It's just never worth the hassle of buying/using a Google product. Never.
Their cloud services are nothing but hot air but their hardware support has been excellent for the past few years. Easily beats other major manufacturers. I'm still annoyed that Apple won't tell you how long they will support their hardware. Other competitors manage to be even worse.
For example: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102772
They don't state how long they will provide software updates.
Two or three years is not even close to the support Apple provides. It sealed the deal for me and I switched to iPhone.
https://www.heise.de/en/news/From-June-20-EU-gives-smartphon...
In other words, manufacturers aren't required to publish updates at all, but if they do provide updates they have to make them available to users for five years after they stop sales. This only stops the case where a manufacturer ships a device and publishes updates for the device, but then takes those updates offline after they stop selling the device (but before 5 years is up).
https://www.theandroidportal.com/motorola-android-update-loo...
I'm having a hard time googling it since every result that comes up is about Google cancelling Nexus phones entirely way back when, but I remember a lot of Nexus users were kind of PO'ed about it.
Google’s hardware track record is a joke compared to Apple.
For Apple, each iOS release is more demanding than the last. Then compound that with batteries produce less current as they age. So, the CPU can't run quite as fast because it can't draw as high of current for older batteries. The alternative is to let the CPU try to ramp to max and cause the CPU to error/crash. It was mostly a messaging failure, and the battery health info/settings got significantly improved because of it.
Here is Google's page on it: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/16340779
And if you aren't in an eligible location they'll pay you cash or give you a discount on a new phone. I'm really unclear what seems so terrible here.
Pixel devices have historically been really good about letting you unlock the bootloader and install what you want, so even if Google drops support, the community can keep it going.
Apple devices just turn into useless bricks once apple deems them too old. Frankly, I think apple should be legally required to allow users to unlock devices, like you pay for the device, you should be able to use the hardware.
These days, Google promises at least 7 years, which is longer than most iPhone people seem to use theirs. There's no doubt their limited support windows sucked in the past, but none of that was hidden or a surprise.
Apple could stop updating the iPhone 15 tomorrow and they wouldn't be breaking any promises to anyone. They refuse to publish even a minimum support period.
If they announce a support lifetime they stick to it.
For other products they'll just decide they're done with it and give you a little warning period. Maybe some store credit or another bonus depending on the product.
They also announced a promotion for unlimited cloud storage of photos and then shrank and JPEG massacred the photos. That part of my photo library is still visibly trashy to this very day. Every time I browse my photos, I am reminded that google did this.
but if you buy this for the gemini integration, what are the odds that google actually sticks with that, or two years from now are you going to have a laptop that lags behind the feature set available in the gemini app for mac because they didn't sell enough of these to bother continuing development?
You can install linux on the nexus 7 tablets.
You can install linux on the old PixelBook or Chromebook Pixel.
An iPad bought at the same time as the nexus 7 (the original iPad air) has become a useless insecure brick that can't even load modern websites, let alone support linux. The nexus 7 can have linux or a custom android rom flashed to work fine, albeit with a pretty crappy processor.
Hard to say they're going to keep giving you new features, but buying a device for the future things that may be brought to it is always a massive gamble, like buying a Macbook for their failed promise of Apple Intelligence or a Windows laptop for the promised advantages of Copilot.
If the device works well enough to be worth the money, it'll keep working. If you want fancy stuff in the future, hold off on buying new hardware and wait until the stuff you want is actually available.
Nest Secure Google Home Stadia Daydream Glass Nexus Pixel Slate Pixelbook Chromecast Audio OnHub Jamboard
This Googlebook will probably be a lot like the Pixelbook. Probably cancelled after 1 generation, but still usable for 5-10 years as you'd expect from a laptop.
Chromecast still works great.
I’ve never used anything they made long enough to get there.
Pixel stands were horrible. And discontinued.
I switched to an iPhone after being a long-time Android fan. Haven't looked back. Converted my wife to an iPhone too. Apple is better at hardware.
iPhones also receive security updates for a long time. I buy iPhone 3+ generation old brand new at the Apple store, and it... works really well.
Why anything AI make me want to buy a whole laptop? I can use AI from websites, apps, etc. already.
> Why anything AI make me want to buy a whole laptop? I can use AI from websites, apps, etc. already.
Same here.
We're not the target audience for this product. In fact, we're as far as possible from it.
* unless it gets merged dozens of times into other similar projects.
If I buy one today, is it guaranteed to run the newest OS in 3 years?
Back to a world where every device needs the OS specifically built for it.
My point is that even though Chromebooks are a 15-year brand, there's no guarantee a Chromebook bought today will support the reconstructed OS successor to ChromeOS coming out in the next 2-3 years.
What a great time for Linux zero-days to start popping up because OEMs won't update the kernels.
Pixelbook.
Chromebook.
Google Pixel.
What's next? Nestbook? Drivepad? Geminiphone?
And majority of the world like it.
If you want to share room with RMS and hope for GNU Hurd - do it.
7 times also sounds... well... Like a lot
And when they cancelled Stadia I got a full refund including all game purchases, so it wasn’t that bad.
Some people like ikea - try to build. Others want just works items. Why not...
It might be cheaper and faster now, but will that still be true in a few years once Google has gotten bored with the project? Are they going to use this service to spam me with AI slop like they do everywhere else? What happens if a Google bot nukes my Google account, will that cut off my entire internet with no warning as well?
I'm not famous enough to raise a social media storm when they screw me over so it's a big risk doing business with the company.
Yeah, the general approach to get support has been to be famous or to marry a Google employee, but the churn rate on Google employees is at the point that the latter is unsustainable.