Google Chromebook is a relatively inexpensive, lightweight, low-maintenance, and high-reliability device. Or so it was advertised. Yet, Google plans to support then only for five years.
Official promotional information states that Chromebooks are built to last. “Only for five years” adds Google in end of life policy, that you have probably skipped without reading when you powered on your device for the first time. “Much less” we add.
Chromebook was originally released in 2011 and manufactured by both Acer and Samsung. Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and google itself have joined the production in 2013. While the second pack may hope for support for another two years, the first one has reached its expiration date.
However, regardless its end of life policy, Google still releases regular updates for those devices. They stated that they would keep supporting Chromebooks while they can. Even if the ones who have the first generation Chromebooks can enjoy extended lifespan. There is no knowing how much longer it is going to last.
Yet, we are being somewhat sceptical about the whole support thing anyway. We had experience with 2013 HP Chromebook, the pretty blue thing, in our London Computer Repair Service. We witnessed that those devices literally crumble before your eyes and practically unserviceable. The device has everything built into one board. It uses eMMC flash hard drives, the type of memory that you find in SD cards, the type that is much slower than a traditional SSD and deteriorates quickly. Sounds like a recipe for a failure. And indeed, online community reports that these Chromebooks fail within a couple of years.