We were insanely excited to share the possibility of an updated AUE (auto update expiration) policy possibly in the works for older Chromebooks last week. In a handful of images, we were made aware of a very entry-level Chromebook that had its end of life extended to the June 2028 time frame that only new Chromebooks released in 2020 were set to receive.
As you may expect, this type of news sets off a slew of ‘what if’ scenarios, causing us to wonder how many other Chromebooks might end up on the receiveing end of such an update. After all, we were pretty happy with Google’s proclamation earlier in the year that all 2020 Chromebook releases would be updated until June of 2028. If even a handful of current devices received the same extension, that would be very good news.
Alas, we’ve since been contacted by Google and notified that this was an error on their end. In fact, it seems the error has been rectified already and that same device likely won’t show that AUE date any longer. It seems there was a mixup in the database and there are currently no devices built before 2020 slated to get the extended 8 years of updates offered to upcoming devices set for release later this year.
While I’m glad Google reached out to clear this up, I’m sad that it seems the dream of some of last year’s best Chromebooks getting a longer lease on life won’t be happening. Don’t get me wrong, I think the AUE for the best 2019 Chromebooks is still just fine. Most of them are good to go until 2026 at this point, so even if you don’t buy one of those models until later in 2020, you are still looking at 6 years of support for a device you likely aren’t paying much for. It was just nice to think about the crazy value proposition of something like the Pixel Slate at $499 getting support for another 8 years.
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