Google Is Selling A $5K White Board For Office Use

Office workers in the past would know what a white board is and would be at least familiar with how much one should cost. These workers would naturally then be shocked at what Google is charging for its office whiteboard product. It costs $5,000 and doesn’t even come with a free marker and eraser. Instead, employees get a nifty interactive tool that works great for meetings and presentations.

Called the Jamboard, it’s basically the equivalent to the Microsoft Surface Hub, but cheaper and with fewer features. Even so, the unit comes with some useful features, especially when doing collaboration work among teammates, CNET reports.

The whiteboard works with a companion app that’s also called the Jamboard, which connects directly to the G Suite office tools that Google is offering. This pairing comes with some huge possibilities, including interactivity between those holding smaller tablets and the giant whiteboard itself. Doing so makes presentations, explanations, and even team projects much easier to conduct.

Just as a normal whiteboard allows, the Jamboard combines the option to doodle, write, sketch, and attach images to the board in a fluid motion. There’s no need for interruptions, which almost makes it like one of those futuristic hologram setups found in movies. Through Google Hangout, remote collaboration is also possible.

Driving the point home that this $5,000 giant screen isn’t just an oversized tablet, the resolution goes up to 4K, which yields some truly spectacular visuals. Based on reports by those who got to take the Jamboard out for a spin, it even offers subtle effects such as ink streaking like what one would find when using actual markers.

Google has more planned for the Jamboard than simply making it into a fancy presentation screen, however, as it also intends to integrate new features that offices might rely on, The Verge reports. Looking at the response to the unit so far, though, it seems the biggest takeaway from using Google’s high-tech whiteboard is how fun it is.