We’ve seen a couple products from Google with a high price tag, like Google Glass (which is still explorer program invite only at the moment) and the Chromebook Pixel. As of today though, Google has announced that together with Asus, they’re releasing a new Chromebox that is geared towards businesses looking for a solution to their video conferencing needs. This Chromebox is not your ordinary Chromebox, as it comes with a camera, a mic, a speaker, and a remote for use with meetings should you need a video conferencing setup. What else does it come with? A $1,000 price tag. yeah, it sounds like a lot, but if you’re a business looking for something like this, other options could cost considerably more. The only group of people that probably wouldn’t want to spend this kind of money on a Chromebox are the everyday consumer. Which is fine because that’s not the target market anyway. Asus also won’t be the only manufacturer coming out with a Chromebox for meetings, as Dell and HP will be coming out with their own setup in the upcoming months.
You can use the Chromebox for hangouts of course, if you choose to use that as your video conferencing solution, but it is a Chromebox after all so you have access to all the Google apps that any other Chromebox would have as well since it runs the Chrome OS. The Asus Chromebox for meetings runs and Intel Core i7 processor, so it’s fast, and the camera is HD so video will look nice and crisp. The setup also comes with a remote so you can control things easily. Up to 15 participants at a time can join the video conference, and they can do so from other conference rooms using a Chromebox for meetings setup, or their laptops, smartphones and even tablets. So joining the meeting is simple, and if you don’t use Chromebox for meetings you can still join, because it’s easy and simple as having a Gmail account, which is all you’ll need.
The Chromebox for meetings is available starting today in the U.S., and will be heading over to release in Japan, New Zealand, France, Canada, Spain, Australia, and the UK sometime later this year. The price as stated above will cost you a cool $999, which gets you the Chromebox itself, the remote, the camera, the mic, and the speaker. So you’ll have everything you need. Like what you see? Google is hoping so. Meetings just got a whole lot easier.
Source: 9to5 Google