Microsoft is Back on the Chromebook Warpath

heatlesssun said:
A five pound laptop simply can't be used the way a 13 ounce V8P can. And the wrist and size have a dramatic effect on the usability writing. I'm comfortably holding the V8P in one hand while writing this post, that's just not something easily done with a five pound device.
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The stuff you want to do and the way you want to use your computer are different than mine. I like to sit down and type at a desk. You seem like you want to write on a screen with a pen. I don't care if I can't use a pen or finger to write something. I want to type so I'm going to spend my money on something that lets me type. If there's a touchy-feely screen feature, I don't care as long as it doesn't make the thing I'm buying cost more money or stop me from doing stuff the way I want.

I think it's great you're buying the stuff that works for you, but I don't think your usage model can be universally applied to everyone. Other people want other things and some of those things aren't available in tablet, but are in a laptop.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
How so? Chromebooks are shitty and useless.
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I bought one because they were inexpensive. Once you get rid of Chrome and install another OS, they have a lot more functionality. I'm pretty sure Chromebooks don't exist solely to be cheap OS reinstall victims or "the thing we put on Craigslist last month because we haven't turned it on since a month after we bought it."
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
The stuff you want to do and the way you want to use your computer are different than mine. I like to sit down and type at a desk. You seem like you want to write on a screen with a pen. I don't care if I can't use a pen or finger to write something. I want to type so I'm going to spend my money on something that lets me type. If there's a touchy-feely screen feature, I don't care as long as it doesn't make the thing I'm buying cost more money or stop me from doing stuff the way I want.

I think it's great you're buying the stuff that works for you, but I don't think your usage model can be universally applied to everyone. Other people want other things and some of those things aren't available in tablet, but are in a laptop.
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Every Windows device allows for the use of a keyboard and mouse, it's simply a matter of what the screen options are. Even in the case of the V8P without HDMI there's the option to connect it to a large screen via USB or Miracast.

This isn't a zero sum game. I've got dual and triple screen setups, they're great and they don't leave the office let alone the house. I can take a V8P pretty much anywhere I can a phone and do things on it not easily done on the average phone. In any case for what these things can do at their cost, performance battery life and they seem to be well regarded and selling well especially at these sale prices.
 
heatlesssun said:
Every Windows device allows for the use of a keyboard and mouse, it's simply a matter of what the screen options are. Even in the case of the V8P without HDMI there's the option to connect it to a large screen via USB or Miracast.

This isn't a zero sum game. I've got dual and triple screen setups, they're great and they don't leave the office let alone the house. I can take a V8P pretty much anywhere I can a phone and do things on it not easily done on the average phone. In any case for what these things can do at their cost, performance battery life and they seem to be well regarded and selling well especially at these sale prices.
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All of that is what you do with your stuff. It has like no application or relevance to me so none of these things are selling points to me. I'm sure you can advocate how great they are to yourself, but you're totally missing the point. Not all people need or want to do what you need or want to do. Because of that, there's a whole bunch of other wrappers in which manufacturers stick computers and a few other operating system options as well like Chrome.

When I sit down at my desk, I turn on a laptop or a desktop, and I type things. I don't really want to take my computer with me all the time. In fact, I don't even take a phone with me because I don't need that kind of stuff with me. If I want to take notes, I just use a pen and some paper. If I want to look something up, I'm pretty much never more than a short walk away from a computer or (I know this is going to seem weird) I can just wait until later. When I do take along a computer though, I'm going to be typing so I want a keyboard. Tablets don't have keyboards and if they do, they're just laptops in two different pieces with all the thinking parts behind the screen instead of under the keyboard which is basically a meaningless difference. If I would buy another tablet, it'd end up chained to a keyboard all the time so I may as well just get a much more capable and feature-rich laptop than try to force a tablet to be a laptop.

Chrome OS doesn't really work for me, but Linux, OSX, and most versions of Windows (even 8/8.1) are fine. I don't care as long as it has a word processor and some speakers to spit out music and there's a physical keyboard attached.

I just don't get why it's so important to you to push your usage model on everyone else. It's kind of creepy and this is coming from the expert on creepy stuff.
 
Microsoft is so uncool their commercials make me physically uncomfortable for their awkwardness.

It's like when sketchy old guys enter a bar with gelled hair and start looking around for chicks. That's everyone's queue that the place is compromised.

