While data plan prices are a little more palatable with mobile sharing plans, connected devices in the home might not come along for the ride. On the GigaOM Internet of Things show, Stacey Higginbotham chats with Ayla Networks co-founder and CEO David Friedman on the data price inclusion of connectivity. Don’t count out increased costs for manufacturers to update firmware on devices, even if you don’t get any specific data from them.

And on our GigaOM Weekly WrapUp podcast we roundup news such as the recent spotlight on smartphone thefts and a possible turning of the tide for patent trolling; a strategic approach that’s getting long in the tooth. But there’s good news to discuss too: Enterprises are spending billions as new technologies become available.

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If Samsung can keep the price at or near the same $249 level, it should be a worthy upgrade. The current ARM-powered Samsung Chromebook tested a bit slower than Samsung’s similar device with an Intel chip when I compared the two in October. But you can get at least an extra hour of battery life out of the slower unit. I routinely saw 6 to 6.5 hours of run time on a charge when using the Samsung Chromebook with Exynos chip.

So what’s the difference in the old Exynos and the new one that’s reportedly going to power the next Samsung Chromebook? Instead of two processing cores, the latest Exynos has eight. But you won’t be using all eight at the same time. Instead, the chip uses the ARM big.LITTLE architecture with a quad-core A15 and a quad-core A7.

For heavy-duty tasks, the faster A15 quad-core handles the load, but uses more power. So lighter tasks are intelligently offloaded to the slower but more power-efficient A7 silicon. That means better performance as needed, without draining the battery faster.

My hope is that Samsung also opts for 4 GB of memory instead of the 2 GB in the current Samsung Chromebook; that will help keep more tabs open without them refreshing when hitting memory limits.

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We also share some Pixel tips — including how to control the lightbar through a command line — and, of course, provide our extension of the week. A quick recap of what features are in the latest Chrome OS Beta software update round out this week’s audio episode.

Show notes

Hosts: Chris Albrecht and Kevin C. Tofel

• Chrome OS Beta gets up an update: what’s inside?
• Chris upgraded to the Pixel with LTE.
• Impressions of the latest Chrome Experiment: Rollit.
• New command in the terminal: ectool – provides battery info and much more!
• Extension of week: Turn off the lights

Got questions, tips or tricks for an upcoming GigaOM Chrome Show? Find Kevin on Google+, Twitter (@kevinctofel) or via e-mail (kevin@gigaom.com)

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• Analyzing the wearable computing market
• Carrier IQ and the continued erosion of operator trust

But there’s a big downside to the Pixel with regards to the LTE radio. Unlike most LTE devices, the Pixel can’t fall back to a slower network when an LTE signal can’t be found.

Basically, if you’re not in an LTE coverage area — on Verizon’s network, specifically — you’d better find a hotspot, use your phone’s internet connection or be prepared to work offline. Even though the last option is improving with improved support for Packaged Apps that work offline, it’s a shame the Pixel is so dependent on one carrier’s singular network option. Or is it?

Fellow Chromebook Pixel owner John Freml, from the Pocketables enthusiast site, noted a Google+ post from Ian Ray with interesting information. It turns out the mobile broadband radio used in the Pixel isn’t using its full capabilities; likely by design for now. Freml notes that the wireless card is a Novetel Expdite E362, which works with other broadband networks in some cases:

Powered by Qualcomm® MDM9600 chipset, the Expedite E362 offers high performance to the user on LTE 700 MHz with global fallback to CDMA and HSPA+/UMTS … the small Expedite E362 module leverages the LTE, CDMA, and HSPA+/UMTS networks. Switching between networks enables your customers to work, play, and stay connected anytime, anywhere worldwide.

The Qualcomm baseband chip Freml points out is similar to one used in the iPad with LTE, and that certainly supports fall-back to other 3G networks, so there’s hope.

Of course, without seeing the internals of a Pixel, it’s difficult to confirm. And the right antenna and amplifier support would be needed. But if all of the puzzle pieces are there, it’s possible that a software update could enable fall-back features or even add support for your choice of carrier on a Chromebook Pixel with LTE.

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Turns out that the Apple Store is a great source for cases and sleeves to fit a Pixel. That’s ironic as my purchase decision came down to a Mac Book Pro with Retina Display or a Chromebook Pixel. I bought Google’s laptop, but I shopped in Apple’s store for a sleeve. Check before you buy, but most sleeves and cases made for the 13-inch MacBook Pro should work nicely with the Pixel, even though the latter machine has a 3:2 aspect ratio screen.

This works out well because the two devices are similar enough in size. Apple’s device is 12.35 inches x 8.62 inches x 0.75 inches, for example, while Google’s Chromebook Pixel measures in at 11.72 inches x 8.84 inches x 0.64 inches. I suppose you could order a custom case for the Pixel, but that’s likely going to be costly.

