Why are Chromebooks so much cheaper than Googlebooks?

Remember those Chromebooks you or your child received at school? Old news. Maybe you were able to recycle them, maybe not. Regardless, the Chromebooks are gone and the remaining supplies are sold out, some for less than $50.

In their place, we’ve entered the era of the Googlebook, a new series of Google-powered laptops that still run the Chromebook’s ChromeOS, but have additional AI features. These changes included more powerful processors and 16GB of RAM, at least twice as much as many of the previously top-reviewed Chromebooks. There’s also now an additional suite of continuity features that make it easier for Android users to connect to their laptop…sorry, Googlebook. The tech giant also added built-in AI-based Gemini Intelligence tools with intelligent text-to-speech, the ability to interact with apps via AI prompt, and enhanced photo editing.

These Googlebooks start at $899 and are a far cry from the more basic $200 to $300 Chromebooks, which often come with just 4GB of RAM and 128GB or less of storage. In terms of processing power, Google’s books include a latest-generation Snapdragon Google also offers Googlebooks buyers a free one-year subscription to its Google AI Pro plan with 5TB of storage and access to other Gemini features, which Google values ​​at $240. The company also offers free trials of services like Nvidia GeForce Now, YouTube Premium, and several Adobe Creative Cloud apps with an advertised trade-in value of $350.

Chromebooks started out as internet-focused machines, without the hassle and price of their competitors. This usually meant devices were made with lower quality screens, flimsy keyboards, and plastic cases. Yet there has always been a flagship product hanging around. In 2013, Google launched the Chromebook Pixel, a $1,300 laptop described by Sundar Pichai, then a senior vice president of Android and now Google’s CEO, as a “labor of love” on the part of its engineers. It received an updated design in 2015 and was later replaced in 2017 by the $1,000 Pixelbook, the $1,000 Pixel Slate of 2018, and then the $649 Pixelbook Go in 2019. All came with sleek displays and, optionally, powerful silicon, meeting the tech needs of Android and ChromeOS enthusiasts.

Google’s premium standalone scene for Chromebooks then went quiet for a few years before the company decided to coordinate an attempt to elevate the product category with its Chromebook Plus 2023 initiative. For $400 to $800, buyers can buy a laptop from Asus, Acer, Lenovo and other partners with 12th generation Intel Core i3 or AMD Ryzen 7000 series chips, 8 GB of RAM and at least 128 GB of storage. While most Chromebooks sold during the pandemic still had screens with 1366×768 resolution and nominally 720p webcams, Chromebook Plus increased the standards to 1080p on both fronts. The company even offered its free sauce subscription for Plus buyers.

As manufacturers follow Chromebook Plus and sign up to the Googlebook program, we could see the foundation best equipped to transform the image of the humble ChromeOS laptop away from its cheap fleet past. But it does so at a difficult time, when global energy disruptions and manufacturing demand have created economic uncertainty. Google will also take on Apple’s $700 MacBook Neo, one of its cheapest computers ever, bucking the upward price trend. So the question Google will face won’t be so much about the technology, but rather whether people will be willing to pay more than they’re used to.