I think the reason why things like this piss people like us off is because this product isn't targeted at us.
"Normal" people don't care what is in a device as long as they can justify the cost with the perceived value they see in the device.
For them the sticker saying "i7" on the laptop makes it a "top-of-the-line" laptop and justifies the cost as they expect to pay more for "top-of-the-line".
I don't think this product is targeted at anyone. Their commercial during the keynote showed a skateboarding teenager using the pen, a couple watching a movie on the couch with the laptop propped up on the coffee table, someone editing video, children playing with it... Google doesn't even know who to market this thing at.
This product does not convey thought or design. It screams "hey we built another expensive chromebook because I guess we have to."
Yes, but that's the definition of "false and deceptive advertisement", isn't it?
I'd wish for someone to sue a giant corp. so that a law can stop other mega corporations from doing deceptive advertisements. Just like factualized "health-benefits" on supplements were prohibited unless proven right via 'a study (?)' as a gateway.
$999 for a much underpowered Sony Vaio like Subnotebook is too much! You also BUY the strongest VENDOR-LOCKIN made into a product ever, the "Google-Ecosystem". Allow installation of any OS, then we're good, but until then, don't say it's a notebook or laptop. It is not!
As a sidenote, using "false" as a strawman as in "fake-news", thus allowing government to "silence false voices" should be stopped. Censorship, illegalization, demonization are the enforcment of rules made for a minority onto the majority and we know why this is bad for a healthy 'governence of a country'.
Also, numbers often don't mean much, or at least not what most consumer think they do. I've seen so many people choosing product A over product B because the "ram" number was bigger and the price was lower.
The situation is that as hardware levels off more and more, with Moore's Law slowly dying, the onus falls much more on software to make up for it. That's why a phone like the Pixel feels much smoother and responsive than other Android phones, which run on the exact same hardware.
And some of us here would much rather have benchmarks for software we use rather than # of cores or clock speed. I'd like to know how long it takes for my IDE to spin up, important websites to render.
And whether it will cook my lap and get as loud as a jet engine if I push it a little.
"Normal" people don't care what is in a device as long as they can justify the cost with the perceived value they see in the device.
For them the sticker saying "i7" on the laptop makes it a "top-of-the-line" laptop and justifies the cost as they expect to pay more for "top-of-the-line".