Happy holidays, everyone! Yours Truly, the Google Chromebook team!

Google just announced several Chromebook updates that should wash away the holiday blues. First off, prices are dropping. Per a post at Google’s official blog, Chromebooks from both Acer and Samsung will be available starting at $299 “beginning this week.” That’s a $50 price drop on both the Acer AC700 and Samsung Series 5 models although some retailers are currently selling the Acer model at $299 already. No word on if the higher-priced, 3G models are getting a lower price, though.

Today’s Chromebook news also includes user interface updates. The platform now sports a new swanky log-in screen that simplifies the experience. The New Tab page also looks just like the revamped version found in the latest version of Google Chrome. The app and bookmark icons now take center stage while shortcuts like recently closed tabs are downplayed.

Google introduced its desktop OS in May of this year. The rethought operating system boots nearly instantly and features an experience completely around its web browser, Google Chrome. However, the notebooks have failed to make a huge splash in the marketplace mostly because of limited marketing and retail placement. Most consumers do not know they exist. But Google does hardware differently and this update shows that the platform isn’t dead (yet).

Chromebook retailers such as Amazon and Best Buy have yet to update their pricing — maybe they didn’t get the memo yet. If you have a little extra room in your holiday budget, the WiFi-only Samsung Series 5 now comes in black and retails for $349.

HTC faces a ban on its smartphones in Germany, but not as a result of its various legal battles with Apple. This time, it has withdrawn its appeal against an injunction granted to patent troll IPcom. This the latest in a series of blows over the past few weeks, to a handset maker which had seemed to be leading a charmed life as it rode the Android wave. Now it is trying to calm investor nerves with promises of new, high impact smartphones and even a new twist on the mobile device segment, a hybrid tablet/Chromebook.

The Taiwanese company cut its fourth quarter revenue forecast by up to 23% last week and its stock has fallen in value by 61% since the end of April amid concerns that it does not have an effective response to rising competition from Samsung (and even from Nokia, in the mobile Windows market which HTC has always led). Its tablets have not made a big splash and it is embroiled in legal tussles with Apple, losing a case at the US ITC last week.

CFO Winston Yung used an interview with the Reuters news agency to try to improve sentiment, with promises of new products and a broader global reach – HTC is particularly concentrating on the sharp growth in Chinese 3G and smartphones. “I don’t think it’s so serious,” Yung said. “We have six quarters of improvement, the most conservative guidance is 45m units of shipments this year, a lot higher than 25m last year. We will focus on the product next year, better and more competitive. Other than new LTE phones for the US market, we also have phones for the global market. We will launch some worldwide flagship products. We’re confident in them.”

However, its recent downgrade of its Q4 sales forecast – to around $3.4bn, about the same as a year earlier – prompted at least six brokers, including Citigroup and Credit Suisse, to downgrade the stock. The company’s new guidance was “driven more by inferior product than by macro reasons”, wrote Citigroup analysts Kevin Chang and Jonathan Gu in a research note. “We are most surprised by the lack of visibility and by how fast things deteriorate in the smartphone business.”

As well as the promised new handsets, HTC is also reported to be entering the nascent market for Chromebooks, the clamshell thin clients running Google’s browser-as-OS. Only Samsung and Acer currently sell these products and sales are said to be modest, but HTC plans a hybrid design, according to Digitimes’ supply chain sources in Taiwan. This would apparently run both Chrome OS and Android in different modes, with the former being used for fast-boot, low power, web-based activities and Android cutting in for more processing-heavy tasks, and to support a touchscreen tablet mode.

Despite new products up its sleeve, HTC has suffered a new setback in Germany, where it has withdrawn its appeal against the injunction awarded almost three years ago, by a Mannheim court, to local patents hoarder IPCom. The smaller company says it will now enforce that ban “in the shortest possible time”. It added in its statement: “We will use the right awarded by the courts, likely resulting in HTC devices disappearing from shops during the crucial Christmas season.”

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Google Drop ChromeBook Prices, but not for Black Friday

Posted in Google on Monday, November 28, 2011, 09:55

When Google first announced the ChromeBook we all thought ‘Awesome! A laptop with no software or updates? That must be cheap!’

But we were wrong. We weren’t way off the mark though, it wasn’t the most expensive laptop around but with the top model (the Samsung 5 3G) costing around $500 Google weren’t really giving themselves an advantage over a standard notebook/netbook.

This week, it seems that Google have realised their mistake and will be dropping the price of all ChromeBook models, with the cheapest one (the Acer AC-700 WiFi) now sitting under $300 at $299.    

Google is marketing the drop as a seasonal incentive, however, unlike Amazon, Walmart, Apple, and Best Buy; Google won’t be putting its prices back up.

Venkat Rapaka, Senior Product Manager at Google, took to the Google blog to explain that all ChromeBook models will see a price drop of at least $50. He also announced that Samsung will also be offering the Samsung 5 WiFi (now $349) in black as well as the pearlescent white it’s currently in.

Along with the cost cutting, Google is offering a few tweaks to the Chrome OS system that improve a few aesthetic and functionality issues.

Google’s Chromebook project hasn’t exactly taken the mobile computing world by storm, but the search giant is hoping a software update along with a WiFi-only version of the Samsung Chromebook Series 5 will change that for the holidays. The login process has been streamlined, Google has revealed, along with some tweaks to the New Tab page that should make users feel more at home as well as highlight potential multimedia and gaming.

There’s now a shortcut to the File Manager on the New Tab page, in addition to links to music apps and games in the Chrome Web Store. That store had a refresh recently too, with the aim of making discovering content more straightforward.

