Sharon Harding
Google is in the hot seat of the American Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). This week, the nonprofit published its “Chromebook Churn” [PDF] report, pointing to Google for enabling Chromebooks that are “not designed to last”. It highlighted Chromebook quirks, such as seemingly pointless hardware tweaks in models that challenge parts sourcing and automatic update expirations (AUE), as examples of the repair-averse Chromebook culture Google has enabled. For Chromebook target markets, such as schools, that choose Chromebooks to save money, the long-term costs may outweigh the immediate savings, PIRG’s analysis concluded.
The report focuses on Chromebooks in schools and is based on an undetermined number (we contacted PIRG for a permanent workforce) of interviews with “school IT directors, technicians, journalists, repair shop owners, parts suppliers and teachers ,” as well as a “five-question survey of 13 school IT administrators and technicians.” The sample size could be much larger, but the details in the report are also based on undisputed characteristics of ChromeOS devices. And while PIRG’s paper highlights the impact it’s all having on schools, especially given the influx of Chromebooks bought for schools during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, it’s food for thought for any current or future Chromebook owners or people who like to vote with their dollar.
Sneaky design changes hinder repairs
The report, written by PIRG’s Designed to Last Campaign director, Lucas Rockett Gutterman, argues that because Chromebooks are largely web-based and don’t differ as much in power as other laptops, it should be “easy” to offer modular designs that allow for parts to be shared between Chromebook models. Indeed, Framework’s modular Chromebook proves that this is possible. But in his “Failing the Fix” [PDF] February’s report, PIRG said that Chromebooks have an average French reparability index score of 5.8 out of 10, compared to 6.9 for all non-Chromebook laptops.
PIRG’s “Chromebook Churn” paper details IT executives and others in education encountering Chromebook repairs. For example, PIRG looked at bezel availability for six Chromebook vendors through “popular parts seller” eduPARTS. Finding replacement bezels is more complicated than it should be:
All six manufacturers we surveyed made non-functional changes to the bezels of their Chromebook 11 that were released in succession, rendering those parts incompatible from one model to another. For example, from the Samsung Chromebook 11 XE500C12 to XE500C13, the cutout in the bezel for the camera changed from a square to a circle. This cosmetic change made replacement parts incompatible between models. From the Dell 11 3100 to the Dell 11 3110 the bezel is not compatible with all models, the only visible changes to the user in between are the addition of small notches on the underside of the newer model. On the back of the bezels, the 3110 version has missing or less pronounced clips, making them incompatible.
Even if these changes have some benefits, such as reducing the overall laptop size or weight or somehow enabling a better fit, it’s clear that there are drawbacks to repairability, which have financial and environmental implications .
Chromebook makers can take liberties with their specific SKU designs, but each Chromebook is based on a Google reference design. The final laptop designs are a collaboration, meaning there’s likely to be blame.
PIRG praised Google’s standardization of Chromebook chargers, but when it comes to the “typical repair, you have to replace and throw away 50 percent of the device,” Jeannie Crowley, director of technology and innovation for the Scarsdale, New York Public School District, said. report. Examples, cited by other people PIRG has interviewed, include replacing an entire Chromebook keyboard because a single key doesn’t work.
“We have stacks, hundreds of Chromebooks, and it’s so frustrating because I can’t just take a key out of them,” Crowley says in the report.
Some newer Chromebook models, such as Acer’s Chromebook Vero 712, are marketing keyboards that are supposed to be spill-resistant while using drainage systems and mechanically anchored keys to prevent breakage, but there are several reasons why a single key can break .
