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I need to get myself a Chromebook to see wall the hype is about?


G+_James Dowmont
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BJTechNews I wrote a post earlier today about chrome os http://bryansiegel.com/2014/03/chrome-os-almost/

 

After my nephew threw up all over my x1 carbon this week I've been looking to replace it with a chromebook. The only thing that it lacked for me was a development environment until now. But all the current offerings had a crap 13somethingx768 screen?

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personally, i'd love if this kept with the legacy of the first one, and used a better ARM CPU. my boss has the original samsung chromebook, and it works really nicely. ARM  is the way to go for architecture agnostic applications like chromebooks (so-called because the user doesn't have to know what architecture the device uses).

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kienan vella this is true, but if you are power user you want more power under the hood. A typical retail Chromebook works well for my end users that don't know much about computers. End-users only want to surf and check email now-a-days.

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BJTechNews if you think you need to do more, or that ARM can't deliver that, you likely don't know what you are talking about, or you don't "get" chromebooks as a concept.

 

the chromebook is only designed to browse the web, view online videos, edit documents, and use apps from the chrome store. it's about TASKS delivered by websites and browser plugins (basically).

 

If you want to play steam games, a chromebook is not for you. if you need to edit video or photos in a specific application, a chromebook is not for you. if you get confused when having to use applications other than MS Word to edit documents, a chromebook is not for you.

 

if you have a workflow that is primarily browser based - editing text in google docs or the lotus notes chrome app, editing photos in HTML5 editors, doing research, watching Netflix/YouTube/etc. - and you want a very light grab-and-go device with a REAL keyboard and great battery life, one that you don't have to worry about bloatware or viruses, then a chromebook is going to be your best friend. 

 

having said that, crouton can turn any chromebook (even ARM based ones) into a powerful Linux laptop. in that case, sure, haswell would be a benefit. but if you're buying a chromebook to run ubuntu/mint/arch, you probably should have bought something else.

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kienan vella great point! I might have to get one myself to get the feel of it. I'm actually thinking about purchasing some for my users because we are using Google Business Apps. This will definitely work out for those people that need to check email, surf the net, and work on documents stored in Google Drive. 

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A full Linux desktop is just a script away but closed binaries compiled for x86 won't work on arm CPUs and in general fewer packages will be available. I'd love something like the HP chromebook in 11 or 13” with 4GB ram and haswell. I really like the HP design of charging via micro USB.

 

I would buy a similar netbook instead but... they don't really exist anymore and often (just not always) all I need is the browser

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