Of course, that was also a very different time. In 2010, Wi-Fi wasn’t nearly as ubiquitous as it is today. Tethering was something I would only do under the most urgent of circumstances, given my (rooted) phone’s measly data plan allowance. The Chromebook was here, but the world wasn’t quite ready for the Chromebook. In 2019, a public space, restaurant, or even a shopping center without free Wi-Fi is basically unconscionable. Tethering using your smartphone is easier and more practical than ever. Connectivity is all around us, and technologies like Bluetooth and mesh networking have made our lives the most wire-free they’ve been since, well, wires were a thing. We live in a world where the Chromebook, and Chrome OS, should be thriving. But increasingly, it looks like Google’s cloud-first laptop platform has hit a dead end, and I’m not sure there are many available detours that can get it back on track.
I haven’t yet used Chrome OS for any appreciable amount of time other than a short stint after getting it running on my Surface Pro 4 – a fun side project – but a good Chromebook has been on my list for a long time. I gave my aunt one a few years ago, set it up, and never heard any tech help question from her ever again – the device has been rock solid, zero issues, and she loves it.
A radical departure from her Windows laptop before that, for sure, which was a support nightmare.
In any event, I find it difficult to say anything meaningful about the linked editorial, since I simply lack the long-term experience as a user of the platform. I do think Chrome OS’ slowing development – if that is actually taking place – might simply be because the platform has grown up, has found its niche, and is content settling there. I don’t think Chromebooks have it in them to truly break into the wider PC market, since Windows and Apple PCs have that pretty well locked down.
I just got a $200 Chromebook for my parents, and was very impressed. Will definitely think twice before getting a tablet again, especially since it can run most of the same android apps (and Linux apps). With a bit more memory, I could even comfortably do development on them (depending on which language you are using, you could likely do development on them even nowadays).
I agree with the author, and it’s a damned shame.
I took advantage of a ‘Buy a Pixel 4, get a HP Chromebook 14’ to see what a Chromebook is like.
I love the ergonomics of it (light, fast, nimble, good keyboard), and the always-on state of it… It works well for emailing and webbing, and even watching stuff on netflix.
However, I’m a developer by day. Android specifically, so Android Studio is my daily driver. I was thrilled to find out that AS is available for the Chromebook…and immediately disgusted by the speed (or lack thereof). It’s unusable for me.
Okay, so I started looking for other solutions. There’s lots of web-editors/IDEs (not where I mostly program these days). What I was deeply surprised not to be able to find were native languages for Chrome. I couldn’t find BASICs, Turbo Pascals, Forths, etc.
All the Android-based compilers were half-baked, and most had been abandoned.
Where’s the Turbo Pascal and/or Turbo C for Chromebooks? The native BASIC? (I’m talking about the ability to easily “compile” a binary on the computer itself…not orchestrate the nightmare of html/javascript/css/javascript-libraries/PWA nonsense.
How is a developer going to help Google pull the Chromebooks out of the doldrums? Answer: they’re not, clearly.
Hrm…maybe I’m not being fair. What if I got a powerful enough Chromebook to do at least Android development on? Chromebooks are super cheap compared to PC’s, right? Let’s look at the cost of a powerful one. I start at Argos, known in the UK for having cheap prices: Pixel Slate…£1549 for an i7, £1158 for an i5. HP has a 15.6 Chromebook with i5 and 128GB storage for £600.
…and if I did fork out for these sorts of prices, I’d have a machine that I couldn’t connect my fitbit watch or any other specific hardware that required drivers to.
Uh…
At LaptopsDirect, £600 will get me an i5 gaming PC with a GTX graphics card and 1TB storage. £380 will get me an i7 PC with comparable specs to the top-end Pixel Slate. £800 a Thinkpad L390 thin and light or £840 a Yoga Core laptop capable of development. £1600 gets a good PC laptop, and £1800 gets me a Macbook Pro.
No end of language support, most external devices are supported on one platform or the other.
Now, PC’s and Macs don’t have some of the features of Chromebooks, (low-maintenance, mostly) but most of the ones that matter to me in a much-cheaper package?
I can’t see how Chromebooks can compete long-term. Good enough for throwaway computers for school, but as grown-up tools? I’m not seeing it.
BTW, I’d *love* to be disabused of any of these notions. Show me how to compile good, native, software for a Chromebook, or show me how to buy a Chromebook for equivalent prices of PC laptops, and I might be interested.
