794
Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin
(www.mercurynews.com)
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
Not sure why everyone is so upset. This is nothing new. Has been happening for years with phones and tablets. They get at least 5 years of updates, which I think is pretty good. My kids have had the same CBs at their schools for 6 years and still going strong. Some of my laptops don't last that long.
To me it isn't acceptable that phones and tablets have that problem too, especially devices that could still have a decent performance.
Windows has a lot of problems, but at least if you have Windows you will be supported for a long while, even if it gets slow due to Windows being Windows. Considering ChromeOS frames itself as a competitor of especially low end Windows, and that ChromeOS is more optimized than Windows, I would expect more.
EDIT: The article says three to six years, and that they stop functioning. That's even worse.
EDIT2: And like most phones, you can't flash another OS to most chromebooks.
I agree it's not nice, some phones are abandoned within a year or two.
I believe the CB will just stop receiving updates, it will still work. Over time there may come issues due to missing updates.