Category: Chrome OS

As part of Black Friday sales, Amazon has discounted both the Samsung Chromebook Pro and the Chromebook Plus by $100 today.  These are new-for-2017 models that really set the tone for Chromebooks this year.

The Chromebook Plus is down to $349 today while the Chromebook Pro is down to $449.

The Chromebook Plus has a 12.3″ display rendering at 2400 x 1600.  It is also a touchscreen which makes using the included stylus or your finger for apps easier.  It has 4GB of RAM, 32GB of Storage and you can expand that storage thanks to the MicroSD slot.  It has dual-microphones, a 720p Webcam and, of course, Wi-Fi.  It only ways 2.4 lbs so it is designed for portability and with it being able to be be used as a laptop or a slate, you have a lot of flexibility in where and how you use this Chromebook.

The Samsung Chromebook Plus is powered by the OP1 ARM processor which is both battery efficient and powerful enough to get your daily work done.  The 39Wh battery is rated to give users up to 8 hours of life per charge and charging is done via a USB-C connector.  As you would expect, Android app support is also there for the Chromebook Plus.

The expansion of Android app support on Chromebooks continues with the addition of three more devices supported in the latest Chrome OS update.  The Lenovo Thinkpad 13, the HP Chromebook 13 G1 and the Samsung Chromebook 3 are the latest to gain Android app support in the Stable channel.  This came with the latest Chrome 62 build that rolled out to these devices earlier this month.

If you have one of these Chromebooks, once you have received the update (you can force the issue by typing chrome://help in the browser), you should see the Google Play Store in your App Drawer.  Click on it and get things configured and you can then install Android apps on these devices.

In addition to these in the Stable channel, the Dell Chromebook 13 and the Acer C740 also have Android app support but only in the Beta Channel.

An important update to Chrome OS has just been released to the Stable Channel for most devices.  Build 62.0.3202.74 (Platform version: 9901.54.0/1) is making its way out now with devices that are running the App Store expected to get the update over the course of the next few days.

The update includes a number of new features or improvements but perhaps the biggest update is a patch to address the KRACK vulnerability.  In case you missed the news, KRACK was a WiFi defect that could allow someone to break the encryption on your connection – thus exposing your data effectively “in the clear”.  Google, Microsoft and Apple amongst others have been working feverishly to patch the vulnerability on their devices, which more-or-less impacted every WiFi enabled device out there.

At least from a Chrome OS perspective, this update patches the OS so that you are no longer susceptible to KRACK.

It has been a while since the Chromium team has updated the Chromebook and Chromebox list of devices that support Android apps.  In fact, the last significant update happened back in August.  Now the team has made a big update to the list, updating it with the current status of Android apps on Chrome OS.

The list can be found here and as I’ve suggested before, I recommend readers who use Chrome OS to bookmark the page.  This is the official list of devices that do or will support Android apps.  Yes, it is often slow in getting updated but it is the official list nevertheless.

Chrome OS has come a long way in 6 years that it has been around.  The platform has infinitely more features and functionality, has a robust ecosystem of extensions and now Android apps, and is no longer a “cheap” OS for “cheap” hardware.  It has grown up, a lot.

But if there is one area that it still has lagged when comparing it to the likes of MacOS or Windows 10, it has been in the User Interface.  Yes it has changed a bit, most notably with the introduction of a task bar in 2012, but fundamentally it has always been a browser-based platform with a clunky but functional UI.  But that changed in a big way this week with the released of Chrome OS build 61.

Build 61 brings the most dramatic changes to the User Interface to date.  It brings an all new app launcher, significantly improved support for Android apps and a much more polished lock screen.  These many not sound like big ticket items but these changes bring the platform as a whole more into the mainstream look of an Operating System and out of the “geeks only” look that the platform has had to this point.  It also points to the never ending work that the Chromium team within Google perform to not only keep it as a secure and reliable OS but also bringing features that users are expecting in a desktop or laptop platform.  With more improvements on the horizon, this new look UI will only improve over the course of 2018.

The Chrome team has released a major update to Chrome OS into the stable channel.  The update is build 61.0.3163.113 (Platform version: 9765.76.0) and it rolling out to devices today.  Normally on Chrome OS releases, there are a few devices that are left off the update for various reasons – device specific features, already on a different train, etc. – but this release has a pretty extensive list and it contains a lot of popular Chromebooks and Chromeboxes.

If you have one of the devices listed below, the update to the Chrome 61 build will not be available for your device: