back to article Dell confirms Chromebook for Blighty

Dell has confirmed its first Chromebook will be coming to the UK, though it’s not yet saying how much the 11.6-inch Google laptop will cost over here. In the States, the Dell Chromebook 11 is “expected to sell below $300” (£183), the PC giant said today, so you’re probably looking at a retail price over here of £220 to £250, …

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  1. Alan Denman

    a token offering meant to be ugly?

    like their hidden overpriced Linux laptops,

    as likely as not this will be a token offering to show they are not hotly in league with Microsoft.

    And we customers want all things to progress to dual or even triple boot, not master slave virtualisation.

    1. Tom Chiverton 1

      Re: a token offering meant to be ugly?

      "like their hidden overpriced Linux laptops,"

      There aren't any for the UK market from Dell.

      1. dajames
        Alert

        Re: a token offering meant to be ugly?

        "like their hidden overpriced Linux laptops,"

        There aren't any for the UK market from Dell.

        That's right, they're not hidden any more. There are two models of the XPS 13 (differing only in the speed of the installed Haswell Core i7 CPU) quite easily findable from the home page (somewhat to my astonishment).

        They're expensive because they're ultrabook-type devices with 1080pscreens and 256GB SSD drives. You pay a little less for an XPS 13 with Windows 8, but it has only a Core i5, and 128GB SSD.

        For once Dell seem to be doing this almost right.

        1. Khaptain Silver badge

          Re: a token offering meant to be ugly?

          I just received a XPS11 this morning, lovely little machine, the touch screen makes W8 usable BUT the price is nowhere near the £300, more like 5 times that price.

          The machines in this article should not be confused with the XPS laptops which are in a different ballpark.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: a token offering meant to be ugly?

            @Khaptain - "I just received a XPS11 this morning, lovely little machine, the touch screen makes W8 usable BUT the price is nowhere near the £300, more like 5 times that price."

            Sounds to me like you (or your employer) overpaid by about 2 times.

            1. Khaptain Silver badge

              Re: a token offering meant to be ugly?

              @Andy

              It is the Corei5 vesion with a 256Gb flash disk and I stand corrected for the price, according to XE.com it about 4 times the price ( taxe inclusive). It also includes the docking station...ooops forgot to mention that.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Great

      Now to find a reliable broadband connection, correction, any reliable Internet connection.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Presumably you can install Windows on it and turn it into a fully functional if rather low spec. laptop?

    1. Tom Chiverton 1

      And/or Linux and get a nice fast laptop for hardly anything...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "And/or Linux and get a nice fast laptop for hardly anything..."

        Well based on the latest windows 8 / Ubuntu benchmarks, Windows 8 is the faster option for say large file copies or graphics performance.

        Anyway that didn't answer the question - can you upgrade it to Windows? or have they gone with a non standard BIOS or some other such crippleware feature?

        "If you add Windows then presumably that puts the price up by £100, does it not?"

        Not acccording to TPB.....

        1. Chemist

          "... Ubuntu benchmarks"

          Linux != Ubuntu

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No longer cheap

      If you add Windows then presumably that puts the price up by £100, does it not?

      The future appears to be Cloud and if so, a Chromebook will do all you need.

      Also, Gartner say the cost of running an un-managed PC is $5,000 a year (patching, updating, anti-malware etc) whereas a Chromebook eliminates more than 90% of these costs, thus saving you $4,500 a year by relieving you of all those hassles.

      1. bpfh
        Pirate

        Re: No longer cheap

        $5000 per year for an unmanaged PC? Shirley you can't be serious! (unless you factor in the non-US price of Adobe Creative Suite of course)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: No longer cheap

        @AC 14:14 - "Also, Gartner say the cost of running an un-managed PC is $5,000 a year (patching, updating, anti-malware etc)"

        Another example of how Gartner is a completely worthless group of tech-ignorant blowhards.

    3. Dr Dre

      What's a shame is not the rpice or the spec or the OS, but that people feel the need to comment without understanding the market for the product.

      Chromebooks, some are nice, some are less so, are a product for a certain demographic - people who can think outside the need for Windows or OSX - or even Linux. They (Chromebooks) are small, fast, good on battery and can meet the needs of a huge number of computer users.

      I find as I use mine, I need a 'Proper PC' ever less. Haven't booted my Ubuntu Desktop for some months now as I've just not needed to. OK - I use the Chromebook to read El Reg and browse the web mostly, but also manage and edit project plans, spreadsheets, documents.

      If I played games or stole pirated content (more than usual) then I'd need a PC - but for 99% of the time I can just grab the CB and crack on without worrying about viruses, updates, licensing etc etc.

      1. sabroni Silver badge

        without worrying about viruses, updates, licensing etc etc.

        You don't need to worry about being up to date, but you might want to worry about updates removing functionality you use. If you're not paying to use a service then Google have no reason to maintain features they don't want to....

        Automatic security patches are great (up to a point) but automatic "updates" to application behaviour can cause all sorts of problems.

  3. Atonnis

    It does look crap....

    ....it really does. It's like a laptop from a few years ago has been recycled and infected with grotty malware.

    Almost as bad as a manufacturer-installed bloatware-ridden Windows setup.

