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Chromebooks - latest news and discussion

mx wcfc said:
Having sought advice here, I got the Acer 314 from John Lewis just aver a month ago. It has packed up. Just won't turn on at all. I have entered the Kafkaesque world of Customer "Support".

People kindly warned me about various shortcomings above. I can confirm that
a) it can be a bit slow
b) the screen resolution isn't brilliant
c) the sound is awful.

I guess you get what you pay for and I only paid £200. Bit of a shame it didn't last very long.
Click to expand...
What do you mean the sound was awful? Through external speakers or through the laptop speakers? If the latter, then you need to get some external speakers as the sound is useless for playing music/films on any laptop
 
editor said:
John Lewis are usually one of the best for customer service and Chromebooks should definitely work longer than a month!

For what it's worth, I've been using a £199 Chromebook for DJing and it's always sounded great. The speakers are what you might expect for the price though...
Click to expand...

This - they've taken back 2 x Chromebooks I just didn't like (after a day or three) and 1 that became faulty after about 18 months with no issues whatsoever.
The faulty one I walked into the Trafford Centre for a repair - which wasn't possible - full refund a week later.
The other two I walked back into Booths after having them for a day or so and deciding they weren't good enough/not for me.

Top Customer Service in my experience.
 
MBV said:
Very good Throbbing Angel :). Anyone used the linked Chromebook?
Click to expand...
Sorry, no, haven't used that model.

Have used a couple of Celeron powered Chromebooks and found them underpowered for my liking. They weren't HP, though. Quite a few of the reviews class this as entry level. So depends on your Mum's needs I suppose.

What's she going to be doing, browsing and email?
 
editor said:
John Lewis are usually one of the best for customer service
Click to expand...
In person, they're still fairly good. But John Lewis's online/phone service is carving out a pretty dire reputation for itself. I've removed from from my list of places where I'll buy something even if it's a touch more expensive to get better service. (It's a short list, I can't even remember past Richer Sounds, Scan and Costco right now) I don't even think saying they're good in person is doing them any favours - I can say the same for Curry's!
 
I just spent my last pennies on a Chromebook (14 a 0007) I just panicked bought it
on some black Friday deal, for £239 was £279 it's smaller than my last
laptop, just getting used to it, the cap lock thing was funny, so hard
to get used to, so far so good it is so fast compared to the old one.
 
Last edited:
I just got an HP, £269 from JL. I only use it for browsing and watching tv and films, google docs. I like it a lot so far, nice keyboard, and the speakers are actually very good. My last one was an Acer and the speakers were on the bottom.
 
What I don't like about my Chromebook - and I'm really scraping the barrel - is there is no on-screen, or on-bezel indicator for bluetooth being on. It's hidden in the settings shelf. Not a biggie, but can't be a big deal to sort out.

The other thing I find very confusing on this operating system is where to find files. Hard to say if they are local, on my Chromebook, or in the cloud on Google Drive, at times.
 
Janh said:
What I don't like about my Chromebook - and I'm really scraping the barrel - is there is no on-screen, or on-bezel indicator for bluetooth being on. It's hidden in the settings shelf. Not a biggie, but can't be a big deal to sort out.

The other thing I find very confusing on this operating system is where to find files. Hard to say if they are local, on my Chromebook, or in the cloud on Google Drive, at times.
Click to expand...

Yes. After all these years the file explorer is still appalling. I know you can download them from the app store, but most of them aren't great either. Basically they just want you to think and store everything in the Cloud.
 
MIne must be either nearly 5 years old or over 5 years old and it has slowed down big time, esp if you're downloading files, with a few tabs opened
 
Orang Utan said:
MIne must be either nearly 5 years old or over 5 years old and it has slowed down big time, esp if you're downloading files, with a few tabs opened
Click to expand...
Have you tried a hard reset and clearing out unneeded downloads/apps? Sorted mine out sharpish. Can't see how download speeds would be affected, to be honest.

www.computerworld.com

The 20-minute Chromebook tune-up

Make your Chromebook faster, smarter, and more pleasant to use with these easy-to-follow annual steps.
www.computerworld.com www.computerworld.com
 
editor said:
Have you tried a hard reset and clearing out unneeded downloads/apps? Sorted mine out sharpish. Can't see how download speeds would be affected, to be honest.

www.computerworld.com

The 20-minute Chromebook tune-up

Make your Chromebook faster, smarter, and more pleasant to use with these easy-to-follow annual steps.
www.computerworld.com www.computerworld.com
Click to expand...
i didn't say it had slowed download speeds. I was complaining that, like me, it's getting worse at multitasking and is slow when required to do more than one thing at a time
 
Last?
As long as the hardware. You just aren't receiving security or some app updates.

It will work forever it just might not be safe depending on what you're visiting.

One way to get around this is to install another browser that will receive updates, such as Firefox.

Does your Chromebook have access to the Android app store? If not you might struggle/find this a total pain in the area.

Install Linux? (Don't)
 
In theory, indefinitely. In reality, you probably have about 5 years after the cut-off before the Play Store tells you you're too old to install anything.
Even then, any apps that don't insist on being the latest version will work. It's not too dissimilar to people still using Windows 7.
 
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