Microsoft is the sketchy old hair gel guy of companies.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
All of that is what you do with your stuff. It has like no application or relevance to me so none of these things are selling points to me. I'm sure you can advocate how great they are to yourself, but you're totally missing the point. Not all people need or want to do what you need or want to do. Because of that, there's a whole bunch of other wrappers in which manufacturers stick computers and a few other operating system options as well like Chrome.

When I sit down at my desk, I turn on a laptop or a desktop, and I type things. I don't really want to take my computer with me all the time. In fact, I don't even take a phone with me because I don't need that kind of stuff with me. If I want to take notes, I just use a pen and some paper. If I want to look something up, I'm pretty much never more than a short walk away from a computer or (I know this is going to seem weird) I can just wait until later. When I do take along a computer though, I'm going to be typing so I want a keyboard. Tablets don't have keyboards and if they do, they're just laptops in two different pieces with all the thinking parts behind the screen instead of under the keyboard which is basically a meaningless difference. If I would buy another tablet, it'd end up chained to a keyboard all the time so I may as well just get a much more capable and feature-rich laptop than try to force a tablet to be a laptop.

Chrome OS doesn't really work for me, but Linux, OSX, and most versions of Windows (even 8/8.1) are fine. I don't care as long as it has a word processor and some speakers to spit out music and there's a physical keyboard attached.

I just don't get why it's so important to you to push your usage model on everyone else. It's kind of creepy and this is coming from the expert on creepy stuff.
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Not really sure what you're talking about. These 8" Windows tablets have generated a lot of buzz, particularly the V8P in light of the deals that's have been going on with it. There's hundreds of YouTube videos discussing it and over 200 Amazon reviews which very unusual for such a new and cheap Windows device. Its been selling out consistently when it goes on sale, and even here I'm far from the only person that's bought one or more of these little guys. For what this thing does at the prices it's going for there's nothing like it right now. It has nothing to do with my usage model. Did you really think that full Windows 8 tablets hitting $200 weren't going to sell?
 
Chromebooks are cheap "Flash me to Linux" pcs prices are kept down on because there's no MS license involved.
They don't have bleeding edge anything and hardware is usually average at best.
That being said..
They have their place.
They make a nice homework laptop for kids you want to keep off your windows pcs because you can't keep them off the virus infested flash and java based game sites that litter the net.
Besides...
If you wanted a GAMING laptop, you're NOT going to get underpowered hardware with a 10" screen.
 
heatlesssun said:
Not really sure what you're talking about. These 8" Windows tablets have generated a lot of buzz, particularly the V8P in light of the deals that's have been going on with it. There's hundreds of YouTube videos discussing it and over 200 Amazon reviews which very unusual for such a new and cheap Windows device. Its been selling out consistently when it goes on sale, and even here I'm far from the only person that's bought one or more of these little guys. For what this thing does at the prices it's going for there's nothing like it right now. It has nothing to do with my usage model. Did you really think that full Windows 8 tablets hitting $200 weren't going to sell?
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Once again, that has nothing to do with how I want to use a computer which makes the price and any other selling points that appeal to the people that bought one pretty meaningless to me. Besides that, $200 is really too much to spend on a computer these days when you're tech literate and can do things on your own (or can weasel your Geek Squad neighbor into helping you because he's sympathetic and thinks you're helpless...those were the days). I recently spent like $33 plus $10 on a used netbook which I'm now typing this post on and it's great. The keyboard is a far faster and more efficient way for me to enter data, even the small one on a Latitude 2100.
 
If you're not interested in these kinds of devices, then you're not interested. You seem to be going out of your way to make the point that no one is interested in these kinds of devices when there is good evidence that they are, especially when they go on sale. And you seem to make the assumption that everything everyone does with a computer is simply about fast text entry, if that were the case then everyone would still be buying netbooks, and tablets have simply obliterated that market.
 
