When it comes to the low-end sector of the laptop market, Google’s Chromebooks have been the front runner for the last couple of years. It’s easy to see why, too. They’re inexpensive, they’re efficient, and they come in multiple models from a varied set of manufacturers at varied prices, giving consumers plenty of options. Not to mention they make great solutions for the education sector due to the little to no maintenance needed from IT professionals. Google and its Chromebook partners are only continuing to grow the lineup of available laptops as time goes on. So, what’s Microsoft, a company who has long been rooted in the computer business, to do when Google continues to encroach on their territory? It seems that Microsoft may finally have an answer.
According to Digitimes, Microsoft is preparing to launch a series of new laptops later this year that run Windows 10 and will be priced at around $150 for a unit. That cost could easily trump plenty of the Chromebook options out there as all of them come in at $199 and above. This could help Microsoft to attack the rise of Google Chromebook adoption by offering consumers a machine, or machines that are around the same cost but instead of running Google’s web-based Chrome OS, they would run Microsoft’s new Windows 10, presumably a full version of the OS and not a watered down version akin to Windows RT that came along with the more recent late generation Windows 8.1 machines.
Digitimes claims Microsoft’s new notebooks will be priced at around $149-$179, and are pegged for a mid-2015 launch date. The only issue with this particular time frame is that reports from earlier today mention a Windows 10 release date of late 2015, so it isn’t likely that any laptops or other Windows-based machines running Windows 10 will launch before the software itself. When and if Microsoft launches these new laptops aimed at the budget consumers, emerging markets, and education sectors, they’re said to be running with a processor based on the Intel Bay Trail architecture, and are rumored to come in multiple size options starting with an 11.6-inch screen, then jumping up to models with a 13.3-inch, and finally a larger 15.6-inch screen for those who want a little more viewing space. All of these screen sizes match up exactly with what Google already offers for Chromebooks, so if there’s any truth to these claims then Microsoft will seemingly have a solution for anyone who is already looking at Chromebooks in small, mid-size, or large sized laptops. Microsoft has a huge opportunity here if it can place low priced laptops in the hands of consumers in the three markets it’s rumored to be aiming to attack, especially if it can do so while also giving consumers a full version of the Windows 10 OS.