-Ken
Chromebooks are mostly cheap, that is their main selling point, almost their only selling point. Yeah, I know that ChromeOS it is intended to be super secure, and that I can install uncomfortably some development tools. So these are basically disposable computers, that is why their main market so far is education.
The high end ones make no sense, as this is a glorified web browser. Who wants to buy a 1000+ bucks web browser which has uncertain duration of OS support? Google can kill this product anytime.
I’m a daily Chromebook/ChromeOS user. It gets used for daily web browsing, video playing, and lots of ssh/tmux into servers. I’m on my 2nd Samsung Chromebook with about 5-6 years of being on this path. ChromeOS has improved immensely since it first began. It has great web browsing support, file support, terminal support and now Android apps support. Recently, Linux-based VMs have appeared so high end users can run specific Linux apps such as gedit, FIrefox, GIMP, Visual Studio, etc.. ChromeOS does most of what I want and need, so it’s here to stay for me. I recently put my folks on a new Asus C434 and haven’t heard a peep about any trouble whatsoever.
The author has crafted a click-baity article that has been reshared prominently on Microsoft-friendly websites. Be careful what you claim as your words can be used against you.
This is such a foreseeable problem too. Power users were always going to find the experience restricting so long as these basic tenants of desktop computing were not addressed.
I’ve had the same complaints with android too, although I generally don’t press the issue there because I realize that it is not meant to replace a desktop. I wish it could emulate a real desktop better for emergencies so I could vacation without a laptop and be confident that I can do everything I need to even though it’s less efficient. Android hardware is very capable, if only android had provided a standard file explorer with dialog boxes and other basic desktop primitives the situation would be so much better, but I digress.
ChromeOS just wasn’t engineered for power users who need more than web apps and google isn’t interested in building the foundations that would make it a good desktop. I’ve only had two experiences with chromeos when the owners came to me asking for help and their needs were bumping up against chromeos’s inadequacies. Granted it’s possible the majority of chromeos users don’t have problems, but it’s clear to me that chromeos is restrictive even for normal users who are better served by a real desktop OS.
“kcorey
I agree with the author, and it’s a damned shame.
I took advantage of a ‘Buy a Pixel 4, get a HP Chromebook 14’ to see what a Chromebook is like.”
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Spare me please. Chromebooks are and always were stupid pieces of junk.
Who seriously thinks a device that requires-no mandates an internet connection is seriously a good idea? Who the hell is this piece of crap aimed at? Certainly not low-icome users despite the prices seen for them. Buying a Chromebook is almost as stupid as buying a cellphone or tablet or anyother device that doesn’t come with a sd slot for storage expansion.
There is no need for an internet connection. Sure, if you want to surf the web, chat with friends, etc. you need one, but that is true for every other device you can do that on.
Personally I don’t see a reason why to use that kind of words for a device that clearly doesn’t seem to meet your needs while not knowing things you can do with them.
It’s aimed at the people too cheap to buy a macbook, but also too lazy to learn basic computer security and are easily fooled by fake “we are from Microsoft” tech support scams. For those users it’s always going to be easier to buy them a chromebook or an Apple product, while to the tech savvy those products are like childproofing the cabinet under your sink, but you don’t have kids and know better than to drink the chemicals anyway so it’s unnecessary. If they know nothing about computers and refuse to learn, they’ll probably install a rootkit on Windows within the first week of owning a computer. That or pay for 3 antiviruses and wonder why their PC is so slow…
I’m very confused by your post. They have been widely adopted in schools, with great success. The admin management software Google provides is second to none in usability.
Low income users in most non-rural environments have access to the internet through subsidized rates, and/or access at a public place. And as mentioned else where they do have significant offline capabilities as well now. There is also a wide spectrum of income, not just completely on welfare and upper middle class, it makes sense for a wide range of incomes there with various degrees of internet availability.
” as stupid as buying a cellphone or tablet or anyother device that doesn’t come with a sd slot for storage expansion.”
Oh, like most cell phones/ tablets sold ? Ok, its fine to have a personal preference. And maybe you do speak for a significant chunk of users, but most do not fall into your requirements. Most people have no requirement for expandable storage on those devices and have chose to prioritize other features.
“I gave my aunt one a few years ago, set it up, and never heard any tech help question from her ever again ”
Well, this is the problem, Chrome OS is a grandma OS. Any user more advanced than that can see the value is not there compared to a Windows laptop.
And even in that “computers for grandmas” niche they feel pressure on the mid/hi-end by iPads with keyboard cases.
