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0 pointsKadecgos12d ago0 comments

So, I'm only slightly trying to be a smartass here, but... Who is this for? They are marketing what is ostensibly a computer for people who seem to not want to use a computer in scenarios that I don't think even exist.

Beyond that, this is a laptop that is running a really shitty, 'apps only, no you cannot do anything useful with this' operating system. I have an awful lot of complaints about MacOS's relatively restrictive use cases, but it's still at least a General Purpose OS. Android on laptop is very much not.

This is an overgrown phone with all the trash that comes with a phone, and the very finite use cases that come with a phone, only now it has a keyboard. It's solving none of the problems with Android as an operating system and doesn't seem to even be interested in doing that anyway. The marketing is demoing use cases that don't even exist.

So I repeat my question: Who is this for?

0 comments

rstuart413312d ago

> So, I'm only slightly trying to be a smartass here, but... Who is this for?

The primary difference between a Chromebook and a Googlebook appears to be the ability to run LLM's locally.

The requirements were spelt out at Google I/O. They boil down to a 40 TOPS NPU and a minimum of 16GB of memory. They appear to be trying to match Apple's M series memory bandwidth using software compression. ChromeOS didn't need an NPU and specified a minimum of 4GB of memory. Aluminium OS looks to have the same relationship with its LLM as a Chromebook did with Google Chrome, and needs the hardware to power it.

If they pull it off you will get GPT-4 performance, running locally.

As for who this is for: your guess is as good as mine. But if their replacement for crostini works (crostini is so hopelessly unreliable it felt like it never got out of beta, so it's a big if), even the minimum specs would be a very good Linux laptop.

c0rruptbytes12d ago

Do you have a source for this local stuff?

i can kinda see it, they spent a lot of time getting Gemma 4 pretty efficient and then seeing everyone buy macs to run them and realize it’s maybe a real moat since Apple doesn’t make any AI

Would be an interesting product if it could actually give you GPT performance locally, will be an awful experience if it’s essentially just cloud AI…like a premium laptop where most of the features are locked behind a subscription would be wild

rstuart413312d ago

They are already rolling it out in Chrome: https://www.pcmag.com/news/chrome-is-quietly-downloading-4gb... It won't work on a Chromebook with 4GB of RAM, so they need beefier hardware.

utopiah12d ago

Yep, that's the answer. That being said I still imagine their preference is that nothing is run locally, all via their server to get all precious usage data.

t0mas8812d ago

No idea. The people that have no need to run real software and want a high end device probably have an iPad with a keyboard case. Those that want a low end device have a chromebook.

This thing will be killed early 2028...

piaste12d ago

> Beyond that, this is a laptop that is running a really shitty, 'apps only, no you cannot do anything useful with this' operating system. I have an awful lot of complaints about MacOS's relatively restrictive use cases, but it's still at least a General Purpose OS. Android on laptop is very much not.

Android 16+ offers a built-in integrated Linux VM that can be enabled from Developer Mode, and if this[0] third-party site is accurate, "Android on laptop" will have it enabled by default.

So it should not be too different from working on a Windows laptop with WSL2, or on an OSTree distro where you use distroboxes to work with non-sandboxed programs.

(fwiw, I would still refuse to have one of these for personal use because Google is a shameless data robber. Unless someone were to de-google Aluminium like LineageOS and GrapheneOS did for Android, but that would probably take years.)

[0] https://aluminium-os.com/

bobthepanda12d ago

I mean you basically just described a chromebook, though I believe one of the selling points of chromebook is that it's dirt cheap.

KadecgosOP12d ago

Yeah, a Chromebook's killer 'feature' is that it's web browser attached to a keyboard and functional screen for cheap on a platform that you can't otherwise screw up.

If you price that up to $1,000 (which some Chromebooks definitely do), then I start to ask a variation of the same question: Why did you buy that?

neonstatic12d ago

Wait, there are people there who use computers for more than creating family albums? Gosh, I lived in ignorance all this time.

drcode12d ago

every large corporation is going to come out with a hardware device in the next 12 months where you don't directly use applications, where the AI acts as an intermediary

openai, anthropic, meta, google, all of them

even you will want one of these devices, probably (not saying this is a positive development in the world)

grey-area12d ago

And every one of these ‘AI first’ laptops will be cancelled in a couple of years when generative AI is no longer the hot new thing and end users realise its severe limitations.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

rstuart413312d ago

> So, I'm only slightly trying to be a smartass here, but... Who is this for?

The primary difference between a Chromebook and a Googlebook appears to be the ability to run LLM's locally.

If they pull it off you will get GPT-4 performance, running locally.

c0rruptbytes12d ago

Do you have a source for this local stuff?

i can kinda see it, they spent a lot of time getting Gemma 4 pretty efficient and then seeing everyone buy macs to run them and realize it’s maybe a real moat since Apple doesn’t make any AI

rstuart413312d ago

They are already rolling it out in Chrome: https://www.pcmag.com/news/chrome-is-quietly-downloading-4gb... It won't work on a Chromebook with 4GB of RAM, so they need beefier hardware.

utopiah12d ago

Yep, that's the answer. That being said I still imagine their preference is that nothing is run locally, all via their server to get all precious usage data.

t0mas8812d ago

No idea. The people that have no need to run real software and want a high end device probably have an iPad with a keyboard case. Those that want a low end device have a chromebook.

This thing will be killed early 2028...

piaste12d ago

Android 16+ offers a built-in integrated Linux VM that can be enabled from Developer Mode, and if this[0] third-party site is accurate, "Android on laptop" will have it enabled by default.

So it should not be too different from working on a Windows laptop with WSL2, or on an OSTree distro where you use distroboxes to work with non-sandboxed programs.

[0] https://aluminium-os.com/

bobthepanda12d ago

I mean you basically just described a chromebook, though I believe one of the selling points of chromebook is that it's dirt cheap.

KadecgosOP12d ago

Yeah, a Chromebook's killer 'feature' is that it's web browser attached to a keyboard and functional screen for cheap on a platform that you can't otherwise screw up.

If you price that up to $1,000 (which some Chromebooks definitely do), then I start to ask a variation of the same question: Why did you buy that?

neonstatic12d ago

Wait, there are people there who use computers for more than creating family albums? Gosh, I lived in ignorance all this time.

drcode12d ago

every large corporation is going to come out with a hardware device in the next 12 months where you don't directly use applications, where the AI acts as an intermediary

openai, anthropic, meta, google, all of them

even you will want one of these devices, probably (not saying this is a positive development in the world)

grey-area12d ago

And every one of these ‘AI first’ laptops will be cancelled in a couple of years when generative AI is no longer the hot new thing and end users realise its severe limitations.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse