September 30, 2013

It’s been about a week since I picked up the HP 14” Chromebook (whatever the official name is), and I decided that I’ve had enough time to give a solid verdict on the don’t-call-it-a-laptop device. What do I think of it? I love it. I don’t just love this laptop because it’s a $300 thin and light laptop with an SSD and ~5 second boot-up. No, I love this laptop because it’s a no-nonsense device for those that live on the internet, like myself. My typical day involves reading news, writing blog posts, and building web apps for myself and others. Chrome OS gives me the best of Google and the Chrome browser. Nothing more, nothing less.

The question I hear from many techies is, if you just want a web browser, why not buy a tablet? First off, I own an iPad, but these are two completely different kinds of devices for completely different use cases. The market share for desktop computing may be getting cannibalized by tablets, but the laptop still has its place. As much as people want to deny it, we still need physical, well-sized keyboards to get serious work done. Go to an Apple conference. How many journalists do you see writing from iPad’s? That’s right, virtually none. We’re living in a weird time where desktop computing is fading yet the mobile software displacing it is written on the desktops! What I see the Chromebook as is as a happy-medium of sorts.

As I sit in this coffee shop that will go unnamed, I can count three people, probably students, all working within the confinements of Google Drive. Most consumers don’t use or even need heavy software like Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop – they just don’t need it. The average consumer prefers to check Facebook and maybe even write some essays from time-to-time. The Chromebook is perfect for that user base, which probably explains why these Chromebooks continue to fly off shelves. It took me two days to find an in-stock Chromebook, and the Best Buy rep I spoke to told me that they run out of all their stock mere hours after restocking; I purchased the last one on the rack. I’ll go as far as to say that the Chromebook is the future of the dwindling desktop market.

Lack of demand for desktop software isn’t the only reason why the Chromebook will win. Windows 8 is bifurcated mess, a compromise to make a tablet OS that wouldn’t cannibalize Microsoft’s massive corporate business. But I think instead they managed to alienate both of their target demographics, and made a downright poor OS (which they’ve backtracked on in regards to many features). Chrome OS is an admittance of where the market is headed – the web is king the desktop era as we know it is over. The web has reached maturity, is easy to develop for, and is compatible across a sea of devices.

Now, this isn’t to say that we don’t need Mac OS X or Windows, because we still do. Developers need powerful systems and command-line level access to those systems to get real work done. But the average joe no longer needs them. They’ll either get a Chromebook because they enjoy the experience of a laptop with a full-sized keyboard, or they’ll transition straight to a tablet. The writing is on the wall. Windows licenses are expensive while Chrome OS licenses are virtually non-existent. Consumers spend all their time in the web browser, and considering that Chrome has a majority of the browser market share, most of the Chromebook experience is already familiar. I love my Chromebook, and if you ask me, Chrome OS is the future. Windows is not.

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