I think the laptop itself is one part of the whole picture, the management console and other services are also important.
ChromiumOS does not have auto update feature by default for example. If you need any central management, autoupdate or anything like that you may have to build it yourself (I guess Kogan does not offer this kind of service) or you need to go with ChromeOS and use Google's service. It is possible to build these services, autoupdate, etc. (remember, you have the source), but I guess it's cheaper and easier to use Google's service once they will be available. I love to play with my ChromiumOS builds, but for more than 5 users I'd probably go with ChromeOS+Google. On 4 June 2011 11:49, Tom Worthington <[email protected]> wrote: > Kogan are offering a 11.6 inch screen laptop with 30GB of solid state > memory. Apart from the low price (under $400) the feature of note is that it > comes with Google's Chromium Operating System: > <http://www.kogan.com.au/shop/agora-12-ultra-portable-laptop-chromium-os>. > > This has prompted news items such as "Aussies First to Get Chromebook > Laptops" (Melanie Pinola, PCWorld, Jun 3, 2011 1:30 PM): > <http://www.pcworld.com/article/229370/aussies_first_to_get_chromebook_laptops.html>. > > Kogan seems to have a gift for getting free publicity. This is a better > headline than: "Generic Chinese Laptop With Free OS to Avoid Paying > Microsoft". ;-) > > I have ordered the Kogan Agora Pro laptop, which appears to be the same > unit, but with more RAM, a hard disk and Ubuntu, for about $50 extra: > <http://blog.tomw.net.au/2011/04/agora-12-ultra-portable-laptop-computer.html>. > > Previously I bought the Kogan Agora 10" Netbook, which has worked fine, > but the screen and keyboard are just a bit too small: > <http://blog.tomw.net.au/2009/08/kogan-agora-netbook-pro-mostly-good.html>. > > I do some teaching and there has been much discussion in the last year > about Apple iPads for students. But the average student would not be able to > get by with just a tablet computer. They would still need a physical > keyboard and a bigger screen for the wordy assignments they still have to > do. They could have an external keyboard and monitor for a tablet computer, > but that adds to the cost and complexity. A laptop with a 11.6" screen will > display about the area of a printed A4 page, has a reasonable size keyboard > and should still fit in a bag designed for A4 pads. This seems a good > compromise. > > The Moodle open source learning management system I use for teaching should > work fine with Chromium OS, as it just needs a web browser for the > interface. > > ps: A4 size pads are popular, because they are about the largest size which > can be easily held in two hands. In a similar way, smart phone screens about > about the size of a credit card are popular. This has nothing to do with > electronics, but depends on the size of the human hand. > > > -- > Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 > PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au > Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science, The > Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ > Visiting Scientist, CSIRO ICT Centre: http://bit.ly/csiro_ict_canberra > > -- > SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ > Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html > -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
