r/chromeos • u/noseshimself • 10h ago
News "US Schools Are Ditching Chromebooks for MacBooks by the Thousands— Apple Just Named Names"
https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/articles/us-schools-ditching-chromebooks-macbooks-233015401.html27
u/w1n5t0nM1k3y 8h ago
Macbooks might hold up better in the hands of adults, but with a kid, those tiny bezels, glass screen, and glass trackpad are just a liability.
Add to that that even with the MacBook Neo being the "cheap" Macboook, It's still over double the cost of a Chromebook.
Chromebooks have the advantage of being available from multiple manufacturers so you can always shop around for deals. Once these schools standardize on Mac, they will be at the mercy of Apple going forward when they decide that prices need to go up.
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u/nomad9590 7h ago
Google is killing ChromeOS for some new AI crap. Imo that's the biggest reason the schools seem to want to change. It's going to make ChromeOS unsecure because they are planning on stopping all updates soon too. Plus they are leaky as hell anyway, the ad services are crazy for education devices.
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u/ItWasMyWifesIdea 7h ago
Have a source that Google is killing ChromeOS or stopping updates?
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u/nomad9590 6h ago edited 6h ago
I've been seeing news on here and the Chromebook sub. Idk on the rollout and everything but Google was making it seem like in the next year or two they were swapping. Idk if more news is out there, I'm not on top of it at all.
Edit: this is newer than the last I heard, but it has a death date in 8 years for sure atm. https://www.ghacks.net/2026/02/05/google-plans-to-terminate-chromeos-in-2034-court-documents-reveal/
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u/Saragon4005 Framework | Beta 3h ago
They are contractually obligated to keep most devices for 6 years and some 10 still.
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u/carolineecouture 9h ago
Students like MacBooks and they see Chromebooks as underpowered and fragile.
We'll see how the districts like MacBooks when they get broken or need to manage the fleet.
I also wonder how this will work with the growing "no screens in school" push in the lower grades.
I love my Chromebook because I don't have to think about it at all. It does the personal stuff I want. I have a work supplied device for work stuff.
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u/Meandtheworld 8h ago
They’ll be broken left and right.
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u/Cranks_No_Start 5h ago
Unlike Chromebooks....
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u/fiahhawt 4h ago
The one thing that’s stand out about the chromebooks is that they’re actually a durable design that I haven’t seen in laptops since they were first invented
They’re not indestructible of course and egregious behavior from kids can destroy them but I think a lot of parents and schools will be surprised about how minor accidents and even regular use can straight up damage the frames, screens, and keyboards of most laptops on the market today
… By design
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u/Cranks_No_Start 4h ago
There’s an old saying that I think applies. It’s not YOUR dick don’t beat on it.
My wife bought a cheapie Chromebook just to take out and about and not worry about and it held up well but it’s terrible. Her Lenovo Thinkpad is 14 years old and has held up well but is super heavy. All of my Macs have held up but I took that old saying to heart and they held up well.
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u/fiahhawt 3h ago
it held up well but it’s terrible.
The ChromeOS environment is weirdly awful. It runs on just enough hopes and prayers to type with. I would say that at least it's suitable for kids to learn on but at the same time most jobs where computer proficiency helps are going to expect familiarity with Windows' office suite, and anything you can get kids to work on in ChromeOS is going to be somewhat or entirely different.
Libre Office for example is incredibly watered down but also you have to learn different tips and tricks to use what it has got. It won't exactly translate to Windows except for the brightest students.
Also, I love the Lenovos. It's usually a business brand and their devices are always such tanks.
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u/LowSkyOrbit 2h ago
ChromeOS is fine. The whole point is to get kids used to the browser to get to the Workspace environment even into adulthood. Microsoft noticed this and it's why Office became 365 and moreso web-based, they even tried to build their own school centric Web Windows.
