Google Chromebooks grade high in schools

NEWYORK — The Google Chromebook, a type of stripped-down laptop, isn’t a practical mobile device for many people — mostly because it basically turns into an expensive paperweight whenever it can’t find a Wi-Fi connection.

Yet Chromebooks have defied expectations and made major inroads in an unexpected environment — U.S. schools.

In retrospect, that shouldn’t be too surprising. Chromebooks are cheap and easy to manage, making them popular with budget-constrained schools with limited tech-support staff. And Wi-Fi is now common enough in U.S. schools and homes to make an internet-dependent device practical for students.

Google doesn’t want to stop there. It’s releasing new models in partnership with Samsung that are designed to appeal to a broader range of consumers. They have several tablet-like features, including a stylus, touch controls and a 360-degree hinge that allows you to turn the screen face-up. One starts selling Sunday for $449; a more powerful version comes out in April for $100 more.

Google and its manufacturing partners are trying to shed the Chromebook’s perception as underperforming budget devices. But even with premium models, expanding beyond U.S. schools won’t be easy.

For personal computers and tablets, Chromebook’s share of the U.S. education market was 49 percent last year, up from 40 percent in 2015 and 9 percent in 2013, according to IDC figures released this week.

But education accounts for just 14 percent of the 110 million devices shipped in the U.S. last year — and Chromebooks make up just 9 percent of that broader total.

The Chromebook’s popularity in U.S. education is largely limited to grades K-12, analysts say. Macs and Windows laptops are still dominant on college campuses.

Chromebooks use a lightweight operating system designed to get people online faster. Much of the heavy lifting on Chromebooks gets done on Google’s remote servers, so Chromebooks themselves don’t need fast chips or lots of storage.

Early on, though, that made Chromebooks seem cheap and underpowered, which “soured consumer expectations right off the bat,” IDC analyst Linn Huang said.

Online storage for photos and documents online was much less common in 2011 when Chromebooks launched so their limited local storage was initially unappealing.

But what constrains consumers can actually be liberating in education. Most kids don’t need laptops on the bus or other locations where they can’t connect to Wi-Fi.

And they don’t miss business software like Microsoft Office; Google’s online apps for documents and spreadsheets do just fine for homework.

“What surprised us was how qui c k l y i t t o o k o f f i n e d u c a - tion,” said Kan Liu, who oversees Chromebooks at Google.

And with models available for less than $200, schools can get a few Chromebooks for the price of an iPad or a rival laptop.