Semantics said:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/business/microsoft-office-365-for-business-faq-FX103030232.aspx

You can't use microsoft office web apps offline as that does require Internet connection. The web apps like google apps are weak sauce so why would you ever want to use them unless you had to use them, you don't have to use them unlike chromebook.
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Office 365, you need A3 tier accounts for offline use IIRC. ADobe CC works offline after install, I'm not sure where anyone is getting the notion you need to be connected to run photoshop or anything like that. It's plastered all over the place.
 
heatlesssun said:
If you're not interested in these kinds of devices, then you're not interested. You seem to be going out of your way to make the point that no one is interested in these kinds of devices when there is good evidence that they are, especially when they go on sale. And you seem to make the assumption that everything everyone does with a computer is simply about fast text entry, if that were the case then everyone would still be buying netbooks, and tablets have simply obliterated that market.
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At no point did I imply in any post I made that my usage model works for everyone. In fact, I specifically stated quite a few times that I was talking about my own computing needs. You decided to respond to my reflecting on my usage model by repeatedly dragging out Windows tablet devices and selling their features and capabilities. I'm only going out of my way to point out to you that I'm talking about my own usage model. If you read my posts for comprehension, you'll see that in each of them. Really, don't be so weird about other people and their computers.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
At no point did I imply in any post I made that my usage model works for everyone. In fact, I specifically stated quite a few times that I was talking about my own computing needs. You decided to respond to my reflecting on my usage model by repeatedly dragging out Windows tablet devices and selling their features and capabilities. I'm only going out of my way to point out to you that I'm talking about my own usage model. If you read my posts for comprehension, you'll see that in each of them. Really, don't be so weird about other people and their computers.
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This all started when I made the point that I thought that this would have been a better ad if it been more of direct comparison to a touch Chromebook because the Windows device being talked about in the ad is a Windows hybrid. The commercial could have been less directly negative of Chromebooks by simply displaying Windows 8's much better touch support. That's all I was saying.

It had nothing to do with your usage model, or my usage model or anyone's usage model for that matter. I was just pointing out that these cheap Windows touch devices seem to be doing pretty well, Microsoft is spending ad money directly promoting the Asus T100 and Dell Venue 8 Pro in expensive TV ads and people seem to respond better to ads that promote strengths of a product instead of just bashing the supposed weakness of the competition.
 
Price the single greatest predictor of customer demand. Get enough people to try a Chromebook and Windows will be and "Office" product only, IMO.
CowBoom has a 11.6 inch Chromebook for $120 today.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
At no point did I imply in any post I made that my usage model works for everyone. In fact, I specifically stated quite a few times that I was talking about my own computing needs. You decided to respond to my reflecting on my usage model by repeatedly dragging out Windows tablet devices and selling their features and capabilities. I'm only going out of my way to point out to you that I'm talking about my own usage model. If you read my posts for comprehension, you'll see that in each of them. Really, don't be so weird about other people and their computers.
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I completely agree with you, i don't get the tablet form factor at all. I took a Lenovo Helix to class with me one note and used one note -- maybe im missing something but a $1700 tablet was really in no way better then using pen and paper. The only thing i thought was cool, i didnt have to turn a page to take more notes -- since i had unlimited virtual screen page i could just scroll down -- however they are still a lot heavier and clumsier then a paper notebook to hold. They cost a lot more, could get stolen, dropped, broken ,etc

im sure for a few people they are a great clipboard -- but the average joe like myself, i just dont understand the tablet craze. I would rather take 20 steps to my desktop computer to look something up then sit on the sofa and pick up a tablet.
 
buttons said:
I completely agree with you, i don't get the tablet form factor at all. I took a Lenovo Helix to class with me one note and used one note -- maybe im missing something but a $1700 tablet was really in no way better then using pen and paper. The only thing i thought was cool, i didnt have to turn a page to take more notes -- since i had unlimited virtual screen page i could just scroll down -- however they are still a lot heavier and clumsier then a paper notebook to hold. They cost a lot more, could get stolen, dropped, broken ,etc

im sure for a few people they are a great clipboard -- but the average joe like myself, i just dont understand the tablet craze. I would rather take 20 steps to my desktop computer to look something up then sit on the sofa and pick up a tablet.
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The weight part is something they're working on pretty hard, but tablet computers really aren't at all as durable as a cheap paper notepad. You can't drop then in a mud puddle and still use them. You can't accidentally run them over in the campus parking lot with your car and still write on them (totally happened to me a few times since I'm so forgetful about getting stuff off the roof of my car after put stuff down to find my keys :eek:). And yeah, they're a lot more of a target for theft than some paper held together by a springy spiral of metal. I can also flip through pages to find things a lot faster and free form draw junk while taking notes a lot more easily with a bunch of paper and a few pencils than OneNote. I also never have to worry about charging a battery or finding a place to plug my sheets of paper in when I need to use them because their battery is dead.

