“Absurd”: Google, Amazon rebuked over unsupported Chromebooks still for sale
“Absurd”: Google, Amazon rebuked over unsupported Chromebooks still for sale
No security or feature updates, but selling as "new."
Archived version: https://archive.ph/vNSJa
Amazon I would expect, because they sell whatever random garbage they want to.
Google is more than a bit egregious though, considering they’re also the company that dropped support for it.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Thirteen Chromebook models have met their death date since June 1 and won't receive security updates or new features from Google anymore.
The US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) pointed this out in a press release Wednesday, sharing screenshots of the models:
The US PIRG's release highlights eight ChromeOS devices from Asus, Acer, Dell, Lenovo, HP, and Samsung, all easily purchasable on Amazon despite their expirations.
The advocacy group's latest release highlights how easy it is to buy expired laptops, which can lead to security threats, e-waste, and wasted money.
We have been tracking the specific Chromebook models listed in the June letter that recently expired this summer and were shocked to find them still for sale with no warnings.
Retailers need to make changes to protect customers, since Chromebook support expiration dates can be unclear if they're not included on listing pages.
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Having been in a school system that only uses chromebooks and the google suite. I can tell you this system hurts tech literacy skills a lot. Not even knowing what an .exe is or how to run it, not knowing basic Microsoft products and other industry standard programs. People who use Chromebooks are also really slow and aren't technically savvy at all.
This is just a list of more things to add on top of the discussion on why Chromebooks are a terrible investment.
Okay, first of all calling people that use Chromebooks "slow" is maybe a little too far, maybe rein that in a little.
I can tell you from years of experience that using a Windows device isn't a qualifier for being tech literate at all; the large majority of people don't make any effort to learn how to use their device effectively, regardless of which OS it's running.
In my organisation we'd tried giving Chromebooks to users with basic needs but very often they'd return it saying "it's not good enough". We'd check the usage reports and so many of them had apparently come to this decision within 30 minutes. We'd give them a Windows device instead and they'd still raise support tickets for basic, Google-able things like setting default apps and how to unmute their sound.
I have this theory that some people are 'computer people', in the same way some are dog people or cat people. Everyone else just doesn't know how to have a 'relationship' with a computer and they get frustrated when they can't immediately understand it.
People who use Chromebooks are also really slow and aren’t technically savvy at all.
Nonsense. I think your opinion is clouded by your limited experience with them.
ChromeOS supports a full Debian Linux virtual machine/container environment. That's not a feature aimed at non-tech-savvy users. It's used by software developers (especially web and Android devs), linux sysadmins, and students of all levels.
In fact I might even argue the opposite: a more technically-savvy user is more likely to find a use case for them.
Personally, I'm currently using mine for R&D in memory management and cross-platform compiler technology, with a bit of hobby game development on the side. I've even installed and helped debug Lemmy on my chromebook! It's a fab ultra-portable, bullet proof dev machine with a battery life that no full laptop can match.
But then I do apparently have an IQ of zero, so maybe you're right after all...
Unfortunately there isn't an alternative unless you live in a swanky community with a school system that has money thrown at it.
The problem, at this point, is mostly inertial. Google was poised at the right time. Surface SEs are a thing now, but how do you pivot a system that has 5000+ Chromebooks to SEs? Why should you if there is overwhelming support for what you have?
People who use Chromebooks are also really slow and aren't technically savvy at all.
I don't see how you can support that statement at all. It's not like I didn't work tickets for student devices, it just so happens that the overwhelming majority of my tickets that weren't physically damaged Chromebooks were to support faculty devices, which were all Windows.
They tried to give me one of these with an a6 cpu after showing the silver one with an Intel chip, went back immediately.
The joys of planned obsolescence.