[Closed] chrome book viable laptop?

If you can do everything online then they are brilliant.
So:
Music = spotify, etc
Cad = Google something?
Photos = Flickr etc
office = Google docs.

Of course it's viable, why do you think they were invented?

You can store photos on them, if you either get one with a hard disk or use an external hard disk. As for music - depends what you mean. You can't use iTunes but you can store music on it if you have a HD. Or you could just use Google Play service.

Chromebook vs a £800 spec laptop ?

Why do you need such a powerful laptop ? Chromebooks are bare bones machines, designed for web access / cloud computing.

Why do [s]you[/s] 90% of the population need such a powerful laptop ? Chromebooks are bare bones machines, designed for web access / cloud computing.

I bought an Acer c720 last month purely on price and weight (it comes to work with me every day on the bike, needs to take some abuse without being too expensive to replace). I've always used Linux but found the Chrome OS more than adequate for 'home' use, but it lacked a couple of things* I need for work so I put Bodhi linux on it. Slightly shorter battery life now (still gets through a day), but now it does everything.

*teaching things, unlikely anyone else would need them.

what do you want to do with your photos? Not very good for editing as they are low power and AFAIK they dont have much in the way of editing software. The screens are also low quality and low resolution, so not great colour/contrast etc... depends how serious you are about your photos though!

you'll not be able to run pukka office, but can run google docs, obviously.

for general home-only spreadsheets and letter writing, bit of music playing, online video streaming and photo 'viewing' or uploading to online storage they are OK.

if you need to use edit pukka MS office docs, do photo editing or work away from a web connection a lot, they are less good.

didn't know you could put linux on them. That's very interesting!

[quote=cp said]didn't know you could put linux on them. That's very interesting!

You can have ChromeOS and a Linux install co-existent and switchable via key press 🙂

They are actually not all that bad for photo editing. Of course they aren't photoshop workstations, but they are better than a simple web terminal.

Pixlr supports layers for example. It's a bit slow if you have a complex magic wand selection, but it'll get you by for simple stuff and possibly more.

There are compromises, but when you consider they are not only the cheapest laptops but also probably the fastest to boot up and surf with, it's worth looking at.

I love my Chromebook but I wouldn't want it as my only device. It's a great - cheap - device with long battery life that is more than adequate if, like me, you use Google Docs for "office" stuff and Spotify for music.

If you have even a passing interest in photo management and editing the low quality screen and lack of grunt will eventually annoy you. If money was no object I would have bought a Macbook Air. My Chromebook is a fifth of the price but arguably not a fifth of the usefulness.

Photo editing - IANAP but most people don't need Photoshop power, I manage fine with the Picasa web tools for cropping, rescuing over exposed shots etc.

Linux works very well but try to use the special Bodhi spin rather than full blown Ubuntu etc, as it includes only the stuff required for the Intel chromebooks, keeping it lightweight and fast booting (and all the hardware buttons work out the box). It ships with the very minimum of software, so you'll have to install whatever you need, but that's probably best with only 16 or 32gb to play with. The Enlightenment desktop is not for everyone but there's nothing stopping you adding whatever you prefer.

http://jeffhoogland.blogspot.com.es/2014/01/howto-bodhi-linux-on-acer-c720.html

You can have ChromeOS and a Linux install co-existent and switchable via key press

goddamit. now thinking one might be viable.

Slight hijack here, has anyone tried compiling videos on a Chromebook or know of editing apps? I'm not talking about a full on #sickeditbro, just compiling a few short video clips into one slightly longer clip?

A Chromebook probably isn't an alternative to an £800 laptop, if that's what you *need*, but it doesn't sound like that is what you need.

I would quite happily have a Chromebook as my only home computer, and that's what we're probably going to get our daughter for Christmas. (Actually, 90% of the time, I'm quite happy with using my phone as my home computer. My laptop hardly ever gets switched on these days.)

tis a bit of effort getting the chroot on there (I chose ubuntu more for support than barebones), but it seems to work nicely.
only issue I've had so far is serial driver for a fake arduino.

don't intend to do anything heavy weight like video, image editting on that. just running the usual surfing stuff, some custom bits and bobs, and view photos only (I'll edit them properly on big PC when home).

it's certainly viable, but needs tinkering if you want it to be a full Laptop, and not a Netbook. But when you get useful change from £200, I'm not expecting it to be a full laptop, but somethign portable and not particularly slow.

