A new report has emerged that suggests Google is ending support for older Chromebooks, condemning them to death.
According to the report of The Register, in the report titled “Chromebook Churn” prepared by US PIRG, especially after the increase in sales due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, Chromebooks purchased by schools are now starting to “break down”, causing electronic waste and “supplement schools”. allegedly incurring costs.
According to the report, there are three main reasons why even the best Chromebooks have become unusable for schools:
1) Manufacturers often do not sell new spare parts or support repairs.
2) Software support is ending, so computers “die” so to speak.
3) Design choices make repair and reuse difficult.
In clauses 1 and 3, the report criticizes Chromebook manufacturers such as Asus, Acer, and HP for producing hard-to-repair Chromebook devices and not offering replacement parts or repair services. When a Chromebook fails, there is little that owners can do other than throw the Chromebook out. For schools that have invested heavily in Chromebooks, it’s a big deal.
The report reveals that 11 Chromebook models score significantly lower when it comes to repairability and parts availability compared to standard laptops. Again, the report says that Acer doesn’t sell replacement parts for its devices directly, while HP claims to offer parts for Chromebooks on parts.hp.com, but searching reveals major gaps in practical use.
Another major Chromebook manufacturer mentioned in the report is Asus. Asus offers a “Customer Self Repair” program that claims to offer “a quick and convenient option for laptop repair”. The report, which says that this program is slightly better than the others, nevertheless underlines that this is not enough. He states that this can be beneficial for individuals, but not so useful for schools and institutions that may have hundreds of units to repair.
Apart from these, the report is also disturbed by the end of software support for Chromebooks. There’s even the idea that Google is sabotaging Chromebooks by cutting updates. While the end of the software update does not mean that the corresponding Chromebook will stop working, it does mean that it will no longer receive security and feature updates, leaving it vulnerable to internet threats such as viruses. This is particularly worrying for schools whose Chromebooks are mostly used by children.
Google is not indifferent to this report. The response from Google regarding the report is as follows:
“We’ve worked diligently with our hardware partners to increase the guaranteed support period for Chromebooks, and since 2020 we’ve extended automatic updates to 8 years, up from 5 years in 2016. We’re also always working with our device manufacturer partners.”
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