But like Netbooks I think it'll have a short run. In the same way it is hard for WinPhone to compete against Android in the long tail of apps, I think the long tail of Win apps is tough to compete with when you can get a Windows PC at almost the same price.
Tablets are a great secondary device. I think Chromebooks are too bulky and not feature rich enough as a secondary device. And simply can't replace a laptop as a primary.
And with virtually no price delta, I just don't see the story.
I now know two people with Chromebooks. Both also have an (older) desktop. By any reasonable measure, it's the Chromebooks which are the primary. It's almost as if the desktop provides an it's-there-if-I-really-need-it fallback in case any of the long-tail apps are needed, but both are finding them not needed. (Note that neither are office workers.)
Both knew going in that the device would not run their PC software, so I think perhaps the correct messaging is out there.
Still, two is a very small number, even in the personal anecdote space. So, we'll see.
What do you mean? I just bought a $199 Chromebook (Acer C720) with 9+ hours of battery life and weighing under 3lbs. It performs well for all day-to-day tasks (email, news/HN/reddit, Facebook, etc). I don't know of any well-performing Windows laptops at that price point, and Windows laptops come with the added complexity of using Windows: I like the minimal simplicity of ChromeOS (no pre-installed bloatware, no useless extra features complicating the UI, everything safely backed up in the cloud, and automatic updates).
And my Chromebook is absolutely my primary device: I rarely touch my Windows 7 / Ubuntu (dual-booted) laptop.