The Chrome Cast

This week on The Chrome Cast, we were honestly all over the place. This week’s news cycle was a veritable mixed bag, but we tried to stick to the most relevant bits and pieces. Probably top of everyone’s mind is the impending back to school season we’re about to enter. With the pandemic looming, this will be a return to education unlike any we’ve seen before. With some tips on Chromebook buying an...

This week on The Chrome Cast, we’re talking through all the goodies that came along with the surprisingly-full Chrome OS 84 update. Right on schedule and overflowing with new features, Chrome OS 84 feels like the most well-thought-out update in a long time from the Chrome OS team and has us very excited for what is changing in the OS and all the things we think are on the way. Speaking of those ne...

This week on The Chrome Cast, our conversation is a tad more focused than usual, and the central focus is Google hardware. No, we aren’t talking about the upcoming Pixel 4a, 4a 5G or 5.  Instead, we're focusing on why the current crop of Pixel phones is such a mess and why we don’t think there’s any Google-made flagship Chromebooks on the horizon. With a move to make and utilize their own custom p...

This week, we had the opportunity to do something very special during our podcast. We were able to get an exclusive interview with John Maletis – Chrome OS Head of Product Management, Engineering & UX. As you can tell from his title, John heads up much of the engineering and user experience parts of the general Chromebook experience. We got to enjoy a 5-question interview with John, asking him...

This week we’ve tried out a Q&A format where we let the questions guide our discussion. From additional colors for the Pixel Buds to odd, questionable decisions Google is making in the phone space, we spend quite a bit of time talking about all the ways Google is fumbling through hardware right now. The Pixel line of phones is on life support and now the Pixel 3a has been discontinued without...

This week on The Chrome Cast, we kept things relatively tight from a discussion perspective. The show really stays in two main sections: Google’s upcoming hardware releases and Acer’s excellent new Chromebook Spin 713. First up, for Google’s hardware, we get into some of the upcoming features like group calls on the Nest Home Max, FCC approvals of the Pixel 4a, Google’s hard-to-discern hardware re...

This week on The Chrome Cast, our discussion is mainly dominated with the news of Windows applications finally becoming available on Chrome OS via a partnership with Parallels. This move, aimed squarely at the enterprise sector of Chrome OS for the time being, is sending pretty big ripples through the Chromebook ecosystem. While we think it is a big step and an important move for Chrome OS, it sti...

As always, this week’s episode of The Chrome Cast is simply jam-packed with fun stuff. It has been a busy week around the Chrome Unboxed office, but a few stories were worth some more in-depth discussion. First up, we talk about a couple upcoming Chromebooks: one that was falsely rumored and one that is highly-speculative at this point. With the Pixelbook 2, there’s simply no facts behind the rumo...

This week on The Chrome Cast, we spend a bit of time talking through the current streak Lenovo is on, delivering great device after great device all at prices that are lower than expected. With the Flex 5, Duet, and the Chromebook 3, Lenovo seems to be making the clear decision to offer better hardware at lower price points than other manufacturers have managed prior. If it seem like our site has...

This week on The Chrome Cast we have so much to talk about that we actually had to bump a few things over to next week’s episode. We’ll obviously be discussing those things and more next week, but for this week we talked about the impact Krita could have on desktop-class applications on Chrome OS moving forward. With the beta arrival of the popular painting application making its way from Windows,...

This week on The Chrome Cast, we spend a bit of time discussing an upcoming project from Chrome Unboxed (coming very soon) and then shift to talking through both the Lenovo Chromebook Duet and the upcoming, newly-shipping Lenovo Flex 5 Chromebook. With Lenovo’s approach in the Chromebook space right now, we’re seeing great effort being put forth to build great devices while keeping prices low and...

On this week’s episode of The Chrome Cast, we set out to cover quite a few items that were pretty disconnected at the outset. Instead, we talked for quite some time about gaming on phones and then a particular, upcoming phone in a more detailed and specific way. The Pixel 4a has been rumored and leaked as much as we can expect, so it’s time for it to just get here already. There’s now an arrival d...