I borrowed one from work for a couple of weeks. The instant-on and decent battery life were the best parts for me - made me much more likely to use it over my phone for couch-surfing.

Cad = Google something?

Autodesk 360 (and some of their other products I think) has been ported to Chrome?

although last time I played with it (on a tablet), it wasn't quite as awesome as I'd hoped, and they wanted you to pay to get at most of the useful features...

Most of the other stuff you are fine for IMO...

iPad/tablet and wireless keyboard?

I love mine - silly cheap for a 14" laptop that does almost everything that I'd want any more expensive one to do.

BUT

There are limitations and I wouldn't want to be in a house without a 'proper' computer be that PC or Mac flavour for some things - eg I can't update my satnav software/maps from my chromebook.

You can easily see how it'll work for you - try just using your existing computer with a browser only because that's what chromebooks are (though you can add to the 16Gb or so on board storage with SD cards, etc).

try just using your existing computer with a browser only because that's what chromebooks are

Mmm.. not quite. Some of the stuff you can install on Chromebook isn't available for the normal Chrome browser, or doesn't work in quite the same way. And vice versa, for that matter.

But generally yes, you can look in the Chrome store for an app you might need, or look for a replacement for something you currently use, and try it out on your current laptop in Chrome brwoser.

My wife used a specific app for writing, and it turns out there's a similar one available in the Chrome store, so we knew we could switch.

Yes of course but it's near enough IME

I quite like the idea of one of these (far cheaper than the Surface Pro 3 I was looking at!

I don't do much more than web browsing and a bit of photo editing, but occasionally I do need to create some presentations, are they any good for this, and what is the compatibility between power point and google docs like?

Google docs will allow you to create presentations perfectly well (along with the rest of the office related stuff) although I 've never really tested the compatibility. I'm sure someone on the internet has though.

I've got the Acer 720 and it is very good. I am surprised how little I use my proper laptop.
The only downside to the Acer is it is a bit flimsy and mine developed a mark across the screen which looks like it has been made by the keyboard when the lid was shut.

Hah! yeah, mine too ^ from the space bar I think when jamming it into a rucksack. Not visible with the screen on though - I'll take that over the damage I would have probably done to a MB Air by now 🙂

That happens to most laptops if you squash them, ime.

Downsides...No downloading spotify tracks,judge for yourself if you need premium. No Sykpe.

Apart from those two, it's a perfectly adequate 14" laptop.

Chromebook = toaster
Laptop = oven

My PC hasn't been switched on since getting a Chromebook a few months ago.
It's excellent, I use Google docs for uni work and stream to my Chromecast, Bluetooth Harman/kardon speakers and it's ace for integration with my android phone.

Chromebook = toaster
Laptop = oven

Kind of. If we did take that though, extending the analogy, most people only make toast so an oven is overkill.

I have 2 chromebooks and my colleagues and use chromebooks for all our work, although whenever anyone wants/needs to, the google business apps suite works seemlessly across any platform so one colleague uses his big Mac at home, and if I sit in my office I can use my W7PC. But most of the time Im using the chromebook in the kitchen like wot I'm doin' now.

We produce all our business presentations and docs in google drive. They can be distributed to clients as pdfs directly from Google Drive. We can also export as conventional MS Office filetypes if we need to send editable copies (v, v rarely).

If we get sent editable docs (*.docx, *.ppt, *.xls etc) Google drive accepts them and displays them or can be asked to convert to google docs for editing.

I used to be an Excel "power-ish user" but I now do 99% of all my model work in google sheets sucessfully. There are two things I cant do on GSheets - Sensitivity tables (TABLE function) and Goalseek.

I also found a bit of a problem when GSheets was unable to use a MAX function on a range because of a perceived circularity even though Excel didnt have such an objection. All I had to do was modify the model a smidge to work around though.

My big PC still gets used as it is also our media server and PVR. If/When we move away from Windows Media Centre, I can see the chromebooks being our sole PCs in the house.

A better analogy:

Chromebook = Mondeo
Most laptops = Ferrari 458

And it's then using the car to go to the shops. Overkill for the 458

Zackly

That happens to most laptops if you squash them, ime.

