The Chrome Cast

This week on The Chrome Cast, we begin the episode talking through our latest, largest giveaway wrapping up just minutes before we hit record.  This morning, we announced the 5 winners of our 5 brand-new Lenovo Chromebook Duet 5's and we're still a bit blown away at the energy around this latest giveaway.  Tons of people were entered and we love interacting with so many of you!  We're looking very forward to doing this again very soon.

Other topics covered in the podcast this week include our full thoughts on the Lenovo Duet 5 (our review dropped this week) and a bit of musing about where ARM processors and Chromebooks are headed.  Simply put, it's a very bright future ahead.  We wrap up by discussing our latest Gear of the Year post and video, highlighting a bunch of cool tech that we've enjoyed or wished for over the past year.

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This episode is brought to you by Fresh Roasted Coffee.  To check it out, go to https://chromeunboxed.com/coffee/ and use the discount code CHROMEUNBOXED for 15% off your initial purchase!

This episode is also brought to you by NordVPN. CLICK HERE to try it out and get a 3-year deal for $3.49/month.

Join our Patreon community and get access to things like behind-the-scenes footage, early access to videos, private Discord server access, an ad-free experience on the mobile and desktop versions of the website, your name listed on all our YouTube videos, and monthly live stream Q&A. CLICK HERE to be a part of our community.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on The Chrome Cast, we spend the first half of the show discussing our sweet Lenovo Duet 5 giveaway and, because it is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2, we transition right into talking about the company's Snapdragon Summit.  At this event, a new Snapdragon 7c+ Gen 3 was announced that could really heat up the ARM-powered Chromebook war in the coming months.  With MediaTek slated to release their new chips in a handful of Chromebooks soon, it's an exciting time for ARM and Chrome OS.

In the second half, we discuss some new software features in Chrome OS 96 and talk through some hopes for the future as Chrome OS hits milestone number 97 in early January.  With LaCrOS and Borealis both on the way soon, the future of Chromebooks looks brighter than ever, and there's a lot to talk about as we round out the year.

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This episode is brought to you by Fresh Roasted Coffee, a coffee website that we have been using for a while now. We made the switch to FRC from the hand-roasting coffee method we had been doing for years and couldn't be happier. They offer great prices and they roast the coffee right before it is shipped to your doorstep! To check it out, go to https://chromeunboxed.com/coffee/ and use the discount code CHROMEUNBOXED for 15% off your initial purchase of coffee and/or tea!

This episode is also brought to you by NordVPN. Get a VPN that takes your privacy seriously. NordVPN is our VPN of choice and will secure your browsing on your Chromebook or on any device. Use NordVPN to keep your private data to yourself whether you are at home or on the go! CLICK HERE to try it out and get a 3-year deal for $3.49/month.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on the Chrome Cast, we spend a good bit of time talking through MediaTek’s Executive Summit, the things that were announced there, and our thoughts on what the landscape of MediaTek ARM-powered Chromebooks will look like in the coming weeks and months. Joe was lucky enough to get to go out to California for the event and we made some fantastic new connections with MediaTek folks and other media creators, too. Don’t worry, we talk about all of it.

We also cover the new leaks of the Pixel 6a and discuss a bit about where this phone could fit into Google’s new lineup. With an aesthetic that matches the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro and the same Tensor SoC, it will be interesting to see where Google chooses to cut corners for the Pixel 6a. With the Pixel 6 already being relatively low-priced, we expect a similar $349-$399 price tag for the Pixel 6a, so this phone could get very, very interesting.

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This episode is sponsored by VIZOR for Chromebooks. Is your school district going 1:1? Do you manage thousands of Chromebooks and other IT assets like projectors and Smartboards? VIZOR is a Chromebook management solution that seamlessly integrates with the Google Admin Console and your student information system, now including PowerSchool. With VIZOR for Chromebooks, you can easily see which student has which Chromebook, manage repairs, and even automate disabling lost or stolen devices while notifying parents, all in one click. CLICK HERE to learn more about VIZOR.

This episode is also brought to you by NordVPN. Get a VPN that takes your privacy seriously. NordVPN is our VPN of choice and will secure your browsing on your Chromebook or on any device. Use NordVPN to keep your private data to yourself whether you are at home or on the go! CLICK HERE to get 69% off and 3 months for free.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on The Chrome Cast, we begin the show talking about all things Pixel 6.  With a few launch-related bugs, we've been really impressed with Google's continual ownership of the issues and their quickness in fixing things they've admitted are actually problems.  For past phones, the company has been a bit more hesitant to admit clear failures both with software and hardware on Pixel phones.  With Pixel 6, it seems this isn't the case, and that should mean we'll have better phone experiences across the board as time goes on with these new devices.

