Chromebooks

After several leaks and our own exclusive reporting, Google announced last month that it would debut its first self-designed smartphone chip in the Pixel 6 series later this year. Apparently, the company’s ambitions don’t stop there. Today, a new report claims that Google is also building chips for future Chromebooks.

Google’s Chromebooks play best with Google Drive and its associated apps, but others are available, including Microsoft Office. However, Microsoft is about to pull the plug on supporting its Android app on Chrome OS.

The rush to working and educating from home due to the outbreak of COVID-19 last year essentially exploded the Chromebook market, pushing sales higher than they’ve ever gone. While that growth continued into 2021, Chromebook sales are definitely slowing down, as Q2 saw a big drop.

If your Chromebook suddenly feels slower lately, it’s not your fault. It seems that the latest Chrome OS update, v91, is causing performance issues for some users.

Google’s Chromebook bet paid off in a big way last year as the popularity of Chromebooks hit record highs, making Chrome OS the second-most popular desktop operating system in the world. However, that growth may slow down this year, as Chromebook makers are finding the popular low-end models “unprofitable.”

As Chrome OS continues to explode in popularity, Google is updating the platform with more features and bug fixes. Now, the company appears to be looking at fixing an issue that causes dramatic battery drain on Android phones using the Phone Hub feature on Chrome OS.

As far as third-party browsers go, there are none that are fully optimized for Chromebooks and Chrome OS, that is until now with the popular Opera Browser.

Zoom became a household name in 2020 as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns. It was clear pretty quickly, though, that the company wasn’t fully prepared for the massive influx of customers as security flaws and missing features quickly became evident. This week, over a year into the pandemic that’s made video calls more important than ever, Zoom is debuting its new PWA that enhances its functionality on the web and, specifically, on Chromebooks.

Gaming is one of the last thoughts that surround traditionally low-powered Chromebooks, but as the platform continues to explode in popularity, it’s something that more and more people are looking to do. While cloud gaming fills a lot of the gaps, Unity is now making it possible for game developers to natively target Chrome OS.

Video conferencing exploded in popularity during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the early days as many businesses and schools went remote for the safety of employees and students. Zoom was the biggest name in the game for quite a while and still is extremely popular, but if you’ve ever used it on a Chromebook, you’re probably aware that it’s not quite up to snuff. Next week, though, that’s apparently set to change.

Ahead of MWC 2021, Lenovo has launched two brand-new Chrome OS-powered IdeaPad 5i and Flex 5i laptops to compete at the low to-mid-end of the market.

CES 2021 has seen the debut of a few Chromebooks, including a spectacular option from Acer. Today, Asus is bringing two new Chromebooks to the table including the Chromebook Flip CM5, which is powered by AMD chips.

Update 6/14: Asus has launched the CM5 officially launched for $499 and is now shipping in the US.

Chrome OS tablets were once viewed as Google’s potential answer to the iPad, but to date only one major release has hit the market. Now, we’re finally seeing a second Chrome OS tablet for the mass market in the Asus Chromebook Detachable CM3.

Chromebooks have, over the past couple of years, graduated from the cheap alternative to Windows/Mac and have become real options in the laptop market. As a result, a lot of the hardware out there is solid but nothing remarkable. That’s the impression I walked away with after spending a few days with the new Acer Chromebook 514, a delightful laptop that does everything well.

During the Next @ Acer event, the company unveiled four new Chrome OS devices, including world’s firsts with the first Chromebook with a 17-inch screen, and the first to be Intel Evo certified.

More devices with 11th Gen Intel processors continue to be announced, and the latest is HP’s Pro c640 G2 Chromebook. Visually, this latest generation is not too different from the original, but there are some nice upgrades. 

Since their debut years ago, Chromebooks have long been criticized for lacking native apps. That’s something Google has addressed by delivering support for Android apps and, more importantly, Linux apps on Chromebooks, and now the latter is finally dropping its beta label.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in huge growth for PCs and tablets as a whole, but it was Google’s Chromebook initiative that really proved to be a hit during the pandemic. According to a new report from Canalys, though, things were even better than we thought, with Chromebooks seeing 275% growth entering 2021.