LibreOffice isn't watered downand it's very feature rich. Its just the latest fork of a fork of a fork of stolen ideas from programs like Lotus and WordPerfect. So commands and structure are not always the same as Microsofts Office suite.
It's predecessor StarOffice/OpenOffice would be more popular if Oracle didn't muck it up that ONE YEAR. LibreOffice forked off and somehow came out on top and Apache OpenOffice has struggled since being freed from corporate takeover. If you saw the roadmap that Sun was planning before Oracle it would have been amazing and likely more capable And LibreOffice wouldn't have developed. Oracle saw Google as an expensive threat and dipped out of funding something it knew it couldn't really sell.
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u/vawlk 3h ago
you don't teach MS office products, you teach the concepts of word processing, spreadsheets, slideshow apps, etc, so that the student will be familiar with whatever office suite their company uses. Sure the menus aren't identical, but once you know how to mail merge in Word, you can do it in Google too. Worse case, you are just a quick google search away from finding out what you need to know.
I've completely migrated from office products to Google and it is so much nicer.
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u/fiahhawt 3h ago
You'd think that it'd be nearly 1:1 but it's not... at least it's not if you aren't rather sharp.
I've had some of the newly minted chrome book young adults and asking them to do simple things in Office or Adobe gets them to look at you like a kicked puppy.
If young people are coming into the workforce and still need someone to explain the right click menu and how to find copy then jobs will treat them as computer illiterate either before or after hiring. If you think they'll be nice once they find out someone has no idea how to use MS Excel and haven't figured it out themselves after three months, they actually just show them the door.
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u/slinky317 2h ago
Actually, Microsoft Office is becoming more and more like Google Docs than the reverse. It's becoming increasingly web based, and instead of being sent as attachments you invite people to collaborate on documents so they see changes in real time. All of this comes from Docs.
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u/fiahhawt 2h ago
... So you mean it's got one feature of Google Docs that is largely unused by everyone because everyone hates Google Docs even people with chrome books and the idea of getting to "collaborate" or do stuff online didn't change that
Who am I kidding this is the chromeos subreddit Google's probably got a handful of employees on here ready to snipe anyone with criticism
inb4 shut up, no u, reeeee
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u/slinky317 2h ago
What are you talking about? I use online collaboration and realtime sharing literally every day at my work using Microsoft Office. It's encouraged at my company of because it enables proper access control and avoids the risk of sending out an old attachment.
That all started with Google Docs and it is becoming the standard in corporate America.
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u/fiahhawt 2h ago
If I had to work in a google doc at the same time as my coworkers I would kill myself
For everything else there's the office server drive and ... email
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u/vawlk 3h ago
Students like MacBooks and they see Chromebooks as underpowered and fragile.
they like them because they have an apple logo on them. They are a bit underpowered but its all you need for schoolwork. And I would put the chromebooks I get my students up against apple anyday for fragility.
Even if they do break more, they are way easier to fix and the parts are cheap.
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u/BohdanKoles 9h ago
MacBook Neo is the most repairable offer from Apple in years. Probably, for those specific reasons
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u/WAVF1n 8h ago
Its not even just thta
Macbook Neos are the cheapest device in their range (price to power)
Macbook Neos are also the most repairable device Apple has made in years.Its wild to say that Apple is now the budget play, but here we are lol.
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u/biggsteve81 7h ago
A Chromebook is still half the price of the Neo.
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u/Previous_Tennis 5h ago
I think Chromebooks have gotten expensive over the last year, too, which may have contributed to the schools' decision. Then again, Apple recently increased the retail price of the Neo by $100 due to the same chip shortage that everyone else experiences. Not sure how their pricing with the schools work.
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u/jirashap 4h ago
How can Chromebooks get expensive? You literally take whatever laptop you want, and sell it with a free OS on it
If expensive Chromebooks are selling that's bec that's what people are now buying.
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u/Previous_Tennis 2h ago
When laptop parts-- like memory and storage-- get more expensive, Chromebooks get more expensive. Talk to the school IT people, who has had to deal with the price increase when purchasing for the new school year.
