retails at around $300, and is currently available for just $170 in limited quantity. As a reference, the same Chromebook is priced at $290 on Amazon, where even used models are more expensive than the eBay deal.
Spec-wise, the Lenovo IdeaPad N20p is respectable. It has an 11.6-inch 1366 x 768 resolution, 10-point multitouch display which can swivel around 300. Inside, there’s a 2.16GHz quad-core Intel Celeron processor, 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage. It has a plethora of I/O ports too; there’s a USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 port, SD card slot, mini HDMI out, 3.5mm jack and the necessary power input. It also has built-in stereo speakers, Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac. Not a bad spec-list for a device that costs less than $200.
If the Lenovo IdeaPad doesn’t take your fancy (even at this price), and you’re hunting for a Chromebook this holiday season, we’ve compiled a list of what we think are the best Chromebooks for any budget.