The second half of the show is dedicated to our Best Chromebooks of 2021 list and we break down some of the reasoning behind our decisions on that list.  If you've not already checked out the post/video on that, you'll be able to see it via the links below.

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This episode is sponsored by VIZOR for Chromebooks. Is your school district going 1:1? Do you manage thousands of Chromebooks and other IT assets like projectors and Smartboards? VIZOR is a Chromebook management solution that seamlessly integrates with the Google Admin Console and your student information system, now including PowerSchool. With VIZOR for Chromebooks, you can easily see which student has which Chromebook, manage repairs, and even automate disabling lost or stolen devices while notifying parents, all in one click. CLICK HERE to learn more about VIZOR.

This episode is also brought to you by NordVPN. Get a VPN that takes your privacy seriously. NordVPN is our VPN of choice and will secure your browsing on your Chromebook or on any device. Use NordVPN to keep your private data to yourself whether you are at home or on the go! CLICK HERE to get 69% off and 3 months for free.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on the podcast, we begin things by chatting about the recent GPU benchmarks that have surfaced for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro.  With the two phones being out in the wild for a few weeks at this point, it is nice to see where some of the speedy performance comes from and knowing the GPU is insanely powerful in the Pixel 6 give us hope that games and other graphic-intensive tasks will continue getting better on these phones as developers learn to take more advantage of that power.  It is during this time that we also talk a bit about PUBG New State on both Chromebooks and lower-end Android phones.  It is pretty awesome!

For the second half, we jump into the recent revelations that Google won't be building a new Pixelbook anytime soon. We now know that we shouldn't expect a new Google-made Chromebook at any point this year or next, and that's a bummer.  Sure, we know Tensor for Chromebooks is coming, but still see no reason Google shouldn't have planned one more Intel-powered Pixelbook to bridge the gap.

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This episode is also brought to you by NordVPN. Get a VPN that takes your privacy seriously. NordVPN is our VPN of choice and will secure your browsing on your Chromebook or on any device. Use NordVPN to keep your private data to yourself whether you are at home or on the go! CLICK HERE to try it out and get a 3-year deal for $3.49/month.

Join our Patreon community and get access to things like behind-the-scenes footage, early access to videos, private Discord server access, an ad-free experience on the mobile and desktop versions of the website, your name listed on all our YouTube videos, and monthly live stream Q&A. CLICK HERE to be a part of our community.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on The Chrome Cast, we start the show by discussing the latest piece of Chrome OS hardware to show up in the office: the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 5.  This large, thin tablet was one that wasn't the most intriguing when it was announced, but has quickly won us all over thanks to a combo of a fantastic 1080p OLED screen, sleek build quality, and an overall usability that was a bit unexpected.

We then spend a bit of time talking through the recent reports of Chromebook sales declining, why that was an inevitable outcome, and why those numbers aren't worth getting worried about.  We also let ourselves indulge on the recent findings about the folding Pixel phone that is now slated for a 2022 release.

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This episode is also brought to you by NordVPN. Get a VPN that takes your privacy seriously. NordVPN is our VPN of choice and will secure your browsing on your Chromebook or on any device. Use NordVPN to keep your private data to yourself whether you are at home or on the go! CLICK HERE to try it out and get a 3-year deal for $3.49/month.

Join our Patreon community and get access to things like behind-the-scenes footage, early access to videos, private Discord server access, an ad-free experience on the mobile and desktop versions of the website, your name listed on all our YouTube videos, and monthly live stream Q&A. CLICK HERE to be a part of our community.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we open the show with some review-type thoughts on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro.  With our video recently going out that highlights our collective conflict over which Pixel to buy, there's a lot to talk about now that we've had these phones in our hands for well over a week.  With some of the recent GPU benchmarks and real-world tests run on these Pixels, there's also some discussion to be had about the true power of the Tensor SoC under the hood.

With a longer-than-expected sidebar about the upcoming PUBG New State game, we then transition to talking about LumaFusion's recent announcement that they are now working on not only an Android version of their excellent video editing software, but also building it with Chromebooks in mind.  This could mean professional level video editing on faster Chromebooks down the road as LumaFusion on iPad is completely capable of pumping out pro-level videos.

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This episode is brought to you by NordVPN. Get a VPN that takes your privacy seriously. NordVPN is our VPN of choice and will secure your browsing on your Chromebook or on any device. Use NordVPN to keep your private data to yourself whether you are at home or on the go! CLICK HERE to try it out and get a 3-year deal for $3.49/month.

