Google Lets Businesses Rent Chromebooks for $30 a Month
Google now offers contract-free month-to-month Chromebook and Chromebox rentals to businesses.
In today's economy, starting or running a small business can be both difficult and expensive. Knowing
this, Google is hoping to lessen the load on companies with its new Chromebook and Chromebox rental program.
With no long-term commitments and a month-to-month payment plan, Google's Chromebook rental plan offers both startups and established companies an affordable and safe method to acquire some browser-centric laptops.
Although the program is most appealing for short-term rental, the monthly rates of $30/month for Chromebooks and $25/month for Chromeboxes will actually decrease steadily after the first twelve months.
For Chromebooks in their second year of rental, the monthly cost is reduced to $25. For the third year and beyond, the cost is reduced to $20. Chromeboxes in their second year are reduced to $22/month and then $18/month. In order to sign up for the service, prospective renters will have to fill out a credit application with Google partner CIT to qualify.
Since Chromebook and Chromebox prices range from $330 to $600, the rental program is a great way for companies to temporarily rent a high volume of systems for a relatively low price. “Imagine you’re setting up shop for a local political campaign and will have an influx of new, temporary workers,” Google explains. “You can rent a Chromebook for each worker for the next few months, and return them when the campaign is over.”
For both the Chromebook and Chromebox rentals, Google also throws in a 3-year limited warranty as well as a central management console and 24/7 support. In addition to the new rental offers, Google is also allowing Google Apps customers to purchase up to 10 Chromebooks direct from the company.
Hmm...I can lease a $1,100 Dell for $28/month; example Dell XPS 14 Ultrabook - http://www.dell.com/us/soho/p/xps-14-l421x/fs
Yeah, for sure what a deal?!
I doubt that Dell offers lease terms shorter than a year (though I can't be bothered to confirm that). With this deal, you can return the laptops whenever you don't need them anymore.
Offer a LTE equipped model for $50 a month with 2GB of data and it'd be even more interesting. I wonder if we'll see this expanded to $15 a month Nexus 7 rentals for survey takers, etc.
And regarding Google's "Chromebook"....Worst. Concept. Ever. No wonder it never took off in the industry.
Agreed. If you did lease it the whole 36 months you'd end up spending $900. Definitely not worth it, you're better off purchasing it outright if you're planning on keeping it for a good amount of time.
Why rent for $30 a month if I can buy for $240 for...ever?
Except for the fact that laptops typically only work well for 3-4 years, then yeah, it's a great plan. Spending $400 on a used $1200 laptop doesn't make alot of sense when you constantly need to have warranty work done on it to keep it running, or if it's so slow that your employees are less productive. Used computer hardware is pretty much always vastly overpriced, and only appeals to short-sighted tightwads who don't see the full life-cycle cost of the products they're using.
Now scratch and dent new models that carry a full warranty... I can maybe understand (as long as the price is right, which oftentimes is worse than whatever promo the OEM is running at any given time).
Not sure if you know this but business class notebooks such as the Dell's Latitude line, Lenovo's ThinkPad line, HP Compaq Workstations, etc. are specifically designed to last a long time since in business, time is money. They also have ridiculous flexibility when it comes to upgrading and can have parts be easily swapped out for an upgrade or repair which provides practical modularity.
Even now in 2012, a 5-year old Dell Latitude D830 with a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU is plenty fast enough for most business tasks and can easily accommodate a small business home or home office. (You can give it a cheap SSD, Win 7, and a nano receiver usb flash drive for Readyboost if you're feeling adventurous with upgrades))
Not sure where you got that from but case in point, a corporate business-grade used Lenovo Thinkpad W510 (circa 2010) can be easily found online for $400-$500 which is a more than reasonable cost considering the hardware under the hood. And remember, I'm talking about small business; In other words, we're nickel & diming about reducing INITIAL overhead costs. If/when the new business takes off considerably, then sure maybe switching to a full-life cycle cost perspective and opting for a scratch & dent with full warranty notebook is a good idea.