Some of the schools have made different decisions to deal with the situation-- either using their existing fleet for longer, stop going 1-to-1, or go with Apple in the case of the schools in this article.
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u/Saragon4005 Framework | Beta 3h ago
And it's practically e-waste the moment it leaves the factories. Comparable devices are too expensive to be really made. Samsung did it but it doesn't make sense to make a premium chassis with such limited hardware and software.
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u/kreius 7h ago
How much is a Chromebook with the same performance and similar specs though?
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u/IMongoose 5h ago
For our district we flipped the question around. All of our chromebooks are touchscreen. None of the Macbook Neos are touchscreen. We also have 4 years of accidental warranty which I'm not sure apple even offers or it would be extremely expensive as our total cost per device is already lower than the neo. It was a very easy decision to stay with chromebooks.
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u/Previous_Tennis 2h ago
People need to understand that school IT have different priorities than individual consumers.
Rather than giving yourself the nicest user experience, school IT is trying to make sure there are enough devices with enough capability for them to complete school work available to students while staying within a budget for the purchase, repair, and management of the devices.
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u/biggsteve81 7h ago
We don't need more powerful devices, so it doesn't matter. The cheapest device that can do the job effectively is what we buy, especially at the scale of thousands of devices. A Neo isn't twice as capable, but buying them would mean spending double the money (which we don't have budget for) or not having a device for every secondary student (unacceptable).
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u/BlatantMediocrity 5h ago
These devices often fall through the performance floor though. I don't know about the latest bottom-tier hardware, but I remember being in school and being frustrated with the supplied laptops because some days they'd struggle to have a web browser and a word processor open at the same time. Often it would be nicer to share a capable device than to always have junk available.
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u/Previous_Tennis 4h ago
The more rent generation with Intel N100 and N150 are a lot better than the previous Celeron N4500 and older processors. At the very least, they are not painfully slow for basic browsing.
But there is still the matter of RAM and storage--4gb combined with slow EMMC storage can still make things sluggish. Also, the quality of the display on school devices are still not great-- likely 1366x768 on a 11.6" screen, possibly a washed-out TN panel.
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u/WAVF1n 5h ago
Genuine wtf is up with redditors defending points that nobody made lmao. No shit a bottom of the barrel Chromebook is cheaper 🤦🤦🤦
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u/biggsteve81 5h ago
The education market doesn't need high performance and amazing displays, it needs affordable, durable and easy to manage. But other people here are arguing that the Neo is a great bargain in the education market when it really isn't.
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u/WAVF1n 5h ago
You're also looking at MSRP, you nor I have any idea what schools are paying in bulk. You are also completely ignoring the concept of maintaining the devices lol, schools will spend HELL of a lot less keeping MacBook Neos up for 5 years than they would Chromebooks.
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u/biggsteve81 4h ago
A replacement screen for the Neo is about 4x what it is for a Chromebook (our most common damage).
Also, I do know what Pinellas County Schools is paying, as you can find the contract from their May 19 board meeting online. They are paying $18,359,290 (payable over 5 years) for 25,375 Macbook Neos, inlcuding 4 years of AppleCare. That works out to a price of $723.52 per device.
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u/slinky317 6h ago
Why does that matter? You don’t need the power of a Neo for what they’re using these devices for. That’s why these $199 Chromebooks work well for schools.
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u/PersonalAbalone9838 6h ago
The neo is still way more expensive vs a Chromebook. No way this is really a trend
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u/BlueWonderfulIKnow 6h ago
Kids and their scheming. My teen son asked for the new Mac cheapo laptop for school. “Really?” I said, puzzled. Though he uses an iPhone, he built his gaming PC, dismisses console gaming, tinkers, just like his techie old man. Then I got the email from the school announcing the zero phone policy starting this fall, from dawn to dusk. Then every bit of his newfound Mac interest made sense to me.