I ended up settling on the neoprense and faux fur Incase Sleeve for $39.99. My Chromebook Pixel fits it well and I like how the sleeve has three zippers: Two work together to close the sleeve up while a third opens up one corner of the sleeve to expose the laptop’s power port. This way, I can slip the Pixel in the case for protection and charge the device’s battery at the same time. I opted for a sleeve because I recently bought a new messenger bag that doesn’t have padding.

Got any more Chromebook case suggestions? Drop a comment, and we might just share them on our weekly GigaOM Chrome Show podcast.

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The problem happens on Chromebooks with 4 GB of RAM as well, but much less often. Still, even on the Chromebook Pixel, I experience it from time to time. The good news is that regardless of your Chromebook model, one quick command line with a restart can definitely help. The solution uses zRam or compressed swap space and you can use it on a Chromebook because it’s part of Linux, which is the underlying core of a Chrome OS device.

Essentially, zRam creates a swap disk to virtually increase the amount of memory your system can use. This is a description from the zRAM / compressed cache project site:

“This project creates RAM based block device (named zram) which acts as swap disk. Pages swapped to this disk are compressed and stored in memory itself. Compressing pages and keeping them in RAM virtually increases its capacity. This allows more applications to fit in given amount of memory.”

Here are the simple steps I found in the Chromebook Central Google Group to enable it:

1. Open up a terminal tab with the CTRL + ALT + T keys.
2. Type “swap enable” (without the quotes).
3. Restart your Chromebook.

That’s it! The change is persistent, meaning the swap file will stay active after each restart. If you want to disable it, just follow the same instructions but type “disable” instead of “enable.” And if you want to manage the actual size of the swap file, you can do that too: When enabling it, follow the command with a number representing the size of the swap file in megabytes.

I’ve used this function on several Chromebook models and have noticed that blank tabs are mostly a thing of the past, even after opening and closing dozens of tabs during a typical day.

The nice thing is that you have nothing to lose by enabling the swap function since it can easily be disabled. Even better: As of last month, Google is experimenting to see if enabling swap by default is a viable option.

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Here’s the full request description, which is an API to allow for extensions to integrate directly in the Chrome OS file manager:

The basic idea is to allow an extension behave as a ‘drive’ in the file manager app in ChromeOS. Currently the file manager has “Downloads” and “Drive” in the left column, and additional USB flash drives and temporary zip archives will appear. The extension will appear here and provide the list of files through the new API.

I’m already using Dropbox and Amazon’s Cloud Drive on the Chromebook Pixel, but it’s not an integrated experience. The Dropbox extension for example, is simply a link to the Dropbox website where I can then download, upload or modify files through the browser page. Sending files to Dropbox isn’t done through the Chrome OS file manager, making for a clunky experience.

If the request is approved and developed, however, the native file manager in Chrome OS would look something like this image found on the OMG!Chrome! enthusiast site.

Will Google’s Chromium team open up the Chrome OS file manager to other competing cloud storage services? From a business standpoint, it could shy away from such a request, but if it wants Chrome OS to be a serious competitor to traditional operating systems, I think it has to allow for this. I’ll be keeping an eye on the request going forward in hopes of an approval.

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To be a part of the show, just call in and leave a voicemail at 262-KCTOFEL. If you do, we’ll play back the question on the show and answer it. Or you can tweet me at @kevinctofel on Twitter. Each week, I’ll answer as many questions as I can while keeping the podcast to a manageable amount of time: 20 to 30 minutes at most.

Show notes:
Hosts: Chris Albrecht and Kevin C. Tofel

• How much do all of the software customizations from Amazon, Samsung and others hurt Android share as a whole?
• Is there a way to capture just part of the screen on a Chromebook?
• Which would you buy: a Pixel or Google Glass?
• Can you use Office 365 on a Chromebook?
• Tough question: HTC One or Samsung Galaxy S 4?

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To be a part of the show, just call in and leave a voicemail at 262-KCTOFEL. If you do, we’ll play back the question on the show and answer it. Or you can tweet me at @kevinctofel on Twitter. Each week, I’ll answer as many questions as I can while keeping the podcast to a manageable amount of time: 20 to 30 minutes at most.

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• What are the chances of Verizon getting another Nexus phone?
• Can any Chromebook or Chromebox run the crouton scripts for Linux?
• Why would anyone wait for the phone to ‘arrive’ at T-mobile when there’s already an unlocked GSM model?
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According to a blog post early on Tuesday, Samsung’s Chromebook has been a best-seller on Amazon U.S. for 150 days, and over 10 percent of laptop sales in the UK electricals stores Currys and PC World have been Chromebooks.

Chromebooks go on sale from Tuesday in the aforementioned countries, where Google will also be pushing the devices on businesses and schools. Availability will differ somewhat from country to country, although generally the Acer and Samsung Chromebooks are on sale now, with HP’s effort on its way soon.

I get the feeling that Google has spotted a gap in the market here. At the size and price point we’re talking about (roughly between $250-$350), people will most likely be buying and using Chromebooks as they would have netbooks. With the manufacturers having more-or-less abandoned the netbook market, those who want a cheap, portable, notebook-format device may very well find themselves looking in Chrome OS’s direction.

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