Chromebook or Notebook, please help me decide

Forums › Chromium OS and Google Chrome OS › Chromebook or Notebook, please help me decide

gundar

488 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#167409 12-Mar-2015 14:12

Hi

Over the last few months I have managed to migrate my digital footprint into Google Drive and it now serves as a near time mirror of all my work and 'stuff'.

I am way overdue for a new computer (I like old stuff and struggling, some say) but because there is a good chance I will be travelling soon, I was thinking that a laptop might be the way to go so of late, I have been checking out pricing and features.

Today, I saw that Google new flagship Chromebooks are in the $1000 region. The Windows/Intel laptops I've considered are considerably less than that.

For me, most of what I do is now in Google's hands. There is one or two apps that I use that require Windows 7, but I could actually get away from that with a few changes to my habits.

What is the justification for a $1000 Chromebook? I'm sure I can do anything a web app allows me to, such as WaveApps or Harmoney or my bank or Google Docs etc., but can I ftp some files to a website? Can I manage a WordPress installation on a remote server? Can I get a complete offline cache of my entire Google Drive as I have now with Windows 7 (can I upgrade the drive form 64GB to 1TB)?

I've checked out a few reviews, but they all tout the processor speed, battery life, screen beauty etc., there appears to be no guide or case scenario type reviews for Chromebooks.

Does anybody have one and has migrated 100% from a Windows platform?

Does Chromebook only have a thin operating system, can I install something else etc?

Can somebody point me to a very recent realistic review of the end user experience of migrating to Chromebook 100% from a Windows 7-like environment, please?

Please enlighten me.

Gund

chewster

127 posts

Master Geek

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#1257251 12-Mar-2015 15:07

Just started using a Toshiba Chromebook 2 myself. Found c9.io is great for basic web-dev type stuff, it's an online IDE that supports a tonne of languages & lets you connect to SSH and FTP, the free version is great. Yeah the Chrome OS is essentially a 'thin' OS and without say hacking in something like Ubuntu with a dual boot setup, you will be limited what you can do locally. Have a go with that and see if you can manage your WordPress site that way.

Basically Chrome OS treats your Google Drive as one storage device and 'local' as another. Simply a matter of copying over the files you want locally, although why you would do so I'm not entirely sure as there aren't many apps (that I've come across yet) that run locally.

I have a Win7 PC at home, last used it about 3 weeks ago, all my important stuff is in the cloud somewhere anyway. Have been using Google sheets/docs as my primary document editors for a couple of years now. Not sure about upgrading the hard drive, I'm sure there will be a way, but just not sure how hard it will be to go about reinstalling a fresh copy of Chrome OS onto the new drive.

A bit torn if I'd go for something like the Chromebook Pixel $1000+ as it still feels like Chrome OS is too lightweight to justify that kind of spend.

rhy7s

623 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1257270 12-Mar-2015 15:41

You don't have to spend $1k on a ChromeBook - in general you'll get something a bit lighter/stiffer/better battery and with an SSD for a ChromeBook at the same price as a Windows laptop. You will get more flexibility and can still run Chrome on Windows but you may need to spend a bit more to get an equivalent form factor. The HP Stream units are trying to get there.

LazyDr

262 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1259874 15-Mar-2015 21:34

KieranReid: Just started using a Toshiba Chromebook 2 myself. Found c9.io is great for basic web-dev type stuff, it's an online IDE that supports a tonne of languages & lets you connect to SSH and FTP, the free version is great. Yeah the Chrome OS is essentially a 'thin' OS and without say hacking in something like Ubuntu with a dual boot setup, you will be limited what you can do locally. Have a go with that and see if you can manage your WordPress site that way.

Basically Chrome OS treats your Google Drive as one storage device and 'local' as another. Simply a matter of copying over the files you want locally, although why you would do so I'm not entirely sure as there aren't many apps (that I've come across yet) that run locally.

I have a Win7 PC at home, last used it about 3 weeks ago, all my important stuff is in the cloud somewhere anyway. Have been using Google sheets/docs as my primary document editors for a couple of years now. Not sure about upgrading the hard drive, I'm sure there will be a way, but just not sure how hard it will be to go about reinstalling a fresh copy of Chrome OS onto the new drive.

A bit torn if I'd go for something like the Chromebook Pixel $1000+ as it still feels like Chrome OS is too lightweight to justify that kind of spend.

Is your Toshiba the HD screen version? I'm interested in getting one but can't find any in NZ. Possible to buy from Amazon, but not that cheap after shipping and gst

crackrdbycracku

1168 posts

Uber Geek

#1309178 21-May-2015 10:35

I'm looking at buying a Chromebook with the Toshiba 2 being the front runner.

My priorities are:

Portability
Speed of boot up
Cost
That the device doesn't slow down over time

The tasks I want to perform:

General web browsing
Maintaining a WordPress.org blog probably on BlueHost or something similar, possibly more than one.
Photo editing in the cloud via Flickr or Pixlr or something similar
Some general document and spreadsheet work in Gooogle Docs
Web design and development in the future

Things I don't care about

Local storage
What OS I run
Video editing

Things I'd like to know more about

How does Chrome integrate with Android? Might be in the market for a new phone.
When was the last time anybody with a Chromebook thought: I wish I had a traditional laptop, and why?
Where can I find good resources for cloud based web design and development for beginners?

I'd love a Mac but they are almost 3 times the price. I've never had a Windows machine I didn't grow to hate and all the ones cheaper than Macs I'd probably hate from day one. Am I the only one who thinks 500GB hard drives are just dumb these days?

So, is there anything I'm missing?

Didn't anybody tell you I was a hacker?

shk292

2855 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1309213 21-May-2015 11:06

I'd love a Mac but they are almost 3 times the price. I've never had a Windows machine I didn't grow to hate and all the ones cheaper than Macs I'd probably hate from day one. Am I the only one who thinks 500GB hard drives are just dumb these days?

So, is there anything I'm missing?

I suppose it depends on your planned usage. I'm just planning a four-week overseas trip and the one thing that means I'll take a laptop instead of relying on a tablet (or any device without a large HDD) is the requirement to back up photos while travelling. I suppose I might be able to do this with a Chromebook (do they have full-size SD slots) and the cloud, but then I'm reliant on an uncapped internet connection. My family will be travelling with 3-4 cameras, and the ability to do a daily save (and cloud backup when internet available) of all the photos is important to me

crackrdbycracku

1168 posts

Uber Geek

#1309218 21-May-2015 11:19

shk292: I'm just planning a four-week overseas trip and the one thing that means I'll take a laptop instead of relying on a tablet (or any device without a large HDD) is the requirement to back up photos while travelling. My family will be travelling with 3-4 cameras, and the ability to do a daily save (and cloud backup when internet available) of all the photos is important to me

I see your point but with a USB port I'd buy a portable 1TB hard drive for that. For me storage is storage, be it cloud or local. I don't see a problem with de-coupling storage from compute.

Didn't anybody tell you I was a hacker?

deadlyllama

1263 posts

Uber Geek

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#1309232 21-May-2015 11:56

I bought a USD400 chromebook -- the 13" Samsung ARM thing. 1920x1080 display, octa-core ARM, awesome battery life.

Don't know where you get them here, I bought mine from Amazon. It's great. Awesome battery life, thin, light, and with Crouton I can run Linux apps if I need to.

ChromeOS has just gained the ability to use non-google-drive storage easily. So my dropbox and owncloud are mounted in the file manager, I can save files directly to them, etc.