I Fracking Love My Chromebook
Guys, I fracking love my Chromebook. When I bought my phone, I knew I wasn’t planning on getting another tablet. My phone is big enough to fit most my tablet use cases at this point, and tablets are expensive. I still wanted a “couch device,” and had planned on buying a new laptop. Then my husband told me I could run an Arduino IDE on a Chromebook and I decided to give it a try.
And seriously, it’s basically perfect.
I was cautious after my experience with the Surface RT. It seemed limited enough, so I thought for sure the Chromebook would feel even more limited. But somehow the whole “browser only” system works. I think a big part of this is because I already live in the Google-verse. I write in Google Docs, I use GMail, all my bookmarks are saved in Chrome. It just feels like using a browser on any other computer. And since I’m not stuck with my browser being IE, that doesn’t feel like a sacrifice.
All the following is based off of my Asus C300 with 4 GB of RAM.
The Good
- Snappy: Since it’s just running a browser, the Chromebook is incredibly snappy. It doesn’t really have a boot time, and tabs open quickly.
- Battery: The battery life is just as good as my iPad, which isn’t something I expected. I can leave the thing unplugged for days and it’s fine.
- No Fans: The Chromebook I bought has a lower powered processor in it, so it doesn’t get hot and doesn’t run fans. This is part of what makes it a perfect couch device, it’s so quiet! Although, a downside is it doesn’t make a great heating pad.
- Chrome Apps: I don’t really use Chrome Apps on my desktop, but on the Chromebook they really start to make sense. They let all the browser windows feel like their own thing, and I don’t find myself accidentally closing one out. There are also more out there than I expected there to be (for example, that Arduino IDE.)
The Bad
- Still Can’t Run Android Apps: Well, you can run Android apps. But it’s not really easy, and from what I’ve read it’s really not a great experience. It’d be nice to be able to use apps for things like auto-backup to my networked hard drive, but it’s not the end of the world.
- No Drivers: This is a big “duh” but I didn’t really think about it when I bought my Chromebook. The Chromebook doesn’t have drivers. This means I can’t use a USB docking station at my desk.
- Super Bright Red: I bought the red Asus C300 because it was about $80 cheaper than getting the black one. I had no idea how red it was. But, I also learned you can use FolkArt multi-surface craft paint to paint a laptop, and it works pretty well! I actually just included the color, so I could tell you a non-spray paint way to paint a laptop. Just scuff it up, clean with rubbing alcohol, and paint!
- Down Firing Speakers: I rarely use my laptop speakers, but when I do it’s annoying to have them even more muffled by whatever it’s sitting on. This just seems like a poor design choice.
Overall
If you’ve been frustrated with your tablet experience, or just want something that’s easier to type and work on, I really recommend checking out a Chromebook. It fit my use case perfectly.
I *like* my Chromebook (Samsung 12 inch, 2GB RAM) but I seriously *love* my wife’s Chromebook (HP 14 inch, 4 GB RAM…it’s amazing how much difference that plus the chipset makes). As a Google Fiber customer I get a free TERABYTE of Google Drive, and I’m fully in the Googleverse on mostly all other points as well, so it’s pretty awesome. I still use a real computer (running Ubuntu) for software development but that’s not what I’m doing most of the time.
I don’t do development at home so much as scripting, and since the IDE is web based I can do that too! I do have a real computer to do serious work with, but like you said that’s not most of the time.
If I had a different processor, I’d look at running ChrUbnuntu: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/install-linux-chromebook/