ChromeBook or Laptop ?

MrZand5

MrZand5

Member
Hello,
I dont know alot about ChromeBooks or Laptops what is the difference?

Also I am looking for a new laptop or a chromebook or maybe stretch to a Mac for me to do 6th form work on and uni work on, I will needing at least 1TB and 4 to 8 GB of Ram but I don't know what is good for my money as im a Desktop guy but my school wants me to have a personal laptop so I can do work in my free lessons without being at a school computer.

I am willing to spend up to £500 to £600

Thanks

Zach

(I am in the UK so need UK prices)
 
Laptop with windows
Chromebook with google chrome OS

Personally don't see the point of Chromebook at the moment.
And I don't see 1TB HDD necessary. You can always get an external HDD for your music/ video/ photo.

Here are few laptop you can consider (based on spec)
Gaming
http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/LENOVO-Z500-59399413_1492687.html
http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/LENOVO-Z500-59399412_1533701.html

Touchscreen
http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/LENOVO-U410-59399422_1507572.html
http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Leno...rds&crtag=LD&gclid=CI6ppZCpgrwCFQsKwwodGUsA9g

And if you don't mind refurb, check out dell outlet business laptop. They provide 3 year warranty. Look for 3rd/ 4th gen i5 or i7
 
Chromebooks arr great for people who do 9/10th's of their normal usage stuff on the web. They have small Drives to store stuff locally, but everything on the system is web-based (even the OS).
 
I had a chromebook briefly. It wasn't bad but was limited in what I could do. I really only used it to watch netflix and go online. Couldn't do much else with it. I soon replaced it with a macbook.
 
kiarahtruger said:
Chromebook is like a laptop totally controlled by Google. Better go for a laptop or Mac instead.
Click to expand...
How is that different than a Mac totally controlled by Apple, or a laptop totally controlled by Windows?

Anyways, Chromebooks are great because they are very cheap at $200-$300 for a good one, compared to laptops which start at 2-3x the price for a decent one. The downsides of course are Chromebooks are meant for web use, all video streaming, document editing, photo editing, etc. are done in the Chrome browser. This is usually fine for most people who use computer to type papers, research, use facebook, watch YouTube, etc.

If you need to use actual applications like Photoshop, real games, iMovie, you need a laptop.
 
I would definitely go for a laptop, chromebooks are more of a gadget than anything else right now. The main problem, like Geoff pointed out is that you do everything on Chrome and to be honest I can't stand doing my papers on Chrome, I prefer to use either OpenOffice or Microsoft Office.

As far as what kind of laptop you need, if you intend to only do school work, you don't need a high end graphic card (unless you're doing video editing and image processing...) and you definitely don't need a gaming laptop.

Asus seems to be a good brand, I'll let others confirm or correct me, and since I don't live in the UK I can't help you on your search for a laptop (will only be able to help you to choose from a list) :)
 
For what it seems like you're doing I'd go for a windows laptop. Personally I don't see the difference between a laptop and a chromebook because technically a chromebook is a laptop, but I digress. I'll give you a reason why you should use a windows laptop for teaching. Macs are POWERFUL machines mostly used for video editing, music making, and photo editing. Not for doing school work, the chromebook on the other hand is not recommended for you, the chromebook was as other people have mentioned are mostly used for web surfing and things of that nature. Chromebooks generally don't come with a lot of memory seeing as Google wants you to use Google Docs which is reliable but that's a different story (in case you want to know they give you 250 gigs for 2 years for free isn't that great!).
 
dan1073 said:
For what it seems like you're doing I'd go for a windows laptop. Personally I don't see the difference between a laptop and a chromebook because technically a chromebook is a laptop, but I digress. I'll give you a reason why you should use a windows laptop for teaching. Macs are POWERFUL machines mostly used for video editing, music making, and photo editing. Not for doing school work, the chromebook on the other hand is not recommended for you, the chromebook was as other people have mentioned are mostly used for web surfing and things of that nature. Chromebooks generally don't come with a lot of memory seeing as Google wants you to use Google Docs which is reliable but that's a different story (in case you want to know they give you 250 gigs for 2 years for free isn't that great!).
Click to expand...
You're splitting hairs here, when people refer to laptops they refer to notebooks, he's asking about a chromebook vs notebook.

Mac's are great, but they aren't "powerful machines for video editing and not school work". A 13" MacBook Pro Retina only has an i5, 8GB of RAM, 128GB SSD, and integrated video. It's actually perfect for school work as the battery life is amazing, they are simple to use, and they just work.
 
WRXGuy1 said:
You're splitting hairs here, when people refer to laptops they refer to notebooks, he's asking about a chromebook vs notebook.

