Google and Back Market partner to help breathe new life into your old laptop

It’s easy to get excited about all the flashy new hardware we see launch every day, but it’s hard to summon up anywhere near that kind of enthusiasm for older devices. Maybe you’ve got a drawer of old phones somewhere, or an ancient laptop doing its best to blend in with a stack of magazines — when something new comes along, we’re all too quick to forget about the old gear. But just because hardware is aging doesn’t mean it needs to be abandoned, and today we’re hearing about a new effort from refurbished tech marketplace Back Market and Google to give older laptops an extended lease on life.

Far too often, we don’t stop using older devices because there’s anything physically wrong with them, and either we want to upgrade to the latest and greatest, or we’re worried about something like long-term software support. But even when official support dries up, you’ve still got options, and one very nice one that doesn’t get nearly enough attention is Google’s Chrome OS Flex.

Chrome OS Flex basically allows you to easily transform old PC or Mac hardware into Chromeboxes and Chromebooks, with all the modern software support Google’s OS still gets. Google maintains a huge list of supported computers, and getting started is as easy as booting up your old machine with a USB stick loaded with the Chrome OS Flex installer.

For a lot of us, that sounds perfectly straightforward, but Back Market and Google are interested in lowering the bar for entry even further — and helping to keep that many more old computers still usable and out of landfills. To that end, they’re partnering to make Chrome OS Flex USB sticks readily available to schools, small businesses, and other entities that could benefit from easy, affordable access to reliable computing solutions.

That seems like a win for all of us. People in need of computers can turn what’s essentially trash into useful Chromebooks, and we lessen the impact that our collective love affair with technology is having on the planet. This Chrome OS Flex USB stick project from Back Market and Google is getting started as a limited-scale pilot, but hopefully it won’t be long before we’re hearing about plans for expansion and sharing this solution with as many people who can take advantage of it as possible.