Without sounding rude, what's the actual difference? Or for that matter, how do we define quality? If you're talking about planned obsolescence then Apple could be excused for being in the technology market; which changes rapidly.
I use Apple products (except for a phone, which is a Nexus 4) and I nearly always feel that their products are of a higher quality, this might be because of materials (rarely plastic) or it might be because their UI seems much more refined than other offerings, I always feel with Apple that they have obsessed over the details. If quality is perceived (perception, past-tense) – is it not quality? Or am I missing something? Quality can come from an assembly line too.
Some measures of quality are objective. In headphones, for example, one can measure the degree of distortion of the headphones in reproducing sounds. In smartphones one can measure the quality of the camera, the screen, the durability of the device, and so on.
Many of Apple's products do represent quality construction, but they extract a premium beyond even that and they often put out products which are objectively no better than the competition but which the public nevertheless swoons over and eagerly buys at a premium.
Indeed, the excess perception of quality in Apple products is such a well known phenomenon that it has a name: the Apple Reality Distortion Field. I've seen many comments in this thread alone demonstrating the truthfulness of that phenomenon.
Almost by definition, anything that is "measure" of something, is objective. But just because something can be measured, doesn't mean that it is important. It's a well described phenomenon that we tend to focus on only that which can reliably be measured, and tend to ignore that which cannot. At what point does sound quality become "good enough" that it takes a backseat to other parameters of quality? I've personally long maintained that in some important respects, the standard iPhone headphones are better than more expensive, objectively better sounding headphones that I've also used, simply because they get small, seemingly insignificant details right, like where on the chord is the microphone placed, and how long is the chord, and how do they feel in my ear. I'm constantly surprised at how little consideration is usually given to details line these in even very high end headphones.
The point I am trying to make is this: Subjective perception of quality is far more important than objective measures of quality. The best product is the one that does the job well enough and is the most delightful to use.
Not the GP, but I was able to pick up a new 4gb model from the Acer online store a few weeks ago (the Canadian store - I don't think Acer is selling it new in the US anymore).
If you're unable to find one I believe the new Dell Chromebook 11 is fairly similar.
Marginally relevant - are ARM Chromebooks any good for development? I've been considering getting a Samsung Chromebook 2 when it comes out, but I'm concerned that important software won't be available for ARM.
Anyone running crouton on an ARM Chromebook care to comment?
For developers, installing Crouton turns the Chromebook into a fantastic portable machine. My Acer c720 has been able to handle everything I've thrown at it, and generally lasts a full day (10-12 hours) between charges.
I keep seeing this meme, and it persuaded me to buy a Samsung Chromebook, specifically with the intent of putting Linux on it.
It's awful. Forget about accelerated graphics from that nice chip - the drivers are proprietary. Oh, and so are the DSP drivers, so no HD decoding. Enjoy pressing Ctl-D every boot; don't mis-type or you'll wipe the drive. The keyboard lacks essentials such as "home", "end", and "delete". The Crouton OS and ChromeOS get into fights sometimes. HDMI is a crapshoot. I never did get VLC to stream the webcam. The finish is about as durable as whitewash. And so on.
If you're a developer reading this thread and considering buying a Chromebook because it looks like a nice machine for the price, PLEASE don't. Do yourself a favor and buy a used thin 'n' light business-class laptop from 2006-8. You'll take a medium hit on battery life and weight, but you will get a comfortable, well-designed, durable, powerful machine for your money.
I use mine to take notes and do a little programming at the command line. I use vim so I don't need those "keyboard essentials." I'm doing nothing with graphics or video. I'm writing text and code.
That stuff is what "work" means to me, so my (Acer) chromebook is a pretty decent work machine. For bigger stuff I break out the 17" System76 but for travel I take the chromebook.
The parent is using Crouton on Acer c720, which has an x86 (Haswell) processor, and is much closer in performance to a modern netbook. The Samsung Chromebook has a fairly dated ARM processor, and the performance on Ubuntu isn't great, but acceptable for my uses (Python and Javascript coding in vim, running a dev server, testing with Chromium). You're not going to have much luck with anything that expects hardware acceleration, but you can switch back to the ChromeOS side with two keystrokes.
I agree with your recommendation though, wait and get the Samsung 2 if you want ARM, or any of the other x86 Chromebooks.
EDIT: And you don't need to type Ctrl-D, it just makes it boot quicker when the bootloader is unlocked
I don't see the problem. Google is letting people pay to beta test their product. They aren't forcing anyone to buy anything nor are they marketing it as a finished product.
I'd be very interested to hear how you think brute forcing my 22 character password is easier than stealing my laptop and fooling the fingerprint sensor.
Think of it in more relative terms. The average iPhone user isn't going to be using a 4 character PIN, let alone a 22 character one. While the approach taken by Apple has a number of very real drawbacks, upgrading from no security to good (but still hackable) security is a huge deal.
This isn't going to keep the NSA out of your phone, but it will serve to keep the average smash-n-grab thief or other low-skilled random out of your phone.
I generally have two different Linux installs on each of my computers: A Gentoo + XMonad environment for development, and a Debian + KDE environment for anything else (other school work, movies, word processing, etc).
