Google is seemingly trying to convert more and more customers to its Chromebooks concept, targeting the holiday sales window. Today the search giant has announced a deal that will make some users add a Chromebook to their wishlist this Christmas – anyone who buys a Chromebook between today and the end of this year will get an extra 1 terabyte storage space on the company’s own cloud service, Google Drive, Endgadget reports. The only catch is that the space is not given away forever – it will only be available free for two years. Still, at today’s prices, one terabyte of Google Drive space would cost around $240 for two years, adding up to the price of an entry-level Chromebook, making it a great deal for everyone.
For those of you not familiar with the concept of a Chromebook – it is a line of laptops running Google’s internet-based operating system, Chrome OS. The operating system uses a Linux kernel, and is optimized to run the Chrome browser and web applications inside it. Initially it was a web-only environment, but later Google encouraged developers to create application packages that run both online and offline. The first Chromebook to be launched was Google’s own reference model called Cr-48. Since then a series of well known manufacturers have released Chromebooks – Samsung, Acer, Lenovo, HP, Toshiba and Dell, among others. Google currently offers – either through selling directly, or through its retail partners – a series of low-priced, high performance devices equipped with the Chrome OS, starting with the ASUS Chromebook C200 with a price starting at $249. The top of the Chromebook product line is Pixel, a device equipped with a 12.85″ touchscreen with WiFi and LTE connectivity for $1,499.
Chromebooks were initially acquired mainly by schools, but later they have gained momentum in business use as well. According to reports, Google has sold over 1.7 million Chromebooks through US business to business channels between January and November 2013.