I'm a Google fanboy. I use my Google account for everything I can, I use Youtube, Google Drive, Google Docs/Sheets/etc, I've basically got everything backed up to Chrome... And I need a laptop. So I think a Chromebook is a good thing to get, for me. Does anyone have any experience with them? Are they good? (EDIT: Yes, I have a desktop that fulfills all the required functions and that's my main computing device so don't worry about that bit)
i used them in school, 3/10, do not recomend. the 3 stars are for portability and google drive being what it is. they might have come out with better models, but the design of the ones i used was really terrible. the track pad was frustrating, clicking on anything was frustrating, right clicking on anything was only successful 50% of the time, trying to select anything was a nightmare. opening the chrome book was annoying because i had to use both hands. the keyboard was small and lacked specific keys -- i dont remember exactly which ones, but it's not a standard keyboard. they left out some to save space i think but it made typing a weird experience. also, the keys felt different-in-a-bad-way when i pressed them. the screen was low quality and dim. the interface was much less than ideal when it came to multiple windows/tabs. also the ones i used had no usb ports. come to think of it i dont think usb ports would be conpatable with a chromebook unless they would just directly upload to google? idk it only has access to google, nothing else. this might seem like no biggie but it's frustrating. like you cant install programs on it. if you lose internet access i don't know what happens but that might become an issue. i would not, therefore, recomend a chromebook. however they might have come out with new and better stuff! idk. i use google acounts for most things and i practically live in my google drive, but i'm very satisfied with a mac. however i use my laptop for everything, i don't have a desktop -- if you do, that might change things.
I have a desktop, and it sounds a lot like you got a very small one. I. Hate. Netbooks. I used one at school and I swear, I can't touch work on any laptop smaller than 13 inches anymore. No, seriously. I need space. I did a ton of research, compared sizes, and I'm down to literally 2 possibilities. 13-inch screens, No fancy shapes, USB-C connectors because it's gonna last until at least 2018 and Galaxy S8 will be a thing. I started legitimately wanting to buy one yesterday after deciding that logging in to a Macbook was waaayyy too much of a hassle. No, I do NOT want to use Apple Mail, I want to use GMail in an app. And Google Maps. And synchronize my contacts with my GMail address. And take notes on Google Keep please. And access my home PC with Chrome Remote Desktop. (Last year I switched from iPhone to Android and I loved it because I could use everything as it came and not have to constantly "tell Apple to tell Google that.." and just let Google handle everything.) I do have a desktop (2, in fact, one with each parent) but I've been trying to webify as many things as I can. Shrink stuff down. Recently I put 80-ish GB worth of old pictures in Google Photos and now I'm just using my PC as backup for them but I wanted to clean that up, too. As for programs, I rarely use any, only for class-related purposes (Matlab, some other basic programming stuffs, and that's basically it), and the rest are really web-based things (Chrome, Skype, Discord... okay I do have games but that's about it, and I'm not gonna play games on a notebook) Also, I thought you could... install at least Google apps on it? And there's definitely a slot for memory if you want to have stuff internetless. Ngl, literally 98% of my time on my computer is on Youtube, Tumblr, Kintsugi... and Skype and Discord, but I can work around the Skype thing by opening it on a browser, same with Discord.
I use Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro - hybrid tablet/notebook. At the time they were ONLY in the 1500$ + range but they have made hybrids that are much cheaper lately. The value is the convenience of a tablet with the features of a computer (no, there are NO pure tablets that qualify as computers - they are netbooks at best).
I have a Chromebook, and I honestly love it! Mine's a Toshiba Chromebook 2. It does have a slightly modified keyboard, but it was pretty intuitive for me to learn, and the trackpad is honestly excellent and very responsive. I sprung for the HD screen model mostly because I also wanted the higher RAM, since I tend to leave tons of tabs open at once. It does everything I need, honestly - I only use my desktop for games, and for when I want to play music on my nice speakers.
I have a chromebook (Acer c720) and I give it a solid 6/10 Pros: portable, did have usb, sd, hdmi ports, like 90% of what I did was already browser based. You can download apps from the chrome store. No matlab, but I did find "chromeduino" app the semester I had a microelectronics and robotics lab. I started doing most of the stuff I did on my chromebook on my ipad when I decided portable drawing > portable real keyboard but that was pretty much the only factors. I did get a desktop a year later, partially influenced by the fact that I had a CAD lab coming soon, and I knew the chromebook couldn't do that. Cons: not the sturdiest feeling laptop ever, but it hasn't broken yet. The 10% I needed to download an external program for was kind of important and dragging my butt to the library to do homework was a pain. A little annoyed by the trackpad but didn't have any really disruptive problems, it was mostly a sensory thing I got used to. The other thing was if I needed to open an excel or word file in sheets or docs it didn't necessarily retain all the information/capabilities of the original app (the ability to insert and edit equations within a document was a big one for me) so "I'll just open it with a Google app" doesn't work for everything. I once printed a lab report from Google drive and turned it in without realizing every single equation had disappeared. That was unhappy times. All in all, not bad as long as you realize it's not actually a laptop and have a back up plan to overcome its limits.
Oh yeah - the Toshiba chromebook I own does have usb, sd, and hdmi. It also has 4GB local storage for files you want to access offline. It's not insanely sturdy feeling but has stood up to two years' worth of getting accidentally kicked off of seats etc etc with only superficial damage.
yeah i used a real shitty one -- that's why my school could afford class sets of them, probably. i think if you have a working desktop the drawbacks of a chromebook are much less, because it's not your only internet machine. i keep everything backed up on a portable hard drive in addition to in my gdrive, in case of disaster.
Great. From the responses here I can tell I'm gonna be really satisfied with it (basing it on how I'm planning on using it). Now to choose which one....
all I can say, after buying one and using it as my ONLY form of "computer" for the past two years is -- NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DONT DO IT RUNAWAY RUN FAR FAR AWAY
Silly John, don't you know you're supposed to have AT LEAST 5 computers with you at all times? (no but really, I know it's not a good thing to use as your only source of computing but don't worry, I know I probably won't need anything it doesn't provide, since I also have a desktop.)
