Chromebook – my experiences.

I love my chromebook. Really, it is fast, cheap and good enough for 80% of my work. Of course I can not imagine living just with a chromebook and run everything on ChromeOS. It is not possible.
On yt you can easly find someone who want to survive doing all tasks just with this system, switching from Mac or Windows laptop. For me this approach doesn’t make sense. But chromebook as a complement to some other notebooks/stationery PC it is really nice to have.

So my first and last Chromebook is the Acer 314 which cost me ~ 200 Euro on DE Amazon. It was prepared for the German market, so it comes with a German keyboard. Although I was aware of it and for me personally it is not an issue, for my family it is a huge barrier. So ultimately at the end of the day this chromebook is just mine 🙂

If you decide to buy Chromebook please pay attention on the followings:

• end ChromeOS support date (mine is 2026), after this date chromebook wont get any updates. Full list: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en
• if it looks nice, you really have to like it as you will likely spend some time with it 😀
• internal disk – at least 64GB (despite the fact that it is a cloud system, you will need to install some apps, especially for Android and Linux); disk needs to be fast (also for swapping)
• touchscreen, FullHD – my doesn’t have this, but I can imagine it is what you want to have. For some websites full of pictures and advertisment it will give you greater peace of mind 😉
• support for Android application – for me it is not really important as much as I though at the beginning; android apps are not really as much adapted to notebook world
• support for Linux – this at the end is (for me) more important than Android apps. List of the apps I have found useful and working at the bottom of this page.

Why do I like to work with chromebook so much:

• long battery life (real long life – not only in advertising). I think it is mostly because most of the notebook is occupied by the battery 🙂 Other think is efficiency of the chromeos (with Linux kernel) very well optimized to the hardware
• no fans == total silence (!!!!). I really love it. 
• fast startup (no bios sequence), just chromebook logo for a while and login prompt 🙂
• note to the previous point – there is no need to shutdown the notebook. For my chromebook uptime is a few weeks, and it is just because chromebook politely asked me if I wanna to restart for an update. 
• there is nothing like notebook maintenance, slowdown, taking care of your registry or some other elements that you do not want to care for.
  … Well … This is not necessarily true, chromebook of course can break. BUT as I can see it right now compared to Windows notebook – chromebook is practically maintenance free. Just pay attention to the work you have to do, no on your laptop…
• ChromeOS do not force me to restart laptop because of update. There is also no hard work in the background, indexing files, recompiling .net etc. At least, I didn’t notice that.
• proprietary contents should work without problems. Compared to Linux where you need to install some additional library to make HBO GO work. I know, I know, chromebook (and Google Chrome in particular) is proprietary too. I have a Linux notebook, and I love this desktop very much. But sometimes it is really nice to have a working solution out of the box. And again, just enjoy it, do not spend time to configure it.
• chromebooks shortcuts and special keyboard; ergonomic and efficient to use. You just need to learn few new shortcuts
• many virtual desktops, Microsoft should learn from Google how it should be done 
• pairing with an android smartphone for the internet sharing and user unlock. You can activate network sharing without touching your mobile phone.
• safe from viruses, trojans and the rest. Of course – device is always as safe as his owner is aware of the threats. But chromeos is designed to be safe. Login by google account, Linux in containers, separated environment for Adroid apps, limited access to filesystem (in normal mode), apps usually just from google web store, play store, etc.

What do I miss in chromebook:

• lack of ChromeOS native application – well, I should say google chrome extension. Example, you can’t find more advanced editor for coding. Or nice native image editor.
  I know I can do (almost) everything in the browser, according to Chromebook philosophy. But there are things you really do not want to upload to some Internet server or make/edit your content on the Internet in general.
  There are secrets I am not sharing with my wife and definitely I won’t share them over the Internet with some uknown company 🙂
• Linux subsystem (container) should be more polished. For now it is quite impressive but there are still lots of elements I couldn’t make work. And tons of app that do not want to start or not working as expected. Example – Signal communicator. It is working on my Linux laptop without problem, on chromebook no chance (hope Signal team will find time to prepare fix, btw. donation to this project are very welcome).
• in central Europe it is hard to buy chromebook. There are just few types on the market and price is not really encouraging compared to Windows notebooks
• lack of admin tools to check your laptop if you are not in developer mode (which from the other side is also the advantage cuz you do not spent time debugging – just for fun- your laptop)

My observation:

• My laptop has only 4GB of RAM. So I expected it would swap a lot, especially with running Linux/Android applications. At the end, this is the amount of RAM your smartphone has for some time now. And it is true. Currently (just writing the blog in browser) my memory utilization:
   But having this in the back of my mind I must say that my chromebook does not slow down. I couldn’t feel when it was swapping. Of course, with memory contention application starts more slowly, but after this notebook works pretty well. Really!

Application I can recommend:

1. readiator epub reader
   wasn’t updated for some time now, but I have not found better epub reader native app (likewise the Linux Foliate application)
   
2. cherry tomato to keep track on your working time:
   
3. Google Drive, good integration with OS
   
4. Linux apps:
   
   Presented Linux (Debian) applications works really well. Especially Zim I can recommend for local notes (in kinda wiki style).
5. If you think that on ChromeOS you are stuck just with chrome browser below is the proof that it is not the case. You can install Firefox ESR for Debian Linux (not with the same performance as google chrome but works well and with sound support)
   

Summarizing

I realize that for some of you chromebook is (or will be) a toy. You can use chromebook just for surfing the Internet (which probably already takes most of your time). But you can also use chromebook for your home entertainment (Hbo, Netflix, Spotify, Android games etc). You can also use Chromebook for your work as well – one condition, your applications are already in the Cloud/Internet. And of course you can spend on your Chromebook much more and have more performance or better look&feel. I can’t even imagine how fast ChromeOS will be on Intel i5 with 8GB or RAM.

The Chromebook is light, fast, and has a long battery life.
Comparing it with a smartphone that was once used mainly for entertainment. Today there are people who run their business using just a phone for everything (which is probably several times more expensive than a basic Chromebook). Office management, email, conferences, etc. No wonder that Google invested in their own OS. And they did a great job.