Coming soon

A Bolt laptop in yellow, closed, seen from above

A laptop for everyone.

The computing happens in a data center. The laptop is quiet, durable, and never gets slow.

Pricing is To Be Announced

Every laptop you have owned got slower every year, because the part doing the work ages inside the case. On a Bolt that part is not in the case. It sits in a data center and is replaced as it ages, so the machine on your desk gets faster over the years instead of worse. That one change turns out to matter to a professional, a parent, a school and somebody who just wants a computer that works, for four completely different reasons.

Stay informed How Bolt Works

Pink, yellow, blue and green. See the colors

Who it is for

One machine, four reasons to want it.

The same laptop answers a different question depending on who is holding it. Find yours.

For pros

Stop buying the same laptop every three years.

The processor and memory are not in the case. They sit in a data center and are replaced as they age, so a Bolt is faster in year five than it was in year one. Turn the power up for the month you need it and back down afterwards.

  • More processing and memory than any laptop can physically hold
  • Raise it for one heavy month, lower it the next
  • Silent and cool, because there is no fan and nothing hot
  • Same machine in every place you work, nothing to move
How it works

For families

A first computer that cannot be broken or got around.

FamilySafe is a physical part rather than an app, so there is no setting to find, no password to guess and no video explaining how to get past it. The case is soft silicone over the whole enclosure, because a child's laptop gets dropped.

  • Four models: children, teenagers, adults, unrestricted
  • The rating is etched on the underside so anyone can read it
  • It does not report on your child to you, and never will
  • One account each, and the machine keeps up as they grow
About FamilySafe

For institutions

Buy seats, not hardware.

A school or a company signs people in by their existing email address. Verify your domain, upload a list, and every person gets an account with the plan you set. What you are managing is seats and what they cost, not a cupboard of aging machines.

  • Accounts created in bulk, each with its own compute plan
  • People sign in with their work or school email
  • Nothing is stored on the machine, so a lost one is a lost shell
  • Any person can sign in on any seat and get their own desk
For organizations

For everyday

The computer that stops being a chore.

Nothing to install, nothing to update, nothing to slow down and nothing to back up. Sign in and your things are there. If it is lost, sign in on another one and carry on, because none of it was ever on the laptop.

  • No updates, no installs, no maintenance, nothing to tidy
  • Your files stay in whatever service you already use
  • Set it up by signing in, and that is the whole of it
  • Four colors, soft to the touch, quiet on your lap
The interface

Bolt is in development and is not yet for sale. Nothing on this site can be ordered, and no prices are final.

What Bolt is

Four things every other laptop makes you choose between.

Power, protection, modern hardware and something you actually want to look at. On an ordinary laptop those pull against each other, because everything has to fit in the case and be paid for at once. Bolt does not carry the expensive parts, so it does not have to trade.

1

Cloud computing power

The processor and the memory sit in a data center with proper cooling and proper power, so what Bolt can handle is not limited by what fits in the case. It gets faster over the years as that hardware is replaced, and nothing installs on the laptop, so there is nothing to update and nothing piling up to slow it down.

How that works

2

Modern features throughout

A high quality display and camera, a keyboard sealed against spills, and the hardware most laptops still leave out: NFC, ultra wideband, GPS and a secure enclave. The Message Bar puts your notifications on a second screen instead of over your work, and the Trust Light tells you, before you click, whether what is under your cursor belongs to the machine or to a web page.

See the hardware

3

Robust parental controls

FamilySafe is built into the machine at one of four levels, for kids, teens or adults. There is no parent account to create, no app to install and nothing to uninstall, because the rating is in the hardware. Your child sets up their own Bolt and it is protected the first time it opens.

How that works

4

Designed for everyday life

Soft-touch silicone over the whole enclosure in pink, yellow, blue or green, rather than cold aluminum in silver or black. It is quiet, it is warm to hold, and you can wipe it down. A laptop lives on a kitchen table as often as a desk, and this one is built for that.

See the colors

It keeps up with machines costing three times as much, it cannot be talked out of its rating, it has the hardware you have not needed yet, and it comes in a color. Those are all the same fact.

Everyday life, in four colors

Made for the table it actually sits on.

