Considering a Chromebook - what should I know?

Posted by: Phoenix42

Considering a Chromebook - what should I know? - 30/05/2014 13:08

Typically I drag my work laptop home at night, not that I do a lot of work from home, but it has become a habit, and I really just use it for general websurfing, netflix, etc. There are some Excel spreadsheets I have, but those can be moved to Google Apps.

I suppose my question is, what does not work with a Chromebook? What do I need to think about that I might not have considered? Also, any recommendations for a particular one?
Posted by: presslab

Re: Considering a Chromebook - what should I know? - 30/05/2014 13:37

I've recently bought two refurbished Acer C720 Chromebooks for $150 ea, one for me and one for a friend. I got them from the Acer store on Amazon. No defects noted.

It's very fast with 8 hr battery life. I hacked mine to run Fedora 20. I even have QEMU/KVM working with a virtual WinXP machine. It has 2 GB RAM and 16GB SSD so keep that in mind running full blown Linux.

As a general rule, if you can do it in the Chrome browser on a desktop, then you can do it on the Chromebook. They have a bit of local storage for pictures, etc.
Posted by: Phoenix42

Re: Considering a Chromebook - what should I know? - 02/06/2014 10:58

Possible stupid question: Can I connect a USB DVD player and play DVD?

edit;
Like I said, stupid question that was answered with a quick web search.
Posted by: Phoenix42

Re: Considering a Chromebook - what should I know? - 24/02/2015 16:37

Bumping this, because I was recently offered a HP Pavilion 14-q010nr Chromebook for $200. Primary use would be Netflix, Youtube, Yahoo Mail. Any reason not to consider it?

The dings I'm seeing against it and some other Chromebooks is the 2gb RAM is a problem if you have lots of tabs open.

Thoughts?
Posted by: jmwking

Re: Considering a Chromebook - what should I know? - 24/02/2015 19:35

The user manual suggests 4GB supported:

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c03936089

-jk
Posted by: Phoenix42

Re: Considering a Chromebook - what should I know? - 24/02/2015 23:58

Yup, there are a few versions of the HP Chromebook 14; different SSD size, different RAM, and the presence of a WWAN card. Unfortunately the RAM is soldered to the board - so no upgrading there. Well may PCA could, but not me smile