As for the new Samsung Chromebook, the WiFi-only Series 5 model will be available in piano black and priced at $349. It keeps the 12.2-inch display, 6hr battery, dual-core processor and twin USB ports of the 3G-enabled model we reviewed back in September, but cuts out the monthly data fees for 3G connectivity.

If you’re desperate for 3G support, however, Google has announced that the existing Acer and Samsung Chromebooks now start at just $299 as of this week. Just be sure that you can comfortably live in the cloud before you sign up.

November 22, 2011, 7:45 AM — Remember Chrome OS and Chromebooks? That other ecosystem that Google is developing aside from Android? Chromebooks are still a thing, though they haven’t gotten very much attention lately.

Last year, on Christmas Eve in fact, one of Google’s pilot Chromebooks, the CR-48, arrived on my doorstep. I used it for a while and it was interesting but ultimately I found it to be a bit under-powered. I was intrigued by the idea of a traditional format laptop that could run for hours and hours (7-8, in practice) on a battery charge and that kept all my stuff in the cloud, but the commercial Chromebook offerings from Samsung and Acer were just too pricey for what they were. They ranged from $349 for the WiFi Acer model to $499 for the Samsung 3G model. For $500 you can get a perfectly functional Windows 7 machine that does much more than a Chromebook does, after all.

A month or two ago, Google gave out $100 discounts on commercial Chromebooks to active users of the CR-48, and I was lucky enough to snag one. I put it to use on the Acer WiFi model, bringing the price down to $249. I found the better CPU (the CR-48 has a single core Intel Atom processor, the commercial units have dual-core Atoms) and improved trackpad made a huge difference and the Acer has become a favorite web-surfing, Google Docs-writing, Flash-game playing machine around our house.

Tablets are the hot holiday gadget this year, but if you’re in the market for something with a keyboard that’s still a little bit different, Google (and Acer and Samsung) have good news: price drops on Chromebooks. I’m sorry to say you won’t be getting the Acer for $249 like I did, but it’s at least come down to $299. Samsung is also adding a black (the earlier model was white) WiFi only Chromebook at $349. The Samsung Series 5 with 3G has dropped to $450 (a $50 reduction).

In addition to the price cuts, a new revision of Chrome OS is rolling out. If you’re running the Chrome browser and keeping it up-to-date then you’ve seen the new “New Tab” feature, and now you’ll be seeing that on Chromebooks too. That experience makes for a much nice launcher than the old Chromebook UI did, in my opinion.

Google has a blog post with more details about these new Chromebook developments. I still find them to be interesting machines and I’m glad to have upgraded, but I have to admit they’re kind of niche. If you want a lightweight laptop that you can carry around all day on a single charge, and you’re comfortable with web-based applications and services, then a Chromebook might make sense for you. I prefer it over my traditional laptop because it’s lighter and runs cooler and I can leave it off-charger for days a time before I use up its 7-8 hours of usable charge. I can also open it, look something up on Wikipedia or IMDB, close it and put it down in less time than it takes the Windows 7 laptop to wake from sleep mode.

That said, I liked my price and still think $300 is a little bit high for a WiFi model. I’d like to see them get these things down to $249 for WiFi, $299 for 3G.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering why I chose the Acer over the Samsung, it was partially due to the price difference, and partially because the Acer has an HDMI port. The Samsung has VGA out (via a dongle) but I guessed I’d be more likely to want to pipe YouTube to a TV than to want to set up an external monitor for doing work.

Read more of Peter Smith’s TechnoFile blog and follow the latest IT news at ITworld. Follow Peter on Twitter at @pasmith. For the latest IT news, analysis and how-tos, follow ITworld on Twitter and Facebook.

This year’s Black Friday income are some of the biggest we have ever before located. Practically all retail keep is providing out awsome bargains on the year’s most popular customer electronics. Outlets across the USA are opening their doorways early in an work to pull in the most pounds.

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Google Drop ChromeBook Charges, but not for Black Friday Acer 2011
This week, it seems that Google have realised their error and will be dropping the price of all ChromeBook models, with the lowest priced a single (the Acer AC-700 WiFi) now sitting under $ 300 at $ 299. Google is marketing and advertising the drop as a seasonal incentive, …
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Whilst utilizing the Black Friday madness at this quick all through, chain shops is typically pondering about appeal to affordable searchers internet create this sort of Cyber Monday your actually.

Website chain retailers are essential with mouse click boost a record $ one.3 billion pounds from Cyber Monday profitability, attacking obtainable 2010’s count pertaining to about $ one billion dollars, proclaimed Tim Lipsman, an market analyst around comScore.

Minimize costs Monday when you are done Christmas ordinarily referred to as a day to return to career has received swiftly developed into amongst the list of greatest buying on-line era of 2011.

Even however some chain shops initiated demonstrating seasonal gives internet around Xmas, minimize on curiosity charges still be hyping his / her Cyber Monday products.

Close to eighty% pertaining to chain shops conceive to offer up private giveaways that day, leading to 45% produce offered customers along with delivers, based mostly on the Worldwide Services Federation.

Cost-free postage will be great attract the moment much more proper now, with roughly 30% pertaining to on the web businesses exhibiting doing it with sweeten a containers, a federation proclaimed.

That may help the basic public seeking one particular-cease grocery buying, with regards to 800 chain shops is typically publishing his / her web merchandise at a federation’s CyberMonday.web planet-broad-world wide web internet site.

In the situation you are a tad also complete although using reputable apply Monday to seem, do not are reluctant of. Some kind of chain retailers, incorporating Wal-mart, Function on or Newborn toys “R” Our website, are arranging to offer up promotions on the Cyber Week, kicking off the two Saturday alongside with Mondaythe Sunday long before .