Chrome Zone was a chain of

retail store The retail format (also known as the retail formula) influences the consumer's store choice and addresses the consumer's expectations. At its most basic level, a retail format is a simple marketplace, that is; a location where goods and services ar ...

s owned by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

. In its years of operation, only two branches were ever opened, one inside the

PC World ''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online-only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tec ...

located on

Tottenham Court Road Tottenham Court Road (occasionally abbreviated as TCR) is a major road in Central London, almost entirely within the London Borough of Camden. The road runs from Euston Road in the north to St Giles Circus in the south; Tottenham Court Road tu ...

in, London, England, opened in late September 2011, and another based in

Essex, England Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

which opened on October 7 of the same year. Chrome Zone sold

Chromebook Chromebook (sometimes stylized in lowercase as chromebook) is a line of laptops, desktops, tablets and all-in-one computers that run ChromeOS, a proprietary operating system developed by Google. Chromebooks are optimised for web access. They al ...

s that ran the

ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes styled as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is an operating system designed and developed by Google. It is derived from the open-source operating system and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user ...

and accessories. In a statement released by the Google UK Head of Consumer Marketing Arvind Desikan in 2011, it was revealed that the London and Essex stores were only the first installments of "mini-shops" to be spread out internationally in the coming years. However, no further Chrome Zone locations were opened besides the two in England, and all Chrome Zone stores were eventually shut down.

Features

The Chrome Zone's only products were Chromebooks, which are specially designed notebooks that run

and are manufactured by

Samsung Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...

and Acer, and accessories to go alongside the netbooks themselves. The interiors of the Chrome Zone shops were brightly colored and modern, going along with Google's signature color palette. Stools, which guests sit on to try the Chromebooks, are a variety of colors and their middles are hollowed out. The computers themselves are situated on abstract-shaped tables, with a white underside and a blue upper layer, which can also hold the netbooks.

References

Google Chrome Google buildings and structures Shops in London {{Google-stub