My Chromebook Adventure

I’ve been using an android tablet for a few years now. It’s ideal for my commute and during my working day. Android tablets appear to be pretty dead now and Google have started redirecting you to their Chromebook page if you search for a pixel c. Sooooo I decided the time was right to try a Chromebook. We have an Acer R11 spare in the office so I’m going to try and use it for my tablet replacement for a week and see how I get on. Has anyone else moved across. I seem to think @Jarland has…

1 Like

Yeah I’m enjoying the chromebook, but the key is that it’s the pixelbook. I honestly don’t think I’d enjoy another as much. I bought a samsung one at walmart just to try out the OS before getting the pixelbook, and found myself incredibly annoyed at how slow it was.

Are you running Fuchsia on it? :slight_smile:

Nah, doesn’t seem to be a good reason to yet.

So… I have been living with a chromebook for a week. I can safely say I can understand why these are gaining so much traction. This week I have forced myself to leave my notepad at home and have solely been using the chromebook. I have also left my tablet at home. I can see how this device would easily replace my tablet and notepad. My gut says this is what a netbook is meant to be.

I am going to ebay my old tablet and get myself an Acer R11, although not a great fan of Acer, it does seem to be the best chromebook that most fits my needs.

The ability to run android apps has been the main reason my trial has been so successful. Using OneNote, Nine email, Kindle and other apps has been a godsend.

I guess it’s farewell android tablets, hello Chromebook 2 in 1.

1 Like

Seconded. Especially when the Galaxy Tab S3 has been laggy for me since day one, and I got it like 2 months after they released it. That remains one of the top tier Android tablets, and it’s laggy. I’m comfortable saying that Android doesn’t have a strong tablet developer, now that Google is no longer interested.

Chromebook is where it’s at. And with the latest update, you can use Android VPN apps without any tricks as well.

Added bonus is that I will make a little bit too :slight_smile:

Windows 10 is a bit heavy on those $200 laptops, chromebooks are great cause chrome OS it’s light. You may miss some windows apps, but most likely be a variation as a chrome extention.

Maybe if you find a win10 laptop with better specs than a same priced chromebook, get the win10 laptop and put chrome OS.

I do NOT think it’s worth getting a high spec’ed laptop with chrome OS.

I tried loading CloudReady (ChromeOS) x86 on a shitty laptop, and it used nearly 100% CPU on the dual core doing absolutely nothing.

1 Like

I’m not going to get a high spec laptop. I have a decent RDP client so can always remote desktop if I need to.

I’ve yet to find any windows laptop, let alone a $250, one that has a 10+ hour battery life.

I’m certainly not using chrome os to its fullest either. I have just loaded android apps on to it.

1 Like

Telemetery is compute expensive.

1 Like

Just never pick something that charges via micro-usb. My only chromebook was like that, and even using the wall adapter, it discharged faster than it charged.

No love for ASUS?

That’s why my router has such a high superficial load!

Got a Chromebook manufactured by Samsung around Christmas for casual browsing, and it is excellent for that! However, with the limited processing power it packs, there isn’t much that can be done outside of browsing, light text editing or treating it as a media consumption alternative with a keyboard.

Having said that, I feel that a touchscreen would have helped a bit in terms of experiencing apps downloaded from the play store.

Ya know, SSH didn’t take much 20 years ago, and that’s pretty much what I want… with local storage.

Basically sums up my job functions. Mostly browser-based software, browser-based text editing/spreadsheets, add in a way to connect to my servers which do any of the real processing work and I’m good.

They’re a good fit for me but I haven’t found the hardware quality to be there - and don’t really want to spend the money on an outdated Chromebook Pixel at this point.

Exactly. But then, one can’t really expect more in terms of hardware and build quality from a sub $200 ultra portable :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like

So… I installed Ubuntu 18 on my pixelbook tonight for shits and giggles. There does not appear to be very many people trying to do this that are actually Linux admins, I’m curious if I can be the one to combine other people’s work in just the right way to actually get a fully functioning system. I’m actually really close as of right now, by selectively pulling pieces of GalliumOS into Ubuntu 18 and almost entirely ignoring the way this guy has been going about it:

Seriously, he had me at “Install the latest released kernel” because he was commenting on reddit that it was a lost cause for now, and yet he’s using Ubuntu unstable and then manually installing a new kernel on it…

What a recipe for disaster.

2 Likes

I’ve found the Acer R11 to function perfectly well for “office” work, o365 web apps and browser apps work well. Found a nice SSH client. I agree this isn’t going to set the world on fire, an RDP client gets me onto a Windows VM if I need the processing power.

I would have thought a non touchscreen experience is nowhere near as rewarding!