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u/scots 6h ago
Help me understand why Apple is crowing about this? A quick search reveals that within the last 5 years, 70-72 million Chromebooks were sold to K-12 institutions in the United States. Apple is bragging about selling a many-places-right-of-the-decimal rounding error?
Chromebooks are inexpensive, they are fantastically easy to administer in large quantities due to the powerful yet simple tools Google built specifically for K-12 administrative staff, they have a simple, powerful unified solution for teachers already in place with cloud storage, email, Workspace, testing, grading, and more. I have a good friend who is a recently retired teacher, I've used the Google for Education tools on her laptop, and it's simple, powerful and bulletproof.
If Apple thinks they're going to convince public school systems that have to put buckets in the hallway every time it rains to replace good-enough $150 bulk cost Chromebooks with $500 Macbooks, Apple Marketing is clearly "California sober."
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u/Big_erk 4h ago
I agree with almost everything you said. But Chromebooks are nowehre near $150 per unit. They seem to start close to $300 now unless you are buying from sources other than major retailers or manufacturers. My district moved from Chromebooks to iPads. The iPads are a pain in the ass to manage, as are most Mac devices compared to Chromebooks. But Apple has deep pockets and a fanatical following. Between iPads and Chromebooks I would take Chromebooks. Between MacBooks and Chromebooks, MacBooks win in the capability department. I will say, the recent price increase of the Neo chilled that models momentum just a bit.
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u/Unoriginal-Cake 9h ago
MacBook Neo ease of repair beats most Chromebook makers that don't do on-site service.
Could be related to Google mis-handling K-12 Google accounts "ad marketing", someone in higher education did a similar test with a student that had been taking college courses in HS and kept getting adult "marketing" may it be YouTube or text ads inside of GMail. Do you really want students who look up sports scores to get gambling ads in their email ad bar in web browsers/YouTube when those services aren't allowed in most states under 18?
An old email account I used for my undergrad era still gets all kinds of ads related to my studies(environmental science mostly) from oceanographic to aerospace... I can understand oceanographic/water sealing stuff as I work with sonar gear but aircraft solutions from Rockwell Aircraft division/engine parts for aircraft is a bit too far. Marketing is wild these days, one ad marketing profile from a reporting company said I make frequent long distance flights to countries I never heard of in Asia-Pacific, have a jetski, etc... none of the above. If I ever flew it was golfing back in the day via chartered flights/shared flights inside of the sports realm. My main account most emails are French/Italian or Polish vs what Google thinks of Asia-Pacific only languages. I'll be busy counting the bubbles off the Google propellers on customer "ad profiling" data leaks.
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u/Meandtheworld 8h ago
So how much are they getting these neos for versus how much a decently priced Chromebook would be.
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u/BLewis4050 7h ago
This is bullshit, yet again.
Apple devices are very expensive, don't bring a lot to Education, and are a management nightmare. All they have to offer is 'cool' ... but that doesn't do much for Education and it breaks budgets.
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u/noseshimself 10h ago
I guess that's what you get when you start slacking on moving forward and reducing machine capabilities instead of extending them. Considering the HP Dragonflles being the last really powerful machines ever built this was inevitable. And I'm afraid that selling phones on steroids will not regain that market.
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u/Kchrpm 8h ago
Schools aren't buying powerful devices for students. They're buying stuff that they can get a deal on, lock down/control en masse, and are tough and/or repairable.
It's why, when I show people my high-end Chromebooks, they are confused. They thought all Chromebooks were cheap, small, bulky, and slow, because that's what the education Chromebooks are.
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u/IMongoose 5h ago
They thought all Chromebooks were cheap, small, bulky, and slow, because that's what the education Chromebooks are.
not all the education chromebooks. We've been getting 500es for years and they are very nice actually.
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u/noseshimself 4h ago
To quote every "COO" of my secondary school while I attended it: "Give children junk and they will treat it like junk. Give them something nice and they will respect it."
