World’s biggest PC vendor [Lenovo] takes first step that could establish Android as Windows biggest rival ever — and eliminate Google ChromeOS at the same time
They're not saying it will. My gaming laptop is already running the same Linux kernel as Android phones so the kernel is great. Then it's down to the GUI and that might be a good fit for hospitality/healthcare/retail as the article says where some devices are already run in more or less of a Kiosk style with specific purpose. Besides phones are just small PCs anyway, it's all about the use-case.
Why though? Immutable Operating Systems are great for regular usage. Android is restricted and closed up, compared to Linux or Windows. But its damn secure.
Having the app support, on this ecosystem where every app always is in its container, would be huge.
But I prefer Fedora Atomic, its more or less the same, but actually free, with wide app support and no Google.
Because I do all kinds of things with my OS that they probably didn't consider when they were locking things down. I enjoy the freedom and flexibility of a desktop OS while I'm on a desktop. Even Mac OS drives me up the walls sometimes.
Believe it or not Android is solidly capable as an OS without too big of a hardware requirement. Give Android x86 a shot and you'll see how fast it can be. Pretty decently optimized. Sadly last Android the supported was 11.
The problem I see with this is that Linux doesn’t do well enough as it is so fragmenting it further isn’t going to move the needle against Windows (IMO)
Double biggest. Fail. Shoulda been tighter, that's just lazy. Everything after the emdash is pointless anyways, Google cut the title much earlier. Another fail.
It's clickbait, you got that right, but it's super sloppy.
Esper Foundation is based on Android 11 and has customizable branding, peripheral compatibility, quarterly security patches, and three years of support.
3 years worth of support on an OS that's already 3 years outdated. Meanwhile my PC from 2010 running Windows 10 still gets updates and can easily be updated/serviced with off the shelf parts to keep it going. I guess I'll pass on this one.
And don't forget that Google is pushing to restrict Android just like iOS where if you unlock the bootloader and root, SafetyNet fails and apps stop working, while in windows having admin accounts is normal.
I tried to read deep into this awhile back and why we don't see many Android tablets. I think even Google (Alphabet) doesn't like Android that much and is trying to get away from it. And instead use ChromeOS for laptops, tablets, and dual use devices.
What's looking better all the time is just Linux. Really they should just put out a Linux laptop.
The (unfortunately not unearned) association of Android tablets with poor quality. There are a lot of knockoffs out there.
I think even Google (Alphabet) doesn't like Android that much and is trying to get away from it.
In the large format world, maybe. But they're putting a lot of development work into the Pixel line, and it's finally paying off. I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see a resurrection of the Pixel C form factor someday.
It's not even knockoffs, my last two android tablets were trash. Asus; poor physicsl quality, bad audio driver, screen connector fails with slight flexing, silver detailing full of chips. Samsung; full of bloatware, super slow, drops inputs regularly, sometimes takes seconds to react. Both cost more than twice as much as my first tablet from 2013, both ran worse out-of-the-box than my first tablet still does today.
Google tablets being filled with magnets has always been interesting to me, and I really like how they create interesting use cases (like sticking your tablet to the fridge)
I think a large part of it is that they have little control over Android. Manufacturers put all their stuff and overlay on it. Imo it doesn't work well and would be even worse with dual use and laptops. They have control of ChromeOS and make demands of anyone that wants to use it. I think they made a big mistake getting rid of Moto. They could have at least made their own devices free of other stuff.
Remember, everyone: companies work hard to prevent "unauthorized access" to their devices. This does not mean no one can get into your stuff. It means no one can get into your stuff without paying the manufacturer money first.
It's also hard to overstate the advantage ChromeOS has that we can't even see yet. Chromebooks absolutely dominate the K12 educational world, and students are graduating every year and going into jobs where they're more familiar with ChromeOS than anything else. If enterprise customers switch in large scale to anything, it'll be to ChromeOS.
This is very true. ChromeOS will likely win out in the long term. But in the short term, it's good for Google to have competition to goad them into improving and innovating.
At the same time though, I'm not sure whether Lenovo's solution targets the same audience.
“The Esper solution is an android based software, it is specifically formulated for device management on an android OS running on an x86 platforms. This creates a unique opportunity for Lenovo to address this market. Specific market segments we are targeting include retail and hospitality, as well as the digital signage appliances for these industries. These segments include an abundance of Android based deployments that require a level of customization.”
I don't think ChromeOS allows really any customization of its UI, does it? I haven't used it in any significant capacity in a decade... (I wrote the original Chromebook Ninja call center scripts back when it was literally just a web browser on a laptop lol.)
I'd argue that ChromeOS only succeeds at funneling kids into Google's browser products, not keeping them in ChromeOS. Because you can get basically the same experience on any PC, whether it's running Windows, MacOS, or Linux.
Once kids grow up and get a job, they run into the limitations of ChromeOS pretty fast and swap to something with a real OS. Unless they're at a company that exclusively uses browser-based tools without any desktop apps or plugins, which is pretty rare IMO.
Specific market segments we are targeting include retail and hospitality, as well as the digital signage appliances for these industries.
It doesn't look like they are going to release it for general consumers at all, I think they specifically designed it to meet a very niche need to control apps for interactive menus and billboards on various commercial displays without having these apps being controlled by a tablet in the backend.
Retail and hospitality also means aiming at thin clients. Thin Client: barebone PCs whose entire function is to load a browser and connect to a server or service like Citrix to do anything of value.
Mouse hovers are used for a lot of things. Seeing the full URL in a status bar, determining if text is a link when the cursor changes, image hover display, displays in desktop pages that show when hovering, on and on. I use Android daily on a convertible tablet, and I much prefer the Chromebook, the hardware on the Tab S9 is what keeps me here.