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Chromebooks - latest news and discussion

Chz said:
I'm trying to decide if a Chromebook will be acceptable for a 1st year bio-chem student. I suspect it is, but I don't want/need a spare laptop if I'm incorrect. The problem is mainly just how unbearable Atom-powered Windows would be on a sub-£300 laptop. At least I know the Chromebooks perform pretty well. And with Office 365 apps available, I can't think of a reason why getting that nice Toshiba with the full HD screen wouldn't be a great idea.

Anyone have an opinion to share on that?
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The Chromebook does seem particularly well suited for academic purposes so I think you'd be fine...
 
I'm thinking it will be perfect for him, in the end. He's in residence and they have great wifi in Aberdeen (supposedly) Really I just wanted to voice my uncertainty to get it out of my system. :) I did go for the Toshi in the end. 13" and 1080p screen does help productivity over something smaller or lower res, in my experience.
 
A lot of schools seem to be giving chromebooks to teachers and sixth formers increasingly.

I've never used one, don't really like the google equivalents of Office - much prefer libre office!
 
Chz said:
I'm trying to decide if a Chromebook will be acceptable for a 1st year bio-chem student. I suspect it is, but I don't want/need a spare laptop if I'm incorrect. The problem is mainly just how unbearable Atom-powered Windows would be on a sub-£300 laptop. At least I know the Chromebooks perform pretty well. And with Office 365 apps available, I can't think of a reason why getting that nice Toshiba with the full HD screen wouldn't be a great idea.

Anyone have an opinion to share on that?
Click to expand...

editor said:
The Chromebook does seem particularly well suited for academic purposes so I think you'd be fine...
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In most cases, it'll be super - the only thing you have to consider with students, especially in the sciences and medicine is whether they will have to use some specific software for their studies (human anatomy for med students for example).

From a writing essays and accessing web based resources/email, it is pretty much perfect (as long as you have a decent wifi connection). Offline, they have limitations, as you'd expect, but can be used offline.

I have a 16gb Toshiba Chromebook with a 32gb low profile usb stick in the side - s'all good.
 
Chz said:
I'm thinking it will be perfect for him, in the end. He's in residence and they have great wifi in Aberdeen (supposedly) Really I just wanted to voice my uncertainty to get it out of my system. :) I did go for the Toshi in the end. 13" and 1080p screen does help productivity over something smaller or lower res, in my experience.
Click to expand...
I think there's several Chromebooks with 1920x1080 screens now - the Acer Chromebook 15 comes with a hefty 15.6" screen and that's only £229...
 
Ah, now if I'm going 15" I'm thinking I'd (well, he'd) be better off with a an actual PC. I've always found 13-14" to be the sweet spot of portability and usability. I always lean towards the flexibility of a PC, but the cheap laptops are all bulky 15" things or bloody useless 11" Atom-powered nonsense. I used an HP 11" thingamabob the other week. Would've been fine as a Chromebook, but really quite painful with Win8.1.

That's the exact one I went for, Throbbing Angel. JL was the same price as everywhere else and you get the extra warranty. I think the Skullcandy thing is silly, but the teenager will probably think it's cool.
 
Chz said:
Ah, now if I'm going 15" I'm thinking I'd (well, he'd) be better off with a an actual PC. I've always found 13-14" to be the sweet spot of portability and usability. I always lean towards the flexibility of a PC, but the cheap laptops are all bulky 15" things or bloody useless 11" Atom-powered nonsense. I used an HP 11" thingamabob the other week. Would've been fine as a Chromebook, but really quite painful with Win8.1.

That's the exact one I went for, Throbbing Angel. JL was the same price as everywhere else and you get the extra warranty. I think the Skullcandy thing is silly, but the teenager will probably think it's cool.
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Yeah, I looked at HP Stream's too (which is what I assume you mean) and they did seem to drag a bit at times. It felt underpowered.

That chromebook is great imho. I went for the 4gb instead of the 2gb (personal pref) and it just flies. Had it about 5 months I think and I've booted up my Win 7 Lenovo about 3 times in that period. Mainly because I don't need to, I can do 99% of stuff on here. I have an iPad as well and I generally use the chromebook. It literally boots in seconds and has a proper keyboard, so is preferred.

The skullcandy speakers are great, they are under the keys in the keyboard, which I found odd.

My son was 17 when I bought mine and he loves it. The main appeal to him, he says, is the fast boot time, the fact there is virtually no learning curve and that he can just pick it up and use it. You log into it with your Gmail/Google account details, so there is no setting up of accounts (unless you want to) for other people, they just log into Guest account with their email deets - all good.

So light too -and battery life for aaaaaaaaaaages.

As you can tell, I like it a lot.

The two year warranty thing from JLewis is what made me buy from there too btw. I figured I may be buying another around that time (newer, shinier things innit) so being covered for the life of a product was a no brainer.
 
editor said:
This looks a decent tablet convertible for around £200-250 (UK pricing yet to be set).

asus-chromebook-flip-c100-5.jpg


asus-chromebook-flip-c100-1.jpg


ASUS serves up the 10-inch ChromeBook Flip C100 convertible laptop – specs, videos and photos
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I bought one of these yesterday (using it right now!). I really, really like it.
I thought the size might be an issue but am finding it absolutely fine, it's a great out-and-about machine. Feels really well made. I checked out some of the Chromebooks on display at PC World and they just look rubbish, very plasticky and uninspiring. This little beast is well metal, innit.