Mac's are great, but they aren't "powerful machines for video editing and not school work". A 13" MacBook Pro Retina only has an i5, 8GB of RAM, 128GB SSD, and integrated video. It's actually perfect for school work as the battery life is amazing, they are simple to use, and they just work.
Click to expand...

They do work great for school work but they are damn expansive for nothing really... A notebook (Windows) would work the same for what he wants his laptop to be able to do, at a lower cost.
 
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WRXGuy1 said:
A 13" MacBook Pro Retina only has an i5, 8GB of RAM, 128GB SSD, and integrated video. It's actually perfect for school work as the battery life is amazing, they are simple to use, and they just work.
Click to expand...

Punk said:
They do work great for school work bu they are damn exapansive for nothing really... A notebook (Windows) would work the same for he wants his laptop to be able to do, at a lower cost.
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I agree with you Ben. If you want to do school work on a laptop, then a MacBook with a retina display is not the most cost-effective way of doing it. If all you want to do is write assignments on a word processor, then even the most basic £200-300 notebook will be fine.

I know it has a lovely display, but for what you get, the MacBooks are rip offs. Sorry! Look around at other manufacturers and you'll see the same specs (or near enough) for much lower costs.
 
Punk said:
They do work great for school work but they are damn expansive for nothing really... A notebook (Windows) would work the same for what he wants his laptop to be able to do, at a lower cost.
Click to expand...

spirit said:
I agree with you Ben. If you want to do school work on a laptop, then a MacBook with a retina display is not the most cost-effective way of doing it. If all you want to do is write assignments on a word processor, then even the most basic £200-300 notebook will be fine.

I know it has a lovely display, but for what you get, the MacBooks are rip offs. Sorry! Look around at other manufacturers and you'll see the same specs (or near enough) for much lower costs.
Click to expand...

The reason I mentioned MacBook's is because they have excellent battery life, which is important for many people - especially students who are mobile all day long. A cheap Windows laptop will last what, 2-4 hours at the most? With the new MacBook Pro's you can get 7-12 hours out of them.

I almost always recommend MacBook's for students. They have great battery life, the OS is easy to use, less likely to get viruses or malware, most people have iPhone's and iPad's and they sync perfectly with Mac (iCloud), they work out of the box without having to purchase/find/download tons of other software to make it usable, durable and doesn't feel "cheap", thin and light, and they look good which is important for some people.
 
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WRXGuy1 said:
The reason I mentioned MacBook's is because they have excellent battery life, which is important for many people - especially students who are mobile all day long. A cheap Windows laptop will last what, 2-4 hours at the most? With the new MacBook Pro's you can get 7-12 hours out of them.

I almost always recommend MacBook's for students. They have great battery life, the OS is easy to use, less likely to get viruses or malware, most people have iPhone's and iPad's and they sync perfectly with Mac (iCloud), they work out of the box without having to purchase/find/download tons of other software to make it usable, durable and doesn't feel "cheap", thin and light, and they look good which is important for some people.
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My battery on my laptop is bad and lasts for four hours when fully charged. May I remind you I found the laptop and battery in the trash?

If we rule the battery out, the OS is just as good and easy as Ubuntu or Mint. Windows is intuitive, just like Mac OS is hard for me Windows is hard for you (I guess?).

Oh and no, most people don't have Apple gadgets (they are too expansive for most people actually), some have.
 
Punk said:
My battery on my laptop is bad and lasts for four hours when fully charged. May I remind you I found the laptop and battery in the trash?

If we rule the battery out, the OS is just as good and easy as Ubuntu or Mint. Windows is intuitive, just like Mac OS is hard for me Windows is hard for you (I guess?).

Oh and no, most people don't have Apple gadgets (they are too expansive for most people actually), some have.
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Perhaps France is different. Our wireless infrastructure breaks down what type of device is on our network, and on our open public network for 9-12th graders, 80% are iOS devices, 10% are Android, and 10% are mixed laptops and other devices. These are the kids that will be going to college and looking for a laptop.

Windows isn't hard for me to use, I use it daily, and have used every OS since 3.1 as my main OS, it wasn't until this winter that I bought my first Mac (MacBook Pro). I'd also beg to differ that Linux is NOT intuitive for your average high school or college student. Windows is definitely easy to use, however after purchasing a Windows laptop you usually need to purchase/download an office suite, AV software, etc. All the trial software and bloatware should be removed as well, unless you don't mind them bogging down you system or prompting you to register/purchase the software.
 
