Google has struggled to get the Chromebook into the hands of the consumer, even going so far as to offer them as an in-flight convenience and later opening a Chromezone section inside of a PC World in London. It’s no secret that the search giant is having to fight tooth and nail for public awareness about its little cloud computer that could, which is why it should come to no surprise that the company is now teaming up with the city of Palo Alto to offer Chromebooks on lease from the city’s library.
21 Chromebooks were made available for use within the library in addition to the many Windows laptops that are already available, but upon seeing how the notebooks work, the library committed these 21 Chromebooks to a take home for a week lease model. The unique set up for the Chrome operating system allows for it to be set up and customized completely by the person borrowing it, while making it extremely easy to wipe and start the customization process over again once their period is up.
The biggest problem Google seems to have is breaking the misconception that the Chromebook is incapable of performing every day tasks we relegate to “normal” laptops, such as word processing and photo editing. Most users who tried the laptops at the library mentioned they would love to own a Chromebook if it was capable of those things, despite that being the case.
The Chromebook lending initiative is set to start up in January.
[via The Verge]