    I guess at least with this OS you KNOW what you're getting is going to be shiteware.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Netbook 9

    I fondly remember my Dell Netbook 9. 1 kg, small, speedy enough thanks to its SSD... four years later and both the specs and the prices haven't changed. What exactly is the benefit of the Chromebook s'posed to be? If they could have upped the quality of it a bit, say, aluminium case, non-crappy keyboard and touchpad, I would certainly have bought a new one. As for this GoogleShopfrontBook... no thanks...

    1. Synonymous Howard

      Re: Netbook 9

      Chromebooks should be correctly named 'Netbook Redux' or the more accurate 'Android+Keyboard'

      Still they are now looking like large PSION Netbooks (tm) but with native tinternet access.

      This one is definitely fugly though and not worth a punt even if you could turn easily it in to a generic 'Linbook' / 'Unbooku'

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Netbook 9

        Android and Chromium are two different O/S, each with their own target market and set of apps.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: each with their own target market and set of apps.

          Great, now even Google don't believe in "write once run anywhere"!

  5. Javapapa

    Some Chromebooks are more equal than others

    Typing this on an HP Chromebook 14, shiny black case, has 4 GB RAM. Paid $300 from Best Buy.

    I cannot understand why anyone would buy one the smaller 11" screen, although you can mirror it to a bigger desktop monitor. Two GB seems small for heavy use and memory leaks happen, mine has stopped stone cold dead twice in six months, requiring a battery disconnect to re-boot. Might have been a runaway Javascript loop.

    The Chromebook concept is an interesting niche machine. I love the 10 second boot from SSD; as a programmer I like the ssh for Linux server admin. Cloud Print works well; Chrome Remote Desktop - meh.

    Only feature missing and likely to remain missing is SMB access to corporate file server. Offline document creation works.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I love the 10 second boot from SSD

      You should try a windows 8 laptop then, my lenovo manages 10 seconds from cold to desktop.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Thumbed down?

        For timing something?

        Or for booting a proper OS as fast as a browser?

        1. Hellcat

          Re: Thumbed down?

          Welcome to the Microsoft haters group. 10s cold to desktop is pretty good. My PC can only dream of that.

          I bet I can get more downvotes just by mentioning Windows RT does just about the same as ChromeOS only with SMB support.

      2. Synonymous Howard

        Re: I love the 10 second boot from SSD

        You should not need to boot from cold these days on a laptop .. sleep mode should be fine for everyone and pops back in a second or two ... or maybe that's just Macbooks 8-)

        OT: Have to say that 'sleep' on stock Android is crap though giving battery life that is naff compared with iPads. I'm still having to fight Android on tablets to stop it draining battery overnight whilst iOS is astonishing good at sleeping yet still processing push notifications etc.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I love the 10 second boot from SSD

          >> You should not need to boot from cold these days on a laptop .. sleep mode should be fine for everyone and pops back in a second or two ... or maybe that's just Macbooks 8-) <<

          We were discussing boot times, not resume from sleep. The lenovo resumes from sleep pretty much instantly, certainly less than 2 seconds....

          1. Synonymous Howard

            Re: I love the 10 second boot from SSD

            And you miss the point, that these days a laptop with a good OS does not often need to be booted from cold .. a good OS sleeps well and long without recharging, does not always need rebooting when applying patches and is stable enough it does not crash and burn and stays up for weeks on end.

    2. Azzy

      Re: Some Chromebooks are more equal than others

      Man, you've had to pull the battery twice? Wouldn't that be hard if one owned a chromebook without removable batteries? (I don't know how widespread non-removable batteries are on chromebooks). It has been years since I had to pull the batteries on any of my laptops... 2 in 6 months is pretty bad. I hope (for the sake of both the manufacturers and consumers) that this isn't typical.

      The lack of SMB access is a nasty (and presumably intentional) flaw in ChromeOS - are there not any workarounds for it like there are on Android (either an app to browse SMB shares, like ESFS et al on android, or wizardry to add in full support (like cifs.ko on android))?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does anyone else think that a 1366 x 768 display is adequate or reasonable on a new device, even a chrome book, in 2014? I know I don't...

    1. Synonymous Howard

      For an 11 inch or smaller device .. then JUST ... although it does look vertically cramped but is usable when mobile! I have an 11" Macbook Air and it has that resolution but the weight and size overcomes the resolution disadvantage ... not that I get much chance to use it as the missus has nabbed it as 'hers' because of its size.

      For anything bigger then look for a minimum of 1440x900.

  7. Hellcat

    1366x768 is okay for a display that size and will help reduce the impact on the battery. If it can output to an external screen (which this can) I would hope that is at least able to display 1920x1080.

    No mention of the PSU in the article - is it USB or does it have a dedicated charger? It's all well and good a full charge lasting 10 hours but how long does it take to get back to once the battery is flat?

  8. Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face

    ... a 16GB SSD for those of your files that your really don’t want in the cloud...

    That would be ALL OF THEM.

    Two new laptops and one new mobile phone in my house for Christmas. Avoiding sending half of my data around the world to a company I don't trust to be rifled through by all and sundry was something of a Yuletide sport.

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