WRXGuy1 said:
Perhaps France is different. Our wireless infrastructure breaks down what type of device is on our network, and on our open public network for 9-12th graders, 80% are iOS devices, 10% are Android, and 10% are mixed laptops and other devices. These are the kids that will be going to college and looking for a laptop.

Windows isn't hard for me to use, I use it daily, and have used every OS since 3.1 as my main OS, it wasn't until this winter that I bought my first Mac (MacBook Pro). I'd also beg to differ that Linux is NOT intuitive for your average high school or college student. Windows is definitely easy to use, however after purchasing a Windows laptop you usually need to purchase/download an office suite, AV software, etc. All the trial software and bloatware should be removed as well, unless you don't mind them bogging down you system or prompting you to register/purchase the software.
Click to expand...

Ubuntu and Mint are very intuitive, actually Mint looks a lot like Windows OS. I don't see what's wrong with having to download free softwares (you don't need to purchase anything really)... Especially when comparing the price of a mac with a Windows laptop...
 
Punk said:
Ubuntu and Mint are very intuitive, actually Mint looks a lot like Windows OS. I don't see what's wrong with having to download free softwares (you don't need to purchase anything really)... Especially when comparing the price of a mac with a Windows laptop...
Click to expand...
Good luck having your average high school student figure out how to download, burn, boot from, and install Linux. I'm talking about ease of use. What's easier, buy a Mac, turn it on, go through a 2 minute setup assistant and then you're done, or having to figure out what free software you need to download and install before you can work.

I'm not saying that Mac's are the greatest thing in the computer industry, I'm saying that if a student or parents looking to get their child a laptop are trying to find the best laptop for their student, if money is not the biggest concern then Mac's are a great option.

This is why iOS devices are so popular. They. just. work. They are incredibly simple to use. Generally speaking when an adult goes from a dumb phone to a smartphone, they are overwhelmed with the choices and what to pick as far as Android phones go, and if they don't have someone who can point them in the right direction and help them use it, they will be lost. On the other side Apple basically holds your hand during the entire process, and since there are so few choices, it's a lot easier to choose which one to get.
 
WRXGuy1 said:
The reason I mentioned MacBook's is because they have excellent battery life, which is important for many people - especially students who are mobile all day long. A cheap Windows laptop will last what, 2-4 hours at the most? With the new MacBook Pro's you can get 7-12 hours out of them.

I almost always recommend MacBook's for students. They have great battery life, the OS is easy to use, less likely to get viruses or malware, most people have iPhone's and iPad's and they sync perfectly with Mac (iCloud), they work out of the box without having to purchase/find/download tons of other software to make it usable, durable and doesn't feel "cheap", thin and light, and they look good which is important for some people.
Click to expand...

I do agree with you on most of those points and yes you are absolutely correct that a good battery life is vital for a student, but I personally don't recommend MacBooks for students because they're very expensive for what they are at the end of the day and they are desirable laptops - thus probably more likely to 'draw attention' to you at school and you put yourself at risk of it getting stolen. If some menacing school kid had the choice between stealing a £500 HP or a £1000+ MacBook, what's he going to go for? ;)

I'm looking at buying a laptop for school later on this year. I cannot afford a MacBook, but what I can afford is a ThinkPad L440 (owned two in the past and loved them) which has a Haswell i3, 14" HD+ display, a 500GB HDD, 8GB of DDR3 1600MHz RAM, very good build quality and an excellent keyboard (because it's a ThinkPad) all for about £650. Far cheaper than the equivalent MacBook. I could spend an extra £80 or so and get an i5, but I'll likely spend that money (and a bit extra) on a 256GB SSD instead to replace the HDD. The battery life of this Lenovo is also very good - Lenovo claim up around 12 hours in fact and there are multiple battery options available - all of which are removable *wink wink*. ;) 12 hours is long enough.

In fact, I had a 'cheapo' Novatech-branded laptop which I set up for a customer the other week - i5 4200M, 8GB RAM, 500GB HDD and admittedly not the best-built machine with a rather 'squidgy' keyboard and only had an HD display which was a bit mediocre, but it only cost about £500 or so and stick Windows 8.1 on power-saver mode and I got 10 hours of battery life out of that. Even on the default 'balanced' mode, you'd be getting maybe 6 or 7 hours which should be long enough. It was a small battery too.

So, there are alternatives. I'm not doubting that the MacBook is a very good machine, I'm just saying that I personally don't think it's the best option for students. Just my thoughts (but generally I am not Apple's biggest fan).
 
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Agreed on Linux being hard to install, it will be good if it was setup as an OEM OS.

I don't think Mac are easier than Windows though, I for example have tried a few times OSX and to be honest I'm a little lost sometimes. What mac has is good marketing though, and very good design/optimization :)
 
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