Chromebooks?

mr. ed wrote:

TenOC wrote:
They do NOT have a hard drive. All data in on the cloud.. . :S . . :h

Sounds like a positive thing as there's one less component to wear out if it was a mechanical HD.

A "Chromebook" is in reality nothing more than a Android OS installed on a small "laptop" form instead of a tablet so it is more than "just a browser" but far, far less than a real Laptop.

Because Android OS is used, the hardware requirements are much lower and typically are "ARM" processors which are not Intel or AMD and are far slower along with very little amount of memory compared to a traditional laptop. Android works surprisingly well with those processors but it isn't going to win any races by any means.

As such it has a lot of the limitations of a Android tablet, has very little on board storage (solid state) depending on the version of Android but typically about 32GB. About half the storage will be the OS, the recovery (the "power wash") files. The remaining storage is for your OFFLINE Apps and some OFFLINE data.

If you have software or "Aps" (Paid or free)for your current laptop PC running any flavor of "Windows", you will not be able to install or transfer those on to a Chromebook. You will have to find "generic" equivalents and that is the rub.. From dealing with Android phones and Tablets many "Aps" available for Android tend to be clunky and buggy and the "free Apps" are loaded to the hilt with continually serving up "Ads" trying to upsell the product or other sponsors.

If your looking at Chromebooks because they are cheap, you GET CHEAP.

As far as folks "thinking" their data is 100% safe, private and protected, think again.. Absolutely NOTHING on the "cloud" is 100% safe, secure or guaranteed to be "private".

Once it leaves YOUR control it is no longer YOURS.

If you can accept any and all of those limitations A Chromebook could be useful as long as you don't mind the limitations and don't expect a lot out of it.