Asus Chromebook will be released later this year
How do you compete against good and expensive? Asus discovered the answer when it partnered with Google on the Nexus 7 Android tablet. The answer, of course, is to introduce a product that is good and less expensive. It’s a formula that Samsung later applied to the 11.6-inch Chromebook it released in 2012, and it’s one that we may see again when an Asus Chromebook becomes a reality in the second half of 2013.
According to a report from PC World, Asus CEO Jerry Shen believes that “market momentum” could shift toward Google’s Chrome OS and its cloud-reliant philosophy on apps and storage as soon as 2014. However, Shen feels that the OS is more suited for business, government and educational use than it is for the average consumer.
One interesting thing to watch on Asus’s entry into the Chromebook space is its price. If the market remains as it is today, the Asus Chromebook would be facing off against a $250 Samsung Chromebook that has received high marks, a less-expensive Acer Chromebook that failed to impress, and an HP Chromebook that is capable but a bit too pricey. And then, of course, there are a litany of Windows-based PCs that hover in the $300-$500 range.
Asus has shown that it can pump out an impressive and inexpensive product in the past — the aforementioned Nexus 7 is just one example. If the company can introduce an Asus Chromebook at $199 that outshines the current Samsung model, we could see Chrome OS adoption increase dramatically. The cheaper these laptops are able to be priced, the easier it’ll be for consumers to buy them, and the closer we’ll be to that “disposable” dumb terminal world that Google believes we’re headed for.
Is an Asus Chromebook something you might be interested in? Let us know, and we’ll keep an eye on this story and update if we hear more.