Not really as it was in a separate pouch alongside my full size laptop. The laptop is quite old (around 3 years but has lots of RAM and SSD so it performs well) and doesnt have a mark on it, I am a bit anal about looking after stuff so I would say that this is a bit of a design flaw by Acer.
As above you cant see it with the screen on so I havent returned it.

[quote=allthepies ]cp said » didn't know you could put linux on them. That's very interesting!

You can have ChromeOS and a Linux install co-existent and switchable via key press

I did NOT need to know that, I've been playing with the idea of getting one but ruling it out as coding would be a pita/not possible.

I've been playing with the idea of getting one but ruling it out as coding would be a pita/not possible.

Gents sorry can I bring it back a sec to layman's questions.

House laptop also nearly dead and only used for luddite purposes... family photo storage and itunes for the Mrs, she also uses word and excel once in a while. While I only use it for uploading my Garmin and for trainerroad/sufferfest.

So I've no doubt chromebook is the way to go right?

But how do I convince the Mrs that she will be able to do all the things she needs on it.

[quote=sharkbait ] I've been playing with the idea of getting one but ruling it out as coding would be a pita/not possible.
just shows how wrong you can be...
Codeanywhere

Can't compile my erlang locally though can I! The terminal functionality makes that quite interesting though...

Ro5ey - fairly sure a chromebook won't do itunes.

For the rest of it, the chromebook should be fine though you'd need to move to cloud storage for your photos (well in theory, I suppose you could use a USB hard drive)

A quick praecis of Chromebook can and cant's:

1) Photos

SSD versions have small local drives, not ideal for local media storage. New chromebooks come with free 100Gb+ storage offers from Google. Cloud storage of media is good for redundancy/backup assuming you can live with the tin foil hat issue of relying on a single hosting co. You can store images in Picasa Web Albums or GDrive. Or any other web based service you desire.

2) Music

Google Play Music is a pretty good system. You can upload up to 20,000 (I think) songs from your existing Hard Drive stored collection, you can also migrate from your iTunes library (there are google how tos available - there is no iTunes webapp for chromeos). You can sync selected music to any device running the google music app. There is a google music app for iphone/ipad. You can also stream play (over data network/wifi) your library as you wish. You can buy new music from google play store. If you buy from an alternative source, you will need to download it to your chromebook and upload it to your Google library.

3) Office suite

You can open ANY microsoft file in google docs/sheets/slides etc
You can convert any google file type into the corresponding MS file type
You can print/export/save any file as a pdf.
You can automatically save files from your gmail inbox to gdrive seamlessly (this is ace, BTW)
Except for <3% of users (Superusers) you will be able to do anything you would in MS on google docs/sheets.

4) Printing

Chromebook can print to network enabled printers, google print deployed through chrome will also link any google device you are logged into to any printer that is attached to another google device you have log in on whether on the same network or not.

5) Peripherals

USB memory sticks, fine. Most Chromebooks have SD card readers too. They often have bluetooth as well. Wireless mice usually fine, I can vouch for Logitech ones.

HOWEVER

Not all USB devices have drivers built for ChromeOS. This applies to Garmin. ANT sticks and Garmin connections mainly dont work. And since you cant download any client software you cant tell the chromebook to talk to them either. The solution is of course network enabled peripherals/gps units, or for Garmin to join the 20th century and build webbased apps to manage data transfer over USB.

I would point out that using MS documents isn't always easy. We've actually found that for anything that's going to go outside of us, (eg CVs), we do it using Office Online (MS's official online version of word, excel, powerpoint) which works the same as full MS office.

Using the google apps, we found that importing and exporting lead to formatting issues in many cases. Fine for a simple document, less good for something like a CV, etc. Specifically, we could have something that looked fine on our chromebook but open it on a Windows computer and it'd be wrong. Same for saving to PDF on the chromebook.

FWIW, no problems plugging in my Garmin (605 and 800) to my chromebook but only as USB devices - eg I just open a file explorer to import/export rides.

nemesis - sorry, meant to say that they will often work as dumb data units, but you cant use them with the trainer programme for example.

Yeah, I figured, just wanted to be clear that it works but not with full functionality (eg direct upload).

Stoner ... That's a great post, one that more than just me will be able to use

Thanks very much