Google Will Support New Chromebook Education Devices for 8 Years

Google is expanding its efforts to get Chromebooks into more classrooms. Chromebooks have already been quite popular in schools, and so Google is increasing its investment on the platform to better compete with the likes of Microsoft and Apple.

The company today announced a major expansion as part of that effort: new Chromebook education devices will get updates for eight years.

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Eight years of support is quite a lot — especially for schools who don’t really like upgrading their systems and devices that often. Google previously offered at least six years of updates in the past.

The company is, however, increasing the price of its Chrome Education Upgrade service that gives schools access to additional support from Google. The service, which previously cost $30 per device, is now going to cost $38 per device.

Schools will continue to get the new 8 years of support regardless of whether they pay for the additional support with Chrome Education Upgrade or not.

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  • IanYates82

    Premium Member
    21 January, 2020 - 1:34 pm

    <p>Is it still deemed as 8 years of support from the release date of the particular Chromebook model?</p><p>There has to be a start date for these things, similar to how someone who bought Windows 7 in 2014 technically received fewer years of support than someone purchasing in 2010.</p><p><br></p><p>However I recall some articles in Ars late last year about how some Chromebooks that were still on sale technically only had a year or something left of support due to their original release date and the shorter non-education support window.</p>

  • LocalPCGuy

    21 January, 2020 - 6:27 pm

    <p>8 yeas of support, only for education, is telling me that regular consumers are going to keep getting shafted, since no one actually gets support for that long. Chromebook support is only as long as the chipset has been out. I like their fast boot, even with a quad core Celeron, and practically invisible updates. I simply want to support Chromebooks for ten years before I recommend them to elderly customers that only use a web browser when running Windows, an otherwise ideal demographic, that tend to keep their computers for eight to ten years.</p>

    • MikeCerm

      21 January, 2020 - 10:36 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#514847">In reply to LocalPCGuy:</a></em></blockquote><p>I tend to agree with you, but I think moving up to 8 years (from 5 or less) makes this a solved problem for most people. I mean, the average selling price of Chromebooks has got to be south of $300, and do you really want to still be using a dual-core Celeron 8 years from now? Also, considering how easy it is to set up a new one (you literally just log in and all your stuff is there) means that it's not the end of the world if granny does have to change devices. I'm not saying it's a good thing they don't support them forever (since the Linux kernel does most of the work and it never drops support for anything), but if you buy into a closed ecosystem like this then you gotta expect some limitations, and 8 years is better than you get with Mac OS (historically). </p>

  • ahmad

    22 January, 2020 - 8:20 am

    <p>Helpful<a href="https://vertexvisualizer.com/&quot; target="_blank"> Info</a></p>

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