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For several years now, Google has been hosting I / O, its annual developer conference. As such, there are often many notable anniversaries devoted to Google to recognize this time of year, and today is no exception. Eight years ago (May 11, 2011), Google announced the first two Acer and Samsung Chromebooks available commercially. At the time, it was just two ads in the middle of two days of ads, but it was a milestone for the young Google Chrome operating system. And although Chromebooks have taken years to get rid of their reputation for inexpensive devices that are both inexpensive and powerful, we can now look back at these laptops as the beginning of something important for Google.
The 11.6-inch Acer Chromebook and 12.1-inch Samsung Series 5 were cut from a similar fabric. Both used low-power Intel Atom processors, small SSDs, and impressive battery life, at least for now: 6.5 hours for Acer and more than 8 hours for the Samsung. With relatively small screens, the two computers seemed easily comparable to the many small inexpensive Windows netbooks that were commonplace in the early 2010s. Starting at $ 350, these Chromebooks are actually a bit more expensive than some Windows-based netbooks. 7 at the time.
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With a price of $ 429 and an untested operating system, the Samsung Chromebook Series 5 was not an obvious winner, but it turned out to be a surprisingly solid option. The hardware itself was well-researched and well built, the screen was ok, the battery was powerful and the performance sufficient – as long as you could get by with the many limitations imposed by Chrome OS in 2011. It's n & ## 39; There was virtually no offline mode to talk about Netflix was not working and buyers only had 16 GB of local storage. At a time when cloud storage was both expensive and not always reliable, a Chromebook was certainly not for everyone.
But even in 2011, it was also true that much of what one needed from a computer could be done in a web browser, assuming that your needs were fairly simple. Gmail, Gchat, Google Docs and Facebook have covered many use cases. Although Netflix did not work properly with Chrome OS, Google had promised to add support soon. Add to that the new cloud music registry announced by Google to I / O, and many basics have been addressed. Indeed, when we looked at the series 5, we found that even though he was not ready to be a main computer, he was much better than we would have imagined.
While Chrome OS looked a bit like another beta product when it was launched, the good news is that Google has maintained a steady stream of improvements. Since Google has a reputation for giving up and killing projects at any time, the company has always supported Chromebooks, ultimately turning them into far more than laptops that "can only work if they are not working." with a browser ". Features such as offline support, better web applications and Google Play / Android compatibility have made the software experience more complete.
At the same time, Google's hardware partners quickly began selling Chromebooks for less than $ 300, making it an ideal option for students or for those looking for a simple, low-cost laptop as a second choice. computer. And after gaining ground on the market with these inexpensive notebooks, hardware manufacturers followed the example of Google with its extremely expensive but well-constructed Chromebook Pixel and began manufacturing their own high-end Chromebooks.
Eight years after the announcement of these first Chrome OS ready-to-use devices, 21% of all laptops sold in the US in the fourth quarter of 2018 were Chromebooks. Google has also made undeniable progress in the field of education: a study estimated that Chromebooks accounted for 60% of notebook purchases from kindergarten to Grade 12 in 2018. This strength rests largely part on what made the Chromebooks attractive in 2011, while they were still a lot of work in progress. There is something to say for simplicity and speed.
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