Switched On: Chrome on the range

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

If Chrome OS didn't start out with an inferiority complex living in the shadow of the massive adoption of its cousin Android, and with Eric Schmidt dismissing the hardware that would run it as cheap and interchangeable, the hardware companies that were early to adopt it didn't help matters. Chrome OS arrived on devices that weren't priced competitively against then-popular netbooks.

Since then, though, the Chrome hardware story has been on a steady upswing. Thanks to Acer, Chromebooks broke the $200 price point. Thanks to Samsung, they made the leap to the ARM architecture, enabling longer battery life in a thin form factor. And thanks to HP and Lenovo, Chromebooks have joined the portfolios of two of the biggest names in corporate computing. While it may be nowhere near Android's scale in terms of overall devices, Chrome OS is now offered by three of 2012's top Windows PC manufacturers. That is certainly enough to show up on Microsoft's radar. Into this fray comes the Chromebook Pixel and it has clearly learned from other successful ecosystems.

Filed under: Internet, Software, Apple, Microsoft, Google

Comments

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/M9ez9HBWpfk/

Espn Fantasy Football Grandparents Day 2012 army wives 60 minutes go daddy Tom Kenny Long Island Medium