If you weren’t you’d just buy the least expensive hardware that meets your needs, install the Chrome browser on it and call it day. Credit: Appleįrom a Chromebook perspective, you’re getting value-adds as well. For some, these integration points are worth the extra cost of a Mac over a cheaper Windows laptop that has the same hardware parts. That new Apple Arcade game subscription will work not just on your iPhone or iPad but on your Mac too. Got a call on your iPhone? You can take it on your Mac. You also get premium integrations that add value.Īpple’s iOS devices natively integrate with MacBooks with features such as Handoff and Continuity, for example. There’s a potential premium involved for such exclusivity and an experience that’s far more consistent on devices built by or designed by the software maker. You have to buy it from the company who makes the hardware, or the case of a Chromebook, a Google hardware partner. Unlike the ubiquity of Windows across hundreds, if not thousands of compatible devices, neither macOS or Chrome OS can officially be slapped on to some hardware. What I mean is, you can’t slap hardware together and build computer running macOS you have to buy that computer from the one and only hardware maker that has the software pre-installed. Unlike Windows, there’s a bit of exclusivity with macOS, just like with Chrome OS. This leads me to relate a similar situation with Apple’s laptops. Just like with Apple MacBooks, you’re paying a premium for a certain experience And some of that has to be passed down to Chromebook consumers. I’m not able to share details on who, such as Chrome OS hardware partners, may or may not pay some or all of those costs, but they’re there. Somebody has to pay for all of that engineering and development time. You can build your own Windows PC in a weekend! Assuming a Pixelbook successor does launch next month, that’s 18-months of development time. Heck, we first saw the Atlas baseboard, widely expected to power a new Pixelbook launching next week back in April of last year. Code change for one specific gyroscope model’s frequency I’ve seen the same with camera sensors, trackpads, display drivers, hall sensors and more. And that’s just one very small component of many inside a Chromebook. Every single one of them is software tuned specifically in Chrome OS, which goes well beyond adding a supporting driver in Windows. Having sifted through the Chromium code over the past few years, I’ve learned that there’s a broad range of these components each from different manufacturers, with different voltages or other parameters. Take the case of an accelerometer or gyroscope, both of which are in 2-in-1 Chromebooks and Windows laptops. Keep in mind that not all components are “equal” either. Code for every possible component is specifically built into the firmware and tested. This team, in conjunction with the laptop brand as well as Intel, AMD and other chip companies, designs a baseboard for use with Chrome OS. Instead, the Acers, HPs, and Dells of the world have to work directly with and through the Chromium OS team at Google. A Windows gaming PC my son and I built earlier this yearīut you can’t do that with Chrome OS and, more importantly, neither can Google’s hardware partners. You don’t work with Microsoft’s Windows team to ensure the PC will do what you want it to do. You put the machine together, install Windows, add missing driver files, if any, and go on your way. It’s more or less the same process – just without input from design and marketing teams – for you to build your own PC with a range of store-bought parts. With Windows, Microsoft includes thousands of driver files to account for practically every reasonable combination of hardware, ranging from displays, hard drives, trackpads, wireless radios, webcams and more.Įssentially if a Windows device maker designs a laptop to run Windows, it can generally decide what hardware goes inside the computer and then install Windows. Right off the bat, there’s a huge difference in how a Windows laptop is designed compared to a Chromebook. Microsoft Windows runs on nearly anything but Chrome OS doesn’t I chimed in with a short answer but then I realized there’s not a single answer why a Chromebook can often cost more than a Windows laptop with seemingly similar hardware specifications. For example, you can get a new Windows PC, with better hardware and specifications, for like 100 dollars less than a Chromebook with half the ram, half the storage, and a worse CPU. I’ve been shopping around recently for another Chromebook, and I realized how expensive they’re getting in relation to Windows laptops. It’s one that I’ve heard a number of times, in fact. Over the weekend on the Chrome OS sub-Reddit, I noticed this really great question.
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