Tablets are great for couch surfing the Internet and they really do have a place in some people's computing lives. I just wish that certain people were more willing to accept that not everyone does their computing thing in the same way and that there's no reason to push a different way of using devices on them. I guess I'd just like to see people be less intolerant and judgmental about, of all things, just some dumb pile of circuits running buggy software. They're not at all something to have a love affair with (that's what the cute so-and-so three cubicles down the isle that just winked at you is for, darn it).

So yeah, thanks for saying so! It gives me hope. :)
 
buttons said:
I completely agree with you, i don't get the tablet form factor at all. I took a Lenovo Helix to class with me one note and used one note -- maybe im missing something but a $1700 tablet was really in no way better then using pen and paper. The only thing i thought was cool, i didnt have to turn a page to take more notes -- since i had unlimited virtual screen page i could just scroll down -- however they are still a lot heavier and clumsier then a paper notebook to hold. They cost a lot more, could get stolen, dropped, broken ,etc

im sure for a few people they are a great clipboard -- but the average joe like myself, i just dont understand the tablet craze. I would rather take 20 steps to my desktop computer to look something up then sit on the sofa and pick up a tablet.
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You do realize that you can also use a keyboard and mouse with OneNote, or record audio and video directing into it, store files, web pages, search it, etc. Notes can be replicated in real time to the cloud or even to your local network or cached and then replicated to you local network when the device connects to it. And you don't' necessarily need a $1700 to use OneNote with a pen. And it will also work with a desktop computer as well of course.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
I can also flip through pages to find things a lot faster and free form draw junk while taking notes a lot more easily with a bunch of paper and a few pencils than OneNote.
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Then you have no idea how to use OneNote. Your argument is a specious as it gets. You can't store digital files, web pages, etc in a paper note book. Comparing the cost of a paper note book that has a few hundred pages to something that can store as much data as you have disk space is silly at best.

If you don't like OneNote and like pen and paper, that's fine. But you're so badly describing the product and have literally just skipped over everything it can do.
 
heatlesssun said:
Then you have no idea how to use OneNote. Your argument is a specious as it gets. You can't store digital files, web pages, etc in a paper note book. Comparing the cost of a paper note book that has a few hundred pages to something that can store as much data as you have disk space is silly at best.

If you don't like OneNote and like pen and paper, that's fine. But you're so badly describing the product and have literally just skipped over everything it can do.
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You have no idea what I have no idea about. Running down a list of (for discussion purposes) meaningless bullet point software features in casual discussion just to demonstrate knowledge that adds credibility on an online forum is silliness. I could describe OneNote as a floppen-doppen-hoppen-ganger with a bad case of Robinson Crusoeitis and it wouldn't make any bit of difference whether or not a paper notepad doesn't require an occasional battery recharge or could keep working as a notepad after I give the old squisharoo with my car where a tablet wouldn't. I think you might be feeling paper notepad envy....I think HP also makes the Envy series, but that's totally unrelated.
 
This time last year I thought Chromebooks were crap. Then I bought one to see how crap they were.



I love my Chromebook.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
I could describe OneNote as a floppen-doppen-hoppen-ganger with a bad case of Robinson Crusoeitis and it wouldn't make any bit of difference whether or not a paper notepad doesn't require an occasional battery recharge or could keep working as a notepad after I give the old squisharoo with my car where a tablet wouldn't. I think you might be feeling paper notepad envy....I think HP also makes the Envy series, but that's totally unrelated.
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Paper gets lost and destroyed all of the time and it has no automatic ability to replicate or make backup copies. Lose a paper notebook and you've lost everything in it. Lose a tablet with OneNote and you may have lost nothing if it had a chance to sync. Also, if the tablet were damaged, even badly, if the OneNote cache were stored on an SD card, as long as that SD card survives, you still could possibly retrieve what was on that card.

You skip over everything that adds resiliency in something like OneNote that paper can't do, that's why the argument is specious at best.
 
heatlesssun said:
Paper gets lost and destroyed all of the time and it has no automatic ability to replicate or make backup copies. Lose a paper notebook and you've lost everything in it. Lose a tablet with OneNote and you may have lost nothing if it had a chance to sync. Also, if the tablet were damaged, even badly, if the OneNote cache were stored on an SD card, as long as that SD card survives, you still could possibly retrieve what was on that card.

You skip over everything that adds resiliency in something like OneNote that paper can't do, that's why the argument is specious at best.
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You sound unsure.
 
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