Every laptop has been silver aluminum or black plastic for thirty years, because the parts inside run hot and the case has to carry the heat away. Bolt does not have that problem, so it did not have to look like that. Soft-touch silicone, in four colors, on a machine that lives on a kitchen table as often as a desk.

a bolt 13 laptop in pink, closed, seen from above
PinkSoft rose
a bolt 13 laptop in yellow, closed, seen from above
YellowWarm ochre
a bolt 13 laptop in blue, closed, seen from above
BlueDeep sky
a bolt 13 laptop in green, closed, seen from above
GreenSage

Soft-touch silicone over the full enclosure, with the Bolt mark set subtly into the lid. Colors shown are renderings of the design, not photographs.

How it differs

What changes when the computer is not in the case.

Every laptop below has the same problem: the part that does the work sits inside it, ages there, and cannot be replaced without replacing the whole machine. That one difference is what all of these rows come from.

Bolt MacBook Windows laptop Chromebook
Where the processing happens A data center, on a plan you set Inside the case Inside the case Inside the case, mostly
Speed in year one Keeps up with the priciest machines Fast Varies with what you paid Modest
Speed in year five Faster than year one Noticeably slower Noticeably slower Slower
Why it changes The fast part is replaced, not by you The silicon ages in place The silicon ages in place The silicon ages in place
Needing more power for a month Turn a dial up, then back down Buy a new machine Buy a new machine Not possible
More memory than a laptop holds Yes, on a higher plan No, fixed at purchase Sometimes upgradable No
Fan noise under load None. There is no fan Audible Audible Usually none
Heat on your lap Barely warm Hot under load Hot under load Cool
Content limits A physical part, chosen when it is built An app or an account An app or an account An app or an account
Can they be switched off No. There is no setting and no password Yes, with the password Yes, with the password Yes, with the password
If it is lost or stolen Nothing on it to take Your files are on it Your files are on it A little on it
Setting up a replacement Sign in. That is the whole of it Restore from a backup Restore from a backup Sign in
Sharing one machine Each person signs in to their own Separate user accounts Separate user accounts Separate user accounts
Case Silicone over the whole enclosure Aluminum Plastic or aluminum Plastic
Runs installed software No. Everything runs in the browser Yes Yes Limited
Works with no internet No Yes Yes Barely
Ongoing cost A monthly plan, from the lowest level None None None

Bolt is in development. Everything in the Bolt column is what we are building towards rather than a specification of a finished machine, and it may change. The other columns describe typical machines of each kind at the time of writing.

The last three rows go against us and they are the ones to read twice. A Bolt runs nothing installed, needs a connection to do anything, and carries a monthly cost the others do not. If any of those is a problem for what you do, none of the rest of the table matters.

Questions

Questions

The ones worth answering before you put money towards something that is not shipping yet.

How it performs

If the web apps run on their own servers, what is your data center doing?

Running the browser. Google Docs stores and syncs your document on Google's servers, but the typing, the layout and the rendering all happen in a browser, and that browser has to run somewhere. On an ordinary laptop it runs on the laptop, which is why an old one struggles with a dozen tabs open.

On a Bolt it runs in a data center, on hardware far better than anything in the case.

So is the limit just how many tabs I can open?

Largely, yes, and that is mostly a question of memory. The other limit is your connection: Bolt needs a steady one rather than a fast one, but a weak signal will spoil it and we cannot fix that from our end.

Will it feel laggy if the computer is somewhere else?

That depends on how far away that somewhere is. Over a short distance you will not notice it. Over a long one, typing starts to feel slightly behind your fingers.

Which is why we intend to run Bolt from a spread of data centers rather than one, and put you on the nearest. We will publish where they are as we open them.

Where do my files actually live?

Wherever the service you use keeps them, exactly as they do now. A document you write in Google Docs is in Google Drive. Bolt does not take that over.

Bolt Cloud Storage is a working space rather than a filing cabinet, for moving a file between services or parking something for a while.

Plans

Do I need a subscription to use it?

Yes. A monthly compute plan is what pays for the data center that does the work, and a Bolt cannot run without one.

There are no tiers. You set four things from one to four — processing power, memory, bandwidth and cloud storage — and the price is the sum of them. Everything at one is the floor and covers homework, browsing, documents and video calls.

You choose when you first switch the machine on, and you can change any of the four any month.

Anything we have not settled yet is marked to be announced rather than guessed at. If your question is not here, write to us and we will answer it honestly, including when the answer is we don't know yet.

Coming soon

Stay informed.

Bolt is in development. Leave an address and we will tell you when there is something real to see.

We will not sell your address, will not pass it to anybody, and will not send you anything except news about Bolt. One message every month or two at most, and every one of them has an unsubscribe link that works.