“spinnekopje
There is no need for an internet connection. Sure, if you want to surf the web, chat with friends, etc. you need one, but that is true for every other device you can do that on.
Personally I don’t see a reason why to use that kind of words for a device that clearly doesn’t seem to meet your needs while not knowing things you can do with them.”
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From the following article:
However, Chromebook’s glaring limitation aside from the obvious ones is the fact that it’s heavily dependent on internet connection. An offline Chromebook is a dead Chromebook.
https://www.easypcmod.com/fix-slow-performance-internet-connection-issues-chromebook-1466
I agree with the author. https://www.writeyourpost.com/
An offline Chromebook used to be a very dangerous Chromebook. It would look like you were saving and then you would discover that you lost everything. This has changed thankfully. I just did a test and the CB automatically preserved work on a Google Doc during an internet interruption including a shutdown.
Chromebooks are excellent web appliances. If you try to do real work you will eventually switch to a real computer. That has been my experience over three years. My CB is my “easier to type on than a phone” travel companion as long as I don’t want to do real work and I am not in China. It cost me $250 in 2016 and is in no need of replacement. I used the same MacBook for 10 years. That will probably not happen.
I have been using a chromebook since 2014. Last week I bought a Samsung chromebook pro and I’m delighted. It’s a shame that both android and linux implementations are not full-fledged after all this time, but it’s the way to go.
The device is always on. It’s light, a delightful 3:2 display with amazing samsung pen. I can use either web apps or android apps, and indeed I use text editor, squid for pdf annotation, spotify, evernote and termux. Meanwhile, I use a lot of web services, from gsuite ones to third parties such as coda.io. Indeed, Coda.io is fully usable in chromeOS but not in iOS or Android. Since I’m doing consultancy with Coda now, I can work with my light-and-convenient chromebook, which I cannot do with an iPad
I’m working on articles, podcast episodes and a book. I grew tired of Scrivener inconveniences and now I’m work on separate documents per chapter. Possibly I will end my book or the next one using notion.so, which is the very best outliner out there.
I haven’t all my resources with a chromebook. It is not my main workhorse because sometimes I need certain desktop software for video and audio edition, QGIS and full-fledged python inside WSL.
But in 2020 my chromebook pro is more convenient for me than an iPad. Mainly for coda, but only for that. And pen experience… man…
The shocking thing to me about chromebooks is how there seems to be a floor of $80- 100 for them. Even the worst example, as long as its functioning seems to be going at that rate. I would have thought the earliest ones ten year old ones would be closer to $25 at this point. I guess they have real use even now.
I look up to this article for the well-researched content and awesome wording. I got so involved in this stuff that I couldn’t stop reading. I am impressed with your work and skill. Thank you so much. https://liveonedge.com/
“Of course, that was also a very different time. In 2010, Wi-Fi wasn’t nearly as ubiquitous as it is today. Tethering was something I would only do under the most urgent of circumstances, given my (rooted) phone’s measly data plan allowance. The Chromebook was here, but the world wasn’t quite ready for the Chromebook. In 2019, a public space, restaurant, or even a shopping center without free Wi-Fi is basically unconscionable. Tethering using your smartphone is easier and more practical than ever. Connectivity is all around us, and technologies like Bluetooth and mesh networking have made our lives the most wire-free they’ve been since, well, wires were a thing” Really would like to see chromebook working on my free wifi. Well its bit a little old, but what does not have any space of improvement. https://storifytimes.com/
First off, I am an admitted IT Geek. I have a computer science degree and have spent my entire career working in IT on everything from mainframes to wearable computers. I really know computers inside and out. I want to provide some perspective about the Chromebook by a person who spends 10-12 hours on some type of computing device every day.
So why would I ever buy a device like this? Well, I ordered the Chromebook to evaluate it for my parents. They are not tech savvy at all. They have a Kindle Fire and an iPad, but when they do write e-mails and want to do other tasks, the pads are just not enough. They are computer users and media consumption people. What I found out during my work with the Chromebook is that it is the right computer for me too. Now, off to the review… https://smartkela.com
First off the Google Chromebook is computer unlike anything coming from the minds of Apple or Microsoft. Something on the surface that an IT Geek like me probably wouldn’t like. It doesn’t have a full-blown operating system like OSX nor is it a mobile platform like Android. It is something in between, it is ChromeOS. It is very fast, very reliable, and is perfect for doing your everyday tasks. If you mostly read e-mail, write notes, run spreadsheets, develop presentations, chat, Facebook, and surf, you should read on.
Thanks @Thom Holwerda
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