When I was a kid, laptops were seen as luxury items. Only businessmen had them, and they used them for serious work. But then the first $1,999 laptop came out. That soon fell down to $1,499, then $999, and so on and so forth. Laptop prices bottomed out when companies started making netbooks, though admittedly most netbooks were total garbage.
Looking for ways to come out with better products at affordable price points, both Google and Apple took two different paths. Apple invented the iPad, Google invented the Chromebook. Because hardware makers don’t have to pay for a Windows license, and because you don’t need a ton of storage in a Chromebook to get stuff done, the era of decent sub $300 laptops was born.
Now I don’t know how to say this without sounding offensive, so here it goes: People who typically buy cheap laptops don’t use online shopping sites. So while Google was selling Chromebooks for cheap on the Play Store, it didn’t matter to people who don’t go online all that often.
Which brings me to today’s news. Google has announced that Walmart will start selling Chromebooks. Specifically a $199 model from Acer that has a 16 GB SSD. The company also announced that Staples will start selling Chromebooks from various companies (Samsung, HP, Acer) this weekend in all of their stores. I’m all for more people going online, so this is great. For everyone.
