Thinking of buying Chromebook!

[aysiu]

I've always wanted a chrome book just never found a reason to justify buying myself one, out of interest what are the battery life's like compared to laptops of their price / size?

The battery life on mine's pretty good, about 8 hours or so. I've never run it down fully, but it works for six-hour flights, no problem.

Where do you usually go for holidays? Is there fast internet everywhere you go? Chromebooks need the internet to properly function so when the internet is gone, theyre worth evaporates.

I would highly recommend an internet connection if you're using a Chromebook, but ChromeOS does support offline files for Google Drive.

[mastablasta]

i am usign HP DM1. i have win7 starter (LOL) and Kubuntu 64bit installed on it. i know it's a bit older model but they have new one with similar specs. anyway it has strong battery that lasts over 8h if you turn off wifi. AMD E-450 with radeon GPU 11.6" screen, 500 GB disk, 2 GB ram (max 8GB), 1.6 kg - makes it a good purchase. the only complaint is that it has only USB 2.0 ports and i wish it had mate screen. i would have bought lenovo with similar specs i saw at the time, but they didnt' have strong battery. not even unnoficial.

[markbl]

Where do you usually go for holidays? Is there fast internet everywhere you go? Chromebooks need the internet to properly function so when the internet is gone, theyre worth evaporates.

If this argument was valid then it would apply to tablets also.

I would guess that most of us, particularly the type who visit here, pretty much have fast internet access nearly everywhere we go.

I have not got a chromebook (yet) but I certainly see they make perfect sense.

[aysiu]

Also, if you get the 3G Chromebook (US$329 instead of US$249 for the non-3G), it comes with 2 years of 100 MB of data per month. 100 MB isn't great for streaming video, but if you just want access to Google Drive for some docs you haven't yet put offline, 100 MB is plenty.

[whatthefunk]

I would guess that most of us, particularly the type who visit here, pretty much have fast internet access nearly everywhere we go.

I dont think thats true at all, especially when we're talking about vacations. Get out of the developed world and the internet you have grown to love and depend on evaporates rather quickly.

[orioles_fan]

Any idea which Chromebook available is the best? It sounds like the Samsung is the most popular but the lack of an ethernet port kinda deters me as I still use ethernet when I can. The Acer looks ok. The HP is right on the edge of "too expensive for a Chromebook". Too bad the Pixel is so expensive. Then you've got all of the new ones coming out this fall that are still unseen (Asus and Toshiba are both making one) with Haswell processors so I don't even know if now is the time to get one.

It's ironic that I find this thread right when I've been trying to justify a Chromebook for the past few days. Chrome OS seems to be making strides but I'm nervous that it's just not useful enough for my needs. I'm a web designer so coding and graphic work is required although this wouldn't be my main machine. Still unsure on how it will all play out.

[aysiu]

If you need an ethernet port, don't want anything expensive, and you have to do coding and graphics work, I would stay away from the Chromebook.

If you just want a web browser and a word processor, a Chromebook is excellent.

I've done some light coding (PHP) on my Chromebook, and it's not fun. There are some apps that do some syntax highlighting and FTP'ing, but it's not a great workflow. You're better off with Ubuntu, Mac, or Windows for that.

[orioles_fan]

If you need an ethernet port, don't want anything expensive, and you have to do coding and graphics work, I would stay away from the Chromebook.

If you just want a web browser and a word processor, a Chromebook is excellent.

I've done some light coding (PHP) on my Chromebook, and it's not fun. There are some apps that do some syntax highlighting and FTP'ing, but it's not a great workflow. You're better off with Ubuntu, Mac, or Windows for that.

That's pretty disappointing (albeit semi expected) to hear. I was hoping that enough "web" apps had popped up to make a Chromebook a viable option to not replace my Lenovo but at least compliment it.

Which Chromebook did you buy?

[aysiu]

That's pretty disappointing (albeit semi expected) to hear. I was hoping that enough "web" apps had popped up to make a Chromebook a viable option to not replace my Lenovo but at least compliment it.

There are some tools... I wasn't a fan of them, but maybe you'll like them:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1...t-on-chrome-os

Which Chromebook did you buy?

This one:
http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/c...XE303C12-H01US

[semaphore45]

I dont think thats true at all, especially when we're talking about vacations. Get out of the developed world and the internet you have grown to love and depend on evaporates rather quickly.

You don't even have to get out of the developed work to be cut from proper internet access. In Canada I just have to do 20km to my parent's house, and their microwave access is so slow and capped that I wouldn't be able to stay online with a low latency. Don't think just about speed, but latency as well. Everything is much slower over the Internet.