1TB of Google Drive storage is not a reason to buy a Chromebook

Google launched a new promotion to boost Chromebook sales for the holiday season–1TB of free Google Drive cloud storage for two years. The thing is most people won’t come close to using 1TB of cloud storage, and those that do need 1TB or more can find better deals, so the offer is not much incentive in and of itself.

I wrote about why Google’s offer isn’t really that great of a deal, and not a big enough incentive to sway your purchasing decision whether or not to buy a Chromebook:

Google announced a new promotion today designed to entice customers to buy a Chromebook. Eligible Chromebook owners have between now and January 15, 2015, to take advantage of the offer of 1TB of Google Drive cloud storage for two years. It sounds good on paper, but most people won’t really get any value out of it, and those who do will have to decide whether they want to continue paying for the service when that two year period expires.

In a post on the Google Drive blog, Google unveiled the 1TB offer—a value of $240 compared to the cost of paying for 1TB of Google Drive storage for two years. The post explains, “That’s enough space to keep more than 100,000 awkward holiday sweater pics safe and shareable in Drive. With that much free storage, you can use your Chromebook for work, play and pretty much everything else you’ll do this holiday season.”

New Chromebooks range from around $200 to nearly $2,000 for a totally maxed out Chromebook Pixel—pretty much the same price range you’ll find for consumer-grade laptops running Windows. Overall, the features and capabilities of a Chromebook are essentially the same as a Windows-based laptop—even when running offline with no connection to the Internet. The primary difference is that it relies heavily on Google for things like email, calendar, music, and productivity tools. There are plenty of third-party apps and services designed for Chrome OS, but you won’t be installing or running your traditional Windows software on a Chromebook.

You might be asking yourself, “If a Chromebook costs about the same as a Windows-based laptop, and has roughly the same capabilities, but comes with an offer of 1TB of cloud storage worth $240, why isn’t that a good incentive?”

Read the complete post on Forbes: Don’t Buy A Chromebook Just For 1TB Drive Storage Offer.