Does Anyone Use a Chromebook?

My home laptop died so I may be in the market for a replacement. Has anyone bought a chromebook? Does it work for your studying needs? I'm thinking about getting one since the price is less than half of a "bad" Windows laptop and 80% less than a macbook.

Of course I would love a Pixel but I'm not paying 1200+ for one even if the TB of cloud storage is worth more than the price of the machine. I'm trying to catch one cheap on ebay since everyone at I/O got a free one but they're still pricey. In a perfect world someone would redeem their 1TB space and clear the machine out for little to nothing but in a free market that likely won't happen

I wish there was an easier way to test drive a computer than buy it and return it and maybe face a restocking fee.

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Comments

nerdinhiding

I am enrolled at WGU and I begin on June 1st. If I understand what they ask for correctly it does not meet their requirements. My best advice is use nothing but chrome browser and google docs for a week. If you can live with that and nothing else then its a maybe.

networker050184

If you plan on using it for anything other than web browsing and email it's probably not for you. I've though about getting them for my kids or just to bring around for random web browsing, but that's about it.

Qord

I got one for my girlfriend last year, it replaced an old (old) IBM Thinkpad G40. She's not much of a "program user" so it does just about everything she needs. She does bring a little work home occasionally, and if she needs to create a big spreadsheet or pdf she'll use either my laptop or the desktop. Other than that, she's all web-based. For someone that lives online, Chromebooks are a pretty sweet thing. I'm actually thinking of getting one for myself, especially now that there's a choice of portable linux distro's you can use instead of Chrome. My suggestion would be to try doing nothing offline for a couple weeks and see how it feels. Can you function using only web-based tools? Can Docs replace Office for you?

Do you have any specific questions about them?

EDIT: If you're feeling frisky and want to try the ChromeOS, check here: http://www.androidauthority.com/howto-test-drive-chrome-os-features-the-chromium-way-155084/

tbgree00

I've booted a laptop into Chromium and played with it but it doesn't have flash, java, and other plugins that require a license so it's not a full on test of how the systems would go. When I use it to browse my typical sites I hit the flash required icon but Chromium won't let me install the plugin since Chrome it expects it to be baked in.

I've been using Chrome more or less exclusively for a month. It does have a RDP client with a 7 day free trial but the reviews say it requires windows RDP to work which would obviously not be good enough. I'm not sure my work's Xen infrastructure is compatible with the citrix client, etc. That said I have a Windows 7 laptop provided by work and those tools would only be needed when I have to reset a password or release time after hours.

I think it would be neat but I may "need" something beefy and full so it may not be right for me. I've just had so much bad luck with value laptops and can't get budgetary approval for a slick machine with good warranty, etc.

edit: I do have a esxi server at home that would likely need administration at some point but since there's no vsphere client for Mac I would likely be in the same boat with a macbook air, which is what I really want. I have NFR test licenses of vCenter so I can use the web client anyway.

swild

I just bought one to replace my wife's old Asus netbook. I decided to go with the Acer since it has an actual hard drive and an Intel chip. That way I can drop in Ubuntu if Chrome OS is not doable. So far she seems pretty happy with it. The only complaint is that the touchpad doesn't have the ability to right click. I'm trying to train her to Ctrl+Click and Alt+Click but we will see. Don't know why they only put one button on the touchpad. I honestly didn't expect that.

I have used it for web browsing and a little youtube watching and (aside from the lack of right click, minor workaround) I have no complaints for the price.

Like others have said, make sure you can do everything in the Chrome browser and you should be golden.

hoktauri

When I was replacing my work laptop last fall I looked hard at some entry level ones, but ended up going with an Acer Aspire One instead. Even with buying a ram upgrade it wasn't that much more and is a lot more versatile. I got Chrome, Docs & Drive installed so it's like a chromebook.

Lenniusce

Not being able to run Packet Tracer for class is the main reason I didn't get one.