Touchscreen works fantastically, just got to get used to having a touchscreen now. Some reviews all say the display is a let down but I'm not in that camp, it's absolutely fine for the size and far better than my C720 Chromebook. Have watched some Netflix stuff on it and it looks fantastic. I don't even mind the bezels, it looks like that decision was made to be more useful in tablet mode (which works very well). The screen rotation is also flawless.

Was very wary of having a machine with an ARM processor but this one seems to work very well indeed. The UK model only comes with 4GB RAM which is fine with me. I've had a couple of stutters on this machine (froze on me earlier, held the power button down and it closed the browser and returned to normal functionality again, the first niggle I've encountered) so I'd suspect a 2GB model would be a little laggy perhaps? Maybe it's the ARM, I don't know as I'm far from being an expert, but I have had zero issues with my 2GB C720 in the time I've had it.

But basically, I love this little damn thing. I can see it coming in very handy.
 
Looks like a good idea if there are any old netbooks in the cupboard. I tried to compile ChromeOS once, but I did have a few driver issues. If their fork is a bit more inclusive of old hardware, it could be a goer.
 
Had the Flip for over a week now, just reporting in for an update :)

It's good, really good, very reliable little thing. Typing on the slightly less than full size keyboard is fine, doesn't take much getting used to and am really liking it.
It starts up a couple of seconds slower than my old C720 so when you're used to something working swiftly it seems like an eternity! Have been spoiled by actual, fast, working tech :D

I have discovered though that it may be a bit of a drain on finances as reading comics bought through Comixology, in tablet mode, is fantastic. It's just the right size. I used to read comics on my old Fonepad which was too small at 7" so had to use guided view, which wasn't a problem, but with this I can read full pages perfectly well. Dammit!

Am typing this in The Tiger at the moment and will be comic reading as soon as I finish posting this.

Had initial niggles with wi-fi not working here, and in The Bear, previously and had to hotspot my phone, which was not ideal, but whatever issue was occurring seems to have been resolved as it works a treat now.

It's not a burden to carry around either, it's very portable and takes up less space in my bag too so I don't feel like I'm hefting around a computer room.

The screen really does show fingerprints though so will need a regular cleaning but, well, I knew the risks!

So yes, happy customer here. Well worth it.
 
So, if all I do is online gmail, forums, news, and offline spreadsheets, wordprocessing and databases - will a chrome book be ok for me?
 
weltweit said:
So, if all I do is online gmail, forums, news, and offline spreadsheets, wordprocessing and databases - will a chrome book be ok for me?
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I can say yes to everything except the databases bit - I don't use 'em so don't know.

If you can use Google Docs/Sheets for the other stuff, then yes, offline access is possible, and it'll all sync when you reconnect

I've only found one website since May this year that won't work on my Chromebook, and, typically, it is one from work :mad: so I have to drag myself to the bedroom to get the iPad :rolleyes: ;) :p

I nipped into PC World and harangued a salesbot until I had all the info I needed, they usually have a few set up. So do John Lewis (less aggro and the wifi will definitely be working)
 
Office 365 works perfectly well in a browser if you need the Microsoft tools. I haven't noticed anything missing. That included Access, which is a fairly basic, but functional database.
 
Depends on the complexity of the database I hear from a convo I had in IT today.

They were thinking of making us use 365 and decided against because of the databases we use (size and complexity)
 
Oh yeah, you can't use Access for any heavy lifting. But it's suitable for small business use. I'm not anticipating MSSQL or Oracle in a browser tab any time soon.
 
Here's a glowing review for a very tempting machine. It's £339 in the UK.

P1000872.jpg


It's a good time to be in the market for a Chromebook. That's because laptops like Dell's newest model go a long way toward dispelling the notion that Chromebooks are cheap, compromised machines that don't have the hardware or software to cut it as your main computer. Chrome OS will likely always lack some features or applications that Windows or Mac options offer -- but for a lot of people, living life in the browser is becoming more and more viable every day.

Until recently, finding good Chrome OS hardware has been as hard (or harder) than finding a good web-based workflow -- but Dell's Chromebook 13 raises the bar on how good a relatively inexpensive computer can be. Yes, it costs more than most other options out there, but you get a lot for your money. If you're on a tight budget, Toshiba's Chromebook 2 is probably a better option, but for my money, the Dell is the best Chromebook I've used. There's just no compromise to speak of here, and as such it's an easy laptop to recommend to anyone who might want to make a Chromebook their main computer. That may have been a crazy idea just a few years ago, but it's not anymore.
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Dell Chromebook 13 review: Chrome OS without compromise
 
I've been thinking of getting another chromebook for 'the house' for anyone to pick up and use, my Lenovo is only switched on if it has to be now and Christ it feels slow in comparison (win7).

It makes me wonder what the 'real work' is these days.
 
About the only things that qualify in her case are Photoshop and Excel. It's deep enough Excel voodoo that the Google docs aren't useful and they don't have a 365 license at work. Actually, it's not even so much running Excel locally as that ChromeOS's support for Microsoft RDP is lacking.
 
souljacker said:
What apps have you tried? I've been using ChromeRDP for ages and it hasn't let me down yet.
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It worked well enough inside the LAN, but I found it a bit buggy over a VPN connection. I don't know why, and quite possibly it's been fixed now, but I do see a of lot of reviews that suggest it either works for you or it doesn't.
 
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