Anyone like Chromebooks?

Do You Like Chromebooks?

  • Yes

    Votes: 3 33.3%

  • No

    Votes: 6 66.7%
  • Total voters
    9
The VCR King

The VCR King

Well-Known Member
My school just got Chromebooks for each student in each class, and I am honestly not the biggest fan of them. We got the Acer C720 model. The keyboard keys are TINY and they barely move-you tap them to type. It just doesn't feel "right," so I use an external keyboard from the computer lab. :rolleyes:

The main reason I don't like it is because they don't run Windows, and most games and things will not run on the Chromebook.

On the other hand, I do like the fast boot time (7-10 sec.!) :good:
 
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I admit I like them because they're extremely quick, but you need internet to do stuff because it's Google Drive based, it's a "dumb" version of Linux and doesn't support third-party applications. Hardware lacks performance. They become corrupt easily.

My school has 34 for almost every classroom (30 classrooms x 34 per class = 1020 total) and it's ridiculous because the Lenovo laptops we had before were much better. Our school uses education based google accounts though. Easy to work on stuff from home and with other classmates.

It was a good idea, but it just lacks so many great features that something like Ubuntu has: LibreOffice for offline use, other games and apps, usable storage configs + it would still have all Google Apps..
 
They have their uses. Its basically a tablet with a keyboard. That you can't download apps for. Maybe a kindle would be a better comparison. Except a kindle can be used offline.

So basically its useless. Not even a DVD drive to install Windows on it.

I have to disagree with you on the keyboard side. We have some Asus model or something, and the keyboard is just as good as my home laptop's
 
You can use them offline and just store data locally until you're connected.

I have the Samsung one with ARM. As pages get more complex you can really see that it's becoming more insufficient for general browsing though. Still can't complain for basic functionality.
 
No.
Especially the Acer C720 is a piece of.. yeah.
I've done enterprise enrollment (for schools in Sweden particularly) on, literally, 5000+ different Chromebooks/boxes.
Not a single Chromebook or Chromebox from any company has done anything I considered smart or interesting.
Sure they're cheap, but not cheap enough to make the compromises worth it compared to a NUC or a netbook.
 
My son got one to use while attending school. He really liked his. He got it because it was something light to carry in his backpack, had good battery life and enabled him to take notes in class. He had used a laptop (too heavy) and a netbook (shorter battery life) previously.
 
I love them. Many schools these days utilize cloud-based solutions such as Google Apps or Office 365, combined with most research being done on the internet, Chromebooks can accomplish most of what students need. Even in personal uses, most people tend to use computers to watch videos, surf the web, connect on social media, etc. Chrome also has many applications including Photoshop so you aren't limited to simply a browser.

The biggest benefit is the cost. For the cost of one MacBook Pro, you can buy 5 Chromebooks. This provides a much closer 1:1 environment in schools than if they purchase MacBooks or similar priced Windows laptops.
 
Geoff said:
The biggest benefit is the cost. For the cost of one MacBook Pro, you can buy 5 Chromebooks. This provides a much closer 1:1 environment in schools than if they purchase MacBooks or similar priced Windows laptops.
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While I dislike Chromebooks, MacBooks is an even worse idea and at first I thought it was a stupid thing to compare it to, but then I remembered school boards etc doesn't always use the brain.
I remember reading about a school board in the US choosing like $450 iPads vs $150 Surface (with a lot of educational software preloaded on, hence the prices - also not entirely sure on the prices don't quote me).

But seriously though, the same exact hardware with a built in SD-card type storage of about 32GB or more couldn't cost that much more to manufacture, and would be so much more useful with a truly offline-capable version of ChromeOS (essentially easy to use Linux built by Google).

Side note: In Denmark right now, you can buy a laptop from Acer (some 2014 model, dont remember model name) with Windows 8.1, Intel 1.6GHz*2, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD for less than the cheapest Chromebook.
Chromebook Denmark: $313,57
Newegg same model: $249
Acer laptop: ~$255-265
So it's not even because our prices are skewed, which they sometimes are.
 
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Jiniix said:
While I dislike Chromebooks, MacBooks is an even worse idea and at first I thought it was a stupid thing to compare it to, but then I remembered school boards etc doesn't always use the brain.
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That's a very narrow-minded view. While you may not like Macs, they can be great in education, although pricey. Apple has fantastic support, which makes replacement a breeze and can get a broken computer shipped out and back in 2 days, their support speaks English, the software such as iMovie and GarageBand are great for classes, they have fantastic battery life, durable, very easy to manage and deploy, etc.
 
I didn't vote in the poll because I have very limited first-hand experience with Chromebooks and I think it really depends what you want to use your computer for. If you're used to Windows or OS X and working with apps installed on your computer or certain software packages then a Chromebook probably isn't for you. But if you just need to work in the cloud on web-based apps then I can see them being a fairly good alternative to a tablet for you if you need more comfort than a typical tablet gives you (for example working for long periods of time).

In a school I can see them being quite good for having 'on hand' in the classroom. Myself and the IT department at school deployed around 200 Microsoft Surface RT tablets which we have dotted around the school for use 'on hand' in the classroom when you need something to do some quick research or create a quick presentation in PowerPoint Web App and they work very nicely with Office 365 (when the students remember to save work in the cloud and not locally! ;) ). The students enjoy using the Surfaces and I can see Chromebooks being similar in the classroom and working well with Google services (as well as Office 365 because that is also web-based).
 
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Geoff said:
That's a very narrow-minded view. While you may not like Macs, they can be great in education, although pricey. Apple has fantastic support, which makes replacement a breeze and can get a broken computer shipped out and back in 2 days, their support speaks English, the software such as iMovie and GarageBand are great for classes, they have fantastic battery life, durable, very easy to manage and deploy, etc.
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I may not like Macs, but I certainly understand them. And although pricey, they always (the new Macbook aside :D) make sense for their market.
I just don't think from a school's perspective that the higher asking price is justifiable, compared to iPads, Chromebooks, Windows laptops - pretty much anything.
Of course it highly depends on the age of the students. Young kids will wreck those laptops quick.
I've, with a team of five people, been flashing a custom image and password to the BIOS on around 650 Lenovo X240 and L540s, cheapest of which is around $900-1000 here in Denmark.
We also glued some theft-stickers on the lid, and apparently the glue provided was faulty, so we had to replace them on-sight on various schools. In about a week 17 of those laptops had been totalled (not our responsibility fortunately :D).
Also older students will most likely be able to utilize the Mac way more, beyond text documents etc.
 
We have some ThinkPads at school and the students just love pulling the red TrackPoints off the keyboards - mostly because they have no idea what they are for. Very annoying when somebody like me who prefers to use the TrackPoint over the touchpad gets one without a TrackPoint. :/
 
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