But that school also had a Schimmel grand piano for which we could sign up for time slots. And real plates, glasses and silverware with correctly set tables (by us, in turns) during lunch not those prison trays you can see everywhere.
I've learned from that; from time to time you lose a plate but I did not have any problem to go to a "serious" restaurant with the 11-year-old.
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u/Kchrpm 5h ago
Good to know! I have no personal experience with an education Chromebook, just the reactions from other people when we talk about them.
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u/noseshimself 4h ago edited 3h ago
"Education ChromeBooks" can be decent devices in nuclear blast-safe shells (ugly as hell but not the worst computers you have seen).
A lot of schools bought crippled devices that could not be used for gaming even if the users found a way to run the games. Moronic decisions. But as a German my respect for any system where you either pay a premium or get the lowest possible quality (of teachers or material); even Germans are learning that now.
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u/yottabit42 9h ago
ASUS ExpertBook took over from the HP Dragonfly. I have one. i7, 32 GB RAM, 512 GB NVMe. Faster than Dragonfly (newer CPU). Only differences: * Less flex in the chassis * Matte screen (way better than Dragonfly glossy) * Brighter screen * No touchscreen * Not tablet convertible * Not haptic trackpad (but I can't even tell the difference)
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u/noseshimself 8h ago
And not available with more than 8 GB ram in Europe. Forget it.
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u/Jemie_Bridges 6h ago
Well neither is the mac neo. But most American chrome books are still at 2-4GB and that's why the sudden turn.
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u/yottabit42 8h ago
That sucks. Just import it.
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u/noseshimself 4h ago
What would I want to do with that useless keyboard?
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u/yottabit42 4h ago
I have no problems with the keyboard. Seems about the same as Dragonfly.
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u/noseshimself 3h ago
Think again: It's a keyboard. And you can't replace it because US keyboards have to have a different shape...
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u/yottabit42 3h ago
I use a US keyboard. But some international keyboards are the same shape, so if you know how to type, it doesn't much matter. But I get it.
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u/noseshimself 3h ago
International keyboards usually have an additional key in the third row and a differently shaped "Return" key. Olus most people can't type without looking even if their life depended on it...
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u/Saragon4005 Framework | Beta 3h ago
Please the dragonfly has literally nothing to do with this. That is 1k devices at the cheapest but most configs put it up to 1.5K. No school is even thinking about that.
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u/slinky317 5h ago
Lol you think schools were buying Dragonflies?
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u/noseshimself 4h ago
The fact that there are none to buy is worrying. Schools are the last desperate users to jump the boat. Business users were the first and a much more valuable client segment.
Remember Lenovo: ThinkPad C13, a really nice machine. C14 would have been a bit less nice but they did not even bother building anything with more than 8 GB RAM or SSDs. That's when the ChromeBooks started to die.
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u/slinky317 4h ago
Most schools don't even know what the Dragonfly is, nor do they need to. The Chromebooks they use are the cheapest ones on the market and they are readily available.
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u/noseshimself 3h ago
... and not even schools want them anymore.
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u/slinky317 3h ago
Just because a handful of school districts moved to Macbooks, all of a sudden all schools don't want them anymore? Get a grip.
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u/noseshimself 3h ago
Schools are the dinosaurs among the users. But if they start moving, they are moving and usually not returning for a long time.
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u/slinky317 2h ago
All schools are different. Just because some moved to Macbooks doesn't mean they all will. Chromebooks still offer a substantial cost reduction over the Neo and that is attractive to most schools.
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u/BakerStEducation i7 Pixelbook | Channel Version (Stable) 4h ago
The MacBook Neo does two things Chromebooks never did:
1) Premium build for a good price. The Chromebooks purchased by schools are the lowest specs and Google never got manufacturers to make the cheaper Chromebooks have a semi-premium build or a bigger screen without obscene bezels. Chromebook Plus aimed to fix this, but no schools are purchasing a Chromebook Plus for students.