This week on The Chrome Cast, we delve into what its been like using the Pixel Buds for a week. From the sound quality to the fit and finish, the Pixel Buds deliver a top-notch experience that is unmatched in the Android space in many ways. But there are some down sides as well, and we talk in detail about our collective time with the new earbuds. We also take some time to talk about Chromebooks n...

This week has been pretty insane around the Chrome Unboxed office. From the arrival of the Lenovo Chromebook Duet at Best Buy to the Pixel Buds official launch to PUBG on Stadia, there has been something new every day for us to try, talk about, and digest. We expect this type of action in the fourth quarter of each year, but in late spring and early summer, we’re usually on the hunt for things to...

This week on The Chrome Cast, we have a pretty packed show from this week’s news. As the weeks begin to pile up in our new-normal pandemic lives, one of the results is a massive dip in available Chromebooks for purchase. From supply chain halts to international commerce stalls, it isn’t surprising that huge discounts on rapidly-depleting Chromebook inventory are basically gone. It may be MSRP for...

This week on The Chrome Cast, our discussion largely circles around the imminent arrival of everyone’s favorite Chrome OS tablet: the Lenovo Chromebook Duet. With signs pointing towards a release in the next few weeks, we’re increasingly excited by what seems more and more likely to be a game-changing device. From the sheer portability factor to it’s on-the-go productivity, we really think this ta...

This week on The Chrome Cast, our conversation largely revolves around the new generation of Chromebooks that arrived in the past couple weeks in the form of the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook and the ASUS Chromebook Flip C436. Between the review of the ASUS and the unboxing on the Samsung, there’s a lot to talk about as this new wave of devices has finally started arriving. While there are clearly mor...

This week on The Chrome Cast, we’re taking some time to talk through the upcoming launch windows for two very exciting, very anticipated Chromebooks in the ASUS Chromebook Flip C436 and Samsung Galaxy Chromebook. Both devices are top-tier flagships and both have had rocky arrivals on the scene from a communication/availability standpoint, but their time to shine is coming and we’re excited about t...

On this week’s episode of The Chrome Cast, we’re talking about a wide range of news in the Chrome and Google worlds. From Google I/O 2020 being completely cancelled for both in-person and virtual versions to the pause and resumption of Chrome and Chrome OS development, COVID-19 continues to play a large roll in the way we all handle business as usual. We also take some time to talk about the immin...

On this week's episode of The Chrome Cast, we talk briefly about our collective experiences of working from home and how that has changed not only the way we get work done, but also our perpsectives on how well-positioned Chrome, Chrome OS, and the web are to handle the present crisis. We go on after that to discuss the new 'Works with Chromebook' initiative, the new Logitech mouse/keyboard combo,...

This week on The Chrome Cast, we’re all over the place. From a slew of new features coming in Chrome OS 82 (there are many) to the extension of the Google Chromebook Auto Update Policy possibly on the way for many more devices to a possible Chromecast Ultra with controller support, there was a ton to talk about this week. With everyone’s anxiety on the rise, we chose to focus on the future and new...

This week on The Chrome Cast we discuss the state of Android Apps on Chrome OS and what ARCVM means for the future of the platform. Before we dig into that, we cover Google's cancellation of the annual I/O conference and the effect that the Coronavirus is having on the tech industry in general. After the break, we go into some great detail on a new Google Assistant feature that could drastically c...

This week on The Chrome Cast, we’re exploring a couple seemingly-unconnected ideas that actually tie into one another quite well. First up is the heightened interest in Linux apps on Chrome OS. While we’ve been tracking along with the development of Crostini since before it was actually a thing, it’s been a while since we’ve really dug into what Chromebooks are capable of with Linux. As part of th...

This week on The Chrome Cast, we’re discussing all the latest devices that have shown up in various places around the internet, including the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook, the ASUS Chromebook Flip C436, and the Pixel Buds. We have a release date for the Galaxy Chromebook, updated release info for the ASUS Flip C436, info about a pen attachment, and the appearance of the Pixel Buds over at B&H Pho...

This week on The Chromecast, we talk quite a bit about why we feel like Chromebooks are great tools for tons of people. From their ability to leverage cloud services with aplomb to their rock-solid security, its easy to become a fan of Chrome OS once you understand its limits and learn to really leverage its benefits. We also spend a bit of time talking about Stadia’s recent fumbles and where the...