Except if you think about it, if he only needs the computer for 12 months he'll end up paying $240. That's cheaper than the retail price of all the Chrome OS computers. I don't understand why you all hate on Google so much :/, I guess it's the same reason Microsoft owners hate Sony: Competition.
Yeah, but you don't think schools and organizations will lease them out to their students/ employees and get discounted prices?
The one thing google announced I really can't see the point off is Google music If I've got it right you upload all your music to googles servers then can only access it by streaming and when it's out of Beta as I understand it you pay google to let you access it. What is really crazy is they have claimed features like once you listen to it you have an offline copy you can listen to offline. So that's basicly an admission local copys are better. Why would I want to pay anyone to access my own music and why would I want the inconvenience of needing to be connected to the Internet to listen to it not to mention using up a lot of bandwidth just to do it. I also don't want to play my music through a browser that's just dumb. I like google as a company but I find this whole idea moronic especially when all my music fits neatly on my ipod and portable hard drives are cheap and with USB3 now their fast. Cloud has some potential but I can't see chromebooks and google music changing the world they are to much of a step backward. On the other hand Android is really getting very impressive.
I bought Microsoft Office Professional from UF for $15. They had Macbooks and other laptops there on discount also.
Google Music: Upload the music to a server so you can listen to it ANYWHERE you want, with any device if you have internet access. That way, you don't slow down your device with a lot of music data. The "offline music" you're referring too is when a song gets played on your device, it goes into your cache (I assume) so you can listen to it when you're offline. I think this is a great idea, especially since it means I don't have to carry my iPod and my phone around everywhere from now on.
Some obvious problems with it just off the top of my head nothing will convince me it's not a stupid idea I'm afraid. 1: Paying someone else so you can listen to your own music 2: Amazing waste of bandwidth no doubt this will cost you a lot as well 3: You will still need a device at least as big as an Ipod to listen anyway 4: You can forget about lossless everything will be quite low bitrate. 5: Listening through a browser 6: ISP problems mean you can't listen to your own music 7: Google decides what is and isn't legal and may delete your tracks 8: No online service can be guaranteed not to vanish 9: The added hassle of having to upload everything you buy 10: Added with googles other information about you, you will be even more profiled and targeted with ads and your data could end up anywhere.
1. It's free for now. And at least you have your music backed up with Google Music 2. It's not a waste. I will use it. And again, it's free for now and since its free now, there is no way its gonna cost a ton in the future 3. How do you expect to listen to your music with a device? How else could you listen? 4. Not sure if they convert your music to low bit-rate or not. 5. Or an app for Android, which is the majority of smart phones. 6. If you have ISP problems, your not gonna sit back and wait for your internet to be fixed, so you probably won't listen to music anyways. Plus, you can wait a few hours. 7. Huh? Your saying that Google is going to listen to every piece of music uploaded and judge their legality? Legality doesn't matter because your not sharing the music. 8. What are the odds of Google crashing, valued around 450 billion, compared to your 1,000 dollar computer crashing? 9. OMG! I have to press three buttons and spend 30 extra seconds! 10. Apple already has all your music info about you because of iTunes. I trust Google more anyways.
Also, at least for the beta, you can upload 20,000 songs for free... I don't think I even have over 1,000...
