Surprisingly, Microsoft launches its new Windows 11 SE operating system: it’s lightweight and feature-limited, designed to challenge Google Chrome OS
The rise of Chromebooks running Google Chrome OS in American “K-8” schools, i.e., elementary and middle schools (ages 5 to 14), scares Microsoft into responding to Big G with Windows 11 SE, a cloud-based “lite” version of Windows 11 designed for low-performance laptops for Distance Learning and other lightweight tasks.
The anti-Chromebook, then, but with the much better known interface of Windows and, above all, a hardware support far superior if we look at the endless world of peripherals for laptops, from webcams to external mice and keyboards. Microsoft had already tried with Windows 10 S, but had made a serious mistake: blocking on that operating system the installation of apps not present on the Microsoft Store. Windows 11 SE, on the other hand, while designed to run the classic Microsoft Office package and the Edge browser, places no limits on installing other apps.
Surface Laptop SE, the first with Windows 11 SE
To understand on which laptops we’ll see Windows 11 SE preinstalled, just look at the data sheet of the latest PC produced by Microsoft: the Surface Laptop SE, launched together with the new operating system.
Microsoft Surface Laptop SE is an 11.6-inch laptop, with a 16:9 screen with a resolution of 1,366×768 pixels. It’s based on a low-end processor, the Intel N420/N4120 with integrated UHD Graphics 600, has 4 or 8 GB of RAM and 64/128 GB of storage on eMMc.
Given a USB-C port, a USB-A port and an audio jack for headphones, it also has WiFi ac and Bluetooth 5.0 LE connections. As required by Windows 11 (the SE version’s requirements don’t change in this one), the Surface Laptop SE comes with a TPM 2.0 security chip.
Closing the hardware configuration is the 1 MP webcam, 720p at 30 frames per second, two speakers of just 2W and a built-in microphone. The launch price is $249 USD.
This is, as you can easily see, a really basic configuration, on which it would be virtually impossible to run Windows 11 standard, but it will be the classic configuration of the new laptops with this operating system: Dynabook, for example, has already come out on the market with the Dynabook E10-S which is practically the same, except for the SSD disk instead of the eMMc.
Will it beat Chromebooks?
Configurations of this type are the order of the day in the market segment now occupied by Chromebooks. It’s clear, then, that Microsoft wants to challenge precisely the Google Chrome-based operating system with the introduction of Windows 11 SE, which instead focuses everything on the Edge browser.
The Chromebooks, during the first months of the pandemic, literally depopulated among students: being very cheap, in fact, they were the preferred choice of millions of American parents (and not only) at a time when DaD was safe, but the salary was not.
Now the situation has changed and there are far fewer Chromebooks being sold than last year, yet Microsoft is launching a new operating system to cover this slice of the market. Will it be the right choice?