back to article John Lewis appears to punt Chromebook with Windows 7

Careful, web designers: always check a gadget's specs before you tinker with images of the product. A salutary example of when they don't is provided by John Lewis. The Middle Classes' favourite retailer is offering Samsung's £379 Chromebook - key feature: it runs Google's cloud-centric Chrome OS - seemingly with Windows 7, if …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Simple. by loading win7 JL are ensuring that no-one will be able to get a pricematch since there will be no other shops selling the same spec!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    So

    this is why Chromebooks haven't taken off as well as I expected...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So

      example of how chromebooks haven't taken off is the "chromebook" section of the local PCWorld here ... have a dedicated section with a dozen or so chromebook ready for people to try out and a couple of staff with "chromebook" t-shirts ready to help people ... except they are always slumped in chairs looking very bored hoping that one day someone will walk up to a chromebook and they can then help them try it out! 10m away there's a similar setup for iPads ... that's always crowded.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: So

        They sell them in PC World? I bet the arseholes still try and get you to buy a norton subscription.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: So

          So are you one of those idiots who think Chromebooks are somehow magically impervious to malware?

          Their only security so far is obscurity.

          1. Greg J Preece

            Re: So

            He was probably thinking more along the lines of "Norton don't make a Debian client."

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              WTF?

              Yeah they do:

              http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ent-security.nsf/ppfdocs/2005110716014248

              It seems 6 idiots don't know that.

  3. Anonymous Custard
    Joke

    And to cover all bases...

    They're even asking if you've thought about buying a MacBook sleeve to go with it.

    Now just need an alternate offer of a penguin mascot to have a full house in there...

  4. sebacoustic

    it's running ChromeOS

    just showing a JPG of the windows splash screen, that's all

  5. MS Rocks

    John Lewis know what their customers want...

    ....and their customers do not want yet another failed Google software project on a a semi useless netbook.

    Hence the photoshop of it running a proper operating system.

    1. Mad yakker

      Re: John Lewis know what their customers want...

      I thought the picture was of Windows 7 though?

  6. Gordan

    ChromeOS has it's uses

    Seriously - it provided all the kernel patches required for Tegra2 laptops like the Toshiba AC100. Without the ChromeOS kernel patches we wouldn't have a fully working AC100 kernel today (for running normal Linux, of course - who would want to use ChromeOS anyway?). ;-)

  7. Magnus_Pym

    Hmmmm.

    "is what did for Linux-based netbooks back in the last decade"

    Oh, Is that what what did it then?

    1. IGnatius T Foobar

      Re: Hmmmm.

      No, what "did it in" was Microsoft twisting the OEMs' arms to kill off Linux netbooks. They were selling quite nicely until Microsoft stepped in and forced them to lard up the specs until they could (badly) run Windows XP.

      I'm not excited about Chromebooks for a different reason: I think devices like the Asus Transformer show that what consumers really want is Android laptops.

      1. chr0m4t1c

        Re: Hmmmm.

        "I think devices like the Asus Transformer show that what consumers really want is Android laptops."

        I think the sales figures suggest otherwise.

        I'm not saying that you're wrong in your assertion that consumers really want Android laptops, but reported sales figures of 82k aren't very good evidence. .

  8. ukgnome
    Trollface

    Awesome News!

    I didn't know that Chromebooks had dual boot - suddenly they are attractive at that price.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They're for business

    Why Google are trying to sell these to home users is beyond me. They're a frontend for google Docs. Google Docs is an extremely good platform for collaborative team based working (many users same doc same time and can see each others' changes as they happen, no worry about save / restore as all changes can be rolled back to the Nth degree) Very good for cross-company working. Trouble is it is very much all or nothing so to get the best you got to move your filetores to the cloud and take away a lot of the safety blankets IT depts are used to. And MS Office. Also performance can be choppy on big docs. Horses for courses - for certain types of worker I reckon they're a good thing, and not endlessly supporting the trench-war against user-installed crapware is thin-clientesque refreshing.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'll tell you why there is little interest- it's because they're so close in price to a real laptop!

    1. P. Lee
      Linux

      > little interest- it's because they're so close in price to a real laptop!

      Precisely. Put in a nice screen, ssd, battery and retail costs and the CPU counts for very little, especially when it turns out the CPU is rather feeble.

      MBAs might be expensive, but not if you have to buy a laptop and a tablet.

      High-power x86 laptop with android tablet in the (detachable) screen would be the winner for me. Being able to use the "base" as a wifi access point would be handy too. My wireless router doesn't reach through all the walls of my house.

  11. Chris Reynolds
    Meh

    World+Dog can't buy these yet

    With the high price and the limited availability of chomebooks (and now chromeboxes) it seems little wonder that people are choosing tablets and laptops over these.

    Chromebooks/boxes aren't yet available here in Australia so I can't comment on the quality of the product, however the only person I know who has bought one loves it. I have an Asus Transformer TF101 which would be my ideal machine if the keyboard wasn't utter crap and it didn't use a proprietary power connector.

  12. LazloWoodbine
    FAIL

    Looks like they have realised their mistake now

    Clicked the link in the article and the screenshot is of a Chomebook OS now.

    Guessing some art bod got a telling off over that.

  13. n4blue
    Trollface

    ChomeOS = WP7?

    It strikes me that in most of the above comments you could replace 'ChromeOS' with 'WP7' and they could be from a thread talking about phones.

    Underpowered hardware, efficient OS. All very nice but no one is buying.

    Perhaps Google need to find a once dominant laptop manufacturer with great design capabilities and plummeting market share...

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