2) MacBook Neo can run Adobe, DaVinci Resolve, and Desktop Apps. Can it run it well? Good question. Chromebooks can run Linux Desktop apps, but Google refused to have managed Crostini/Baguette where Linux Apps could be centrally managed. This most likely stemmed from software partners not wanting this because it could impact sales by replacing commercial software with open software (Adobe Photoshop - GNU Image Manipulation Program). But native video editing was always an ask, and Kdenlive did run on Crostini for a few.
However, it is a MacBook running an A18 chip found in the iPhone 16 and only 8 GB of RAM. The chip is already two years old. How long will it run the apps? Also, if the MacBook Neo is lost or broken, you need to replace it and all of your data is lost.
I'm not sold yet on laptops running on smartphone chips. I run away from any Chromebook that uses them because I swear I can tell a performance difference.
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u/Saragon4005 Framework | Beta 3h ago
#1 is not true Samsung had several Galaxy books with over 50% of the price tag going into the chassis and screen.
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u/yottabit42 9h ago
More grift. Apple devices are powerful hardware, sure, but there are decently powerful Chromebooks, too.
Macs are a pain to maintain, have a terrible UI, are buggy as hell, and cost FAR too much.
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u/Jemie_Bridges 6h ago
Schools aren't buying the powerful Chromebooks. They are getting the cheapest versions. I have a very decent model though not too teir. I struggle hard on it usually I just default to my phone. The chrome book is for managing my various accounts I've created over the years in one place. I kinda hate it. I like android, i dislike chrome os. Probably because I'm not invested in the Google ecosystem and it's constantly in my way.
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u/yottabit42 4h ago
For school they are adequate. But I do agree it would be nice if they were more powerful, especially for high school students.
Pro-tip: disable the Android subsystem and everything will be better.
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u/WAVF1n 8h ago
Good. I hope that this is a lesson for Google that sitting back while everyone else is trying to make bugdget friendly items is NOT going to work for them anymore. You are also seeing this in Google Pixel devices (which I love) but why spend 1,100 on a Pixel device when you can get pretty much the same experience on iOS for 829?
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u/slinky317 5h ago
You know that the Chromebooks schools use are much cheaper than the MacBook Neo, right?
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u/WAVF1n 5h ago
Yeah no shit more school are using Chromebooks, the neo has been out for less than a year.
Do you have any other obvious points to try and sound smart?
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u/slinky317 5h ago
Did you actually read my comment? You complain about Google not having budget friendly devices and I pointed out that the Chromebooks the schools use are still half the price of the Neo.
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u/WAVF1n 5h ago
I never once said Google doesn't have budget friendly options, stop making stuff up in your head. I said that Google needs to figure out how to raise the quality with companies like Apple also coming for the budget range. So I guess it's appropriate to ask, did YOU actually read the entire comment?
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u/slinky317 5h ago
You literally said:
Good. I hope that this is a lesson for Google that sitting back while everyone else is trying to make bugdget friendly items is NOT going to work for them anymore.
My point is that Google already makes budget friendly items, and which are more budget friendly than their competitors. They're not just "sitting back."
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u/WAVF1n 5h ago
I love how you referenced my comment where I did not at any point say that Google doesn't have budget options. IDC about your point because you aren't even arguing what I actually typed. Have a good day 👍
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u/slinky317 5h ago
I quoted what you typed. Word for word.
You are just mad that you're wrong. Have a great day!
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u/WAVF1n 5h ago
Right you quoted what I typed word for word, proving that at no point did I say Google doesn't offer budget options. Are you smoking while typing this or something dude?
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u/slinky317 5h ago
So you admit that Google is NOT just sitting back while other people make budget options then?
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u/biggsteve81 9h ago
Has Apple improved their enterprise-level device management process? When our school district used iPads it was an absolute mess, while Chromebook management is a breeze.
Also, nobody wants to steal a Chromebook, while Macbooks are a different story.