Google To Offer Chrome Notebook Subscriptions [REPORT]

Remember those Chrome notebooks Google was testing late last year? Now a report claims Google will be offering Chrome OS-based notebooks this summer on a subscription basis, charging between $10 and $20 per month per user.

Why would somebody want to subscribe to a piece of hardware? The monthly fee will include hardware refreshes as they’re released, as well as a replacement warranty as long as the subscription lasts, according to Neowin.net. There were no further details about the duration of those subscriptions or plans associated with them.

 

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If you don’t like the idea of a subscription, according to Neowin’s source, Google will also offer the laptops for a flat fee. All the laptops will be distributed by third parties, the source said — similar to the way Android works now.

It’s not clear which hardware will be used in this deal, but we expect it to be similar to the CR-48 Chrome OS notebook we tested late last year as part of Google’s pilot program. That program was finished in March when Google stopped shipping the test laptops.

When announcing the end of the pilot program in March, Google VP of product management Sundar Pichai told Mashable that the first Chrome OS devices will go on sale this summer. Neowin’s report matches that, narrowing down that ship date to late June or early July.

If Google’s subscription laptop is anything like the CR-48 we tried last fall, it’ll boot up unusually quickly — we noticed it was ready to use in less than 10 seconds. Beyond that, it’s a rather plain and nondescript laptop that runs the Chrome OS quite well, fast enough for most web browsing activities.

Would you be interested in subscribing to a laptop? Let us know in the comments.