If you're currently deciding on which laptop to buy for your kids, Google just made Chromebooks a little more enticing by promising to support them for at least eight years with automatic updates.

As the Google Blog explains, the Google for Education team is currently attending the Bett Show in London, which is focused on information technology use in education. Clearly Google sees Chromebooks in schools as a key driver to their success. Making them as secure as possible automatically coupled with extending their usable life looks to be Google's strategy for achieving that.

Existing Chromebooks typically receive automatic software and security updates for 6.5 years after a model's introduction. However, for 2020 and beyond all new Chromebooks are set to receive eight years of automatic updates. The two new Chromebooks Google uses as examples are the Lenovo 10e Chromebook Tablet and Acer Chromebook 712, both of which will receive updates until June 2028.

Google says at least 20 new Chrome devices are being launched for use in education and all of them will benefit from this extended support period. IT teams at schools are also going to benefit from an enhanced Google Admin Console offering them over 200 controls to ensure all Chromebooks continue to perform as intended and receive updates at the appropriate time.

The Chrome OS Automatic Update (AUE) works on a six week cycle, with Google automatically sending out security and feature updates to devices running the OS. There's actually two copies of the operating system on each device, allowing the updates to be applied silently and switched to without interruption -- a feature every Windows 10 user is sure to be jealous of.