Join our Patreon community and get access to things like behind-the-scenes footage, early access to videos, private Discord server access, an ad-free experience on the mobile and desktop versions of the website, your name listed on all our YouTube videos, and monthly live stream Q&A. CLICK HERE to be a part of our community.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I don’t think we need to think too much about what this week’s podcast is centered on. Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are launched, in our office, and we definitely have some thoughts. This year, it’s not about “to Pixel, or not to Pixel?” Instead, the question really is all about which Pixel is the right one for each users. While I really thought I was all in on the Pixel 6 Pro, after some time using both phones, I might be leaning towards the Pixel 6.

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This episode is sponsored by VIZOR for Chromebooks. Is your school district going 1:1? Do you manage thousands of Chromebooks and other IT assets like projectors and Smartboards? VIZOR is a Chromebook management solution that seamlessly integrates with the Google Admin Console and your student information system, now including PowerSchool. With VIZOR for Chromebooks, you can easily see which student has which Chromebook, manage repairs, and even automate disabling lost or stolen devices while notifying parents, all in one click. CLICK HERE to learn more about VIZOR.

This episode is also brought to you by NordVPN. Get a VPN that takes your privacy seriously. NordVPN is our VPN of choice and will secure your browsing on your Chromebook or on any device. Use NordVPN to keep your private data to yourself whether you are at home or on the go! CLICK HERE to get 69% off and 3 months for free.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on The Chrome Cast, we’re still stuck in Pixel 6 land. We warned you that it would be a Pixel party until the 19th and here we sit, just days out from the final unveiling. In the last week, more leaks came up, more specs were verified, and more hype was generated on the way. There were new landing pages discovered and Google has put their live event on YouTube for you to bookmark and get notified of, too.

As much as Pixel fever dominates the podcast, there were other things to talk about as well. Most notably, our coverage of Acer’s latest press conference along with an exclusive interview with Acer COO Jerry Kao. There are some interesting things brewing at Acer and with 4 new Chromebooks on the way, the Chrome OS train is still running strong.

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This episode is sponsored by VIZOR for Chromebooks. Is your school district going 1:1? Do you manage thousands of Chromebooks and other IT assets like projectors and Smartboards? VIZOR is a Chromebook management solution that seamlessly integrates with the Google Admin Console and your student information system, now including PowerSchool. With VIZOR for Chromebooks, you can easily see which student has which Chromebook, manage repairs, and even automate disabling lost or stolen devices while notifying parents, all in one click. CLICK HERE to learn more about VIZOR.

This episode is also brought to you by NordVPN. Get a VPN that takes your privacy seriously. NordVPN is our VPN of choice and will secure your browsing on your Chromebook or on any device. Use NordVPN to keep your private data to yourself whether you are at home or on the go! CLICK HERE to get 69% off and 3 months for free.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on The Chrome Cast, we begin the show discussing the major outage that struck Facebook this week, bringing down all their services along with it. For most of the work day Monday, users were unable to send messages via Messenger or WhatsApp, post on Facebook or Instagram, or access Oculus VR services. It was a big deal that affected a ton of people and raises some interesting questions about the pervasiveness of mega companies in our daily lives: both at work and play.

In a much lighter second half, we delve into Pixel 6 leaks that have come about and talk through the interesting situation that Google is in where even a treasure trove of leaked photos and info don’t really seem to cause much of a stir. With their marketing strategy for Pixel 6, it really does feel like Google has stemmed the leaker tide and taken full control of the narrative surrounding their new phones.

Finally, we take a bit of time to discuss some important movement in the Chrome OS gaming scene. Anti-cheat is a big hurdle for Linux gaming (what ‘Borealis’ – A.K.A. Steam for Chromebooks will leverage) and it looks like all the major players are on board to get their anti-cheat protocols up and running for Steam on Linux in the near future.

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This episode is also brought to you by NordVPN. Get a VPN that takes your privacy seriously. NordVPN is our VPN of choice and will secure your browsing on your Chromebook or on any device. Use NordVPN to keep your private data to yourself whether you are at home or on the go! CLICK HERE to try it out and get a 3-year deal for $3.49/month.

Join our Patreon community and get access to things like behind-the-scenes footage, early access to videos, private Discord server access, an ad-free experience on the mobile and desktop versions of the website, your name listed on all our YouTube videos, and monthly live stream Q&A. CLICK HERE to be a part of our community.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices