Laptop or Chrome Book?

I'm a big fan of the Chromebooks/Chromebox. They have a lot of the benefits of tablets with a tactile keyboard, USB expansion, and larger display (but lower resolutions). They are fast, lightweight, and battery life is good to excellent.

The last time I used one it required internet access when logging in to confirm Google account. Is this still true?

We have 2 desktop computers, a Toshiba laptop and for Christmas last year, got our 10 year old dd a Chromebook. We also have assorted Kindles and other tablets. I love her Chromebook and find myself using 1 more often than any other computer in our house.

There are a few things that I can't do on the Chromebook, but it only occurs about once a month and I usually can work around it.

I have and love my Surface Pro 3 but wouldn't blindly recommend it to everyone. Depending on what 5thwheeleroldman's wife wants to use the computer for, a Chromebook could be the better choice. The Chromebook is substantially less capable but also substantially less expensive than the Surface. If the Chromebook does what she wants/needs to do then there is no reason to spend the extra money to get the Surface.

My son is a Sr in college and uses a Chromebook to do his work and to carry to class to take notes. It works very well for him.

Not all Chrome apps require internet access to use. There is a whole section of the Chrome app store that lists apps that do not require access to the cloud. For instance, Google docs allows for both online and offline editing/creation of documents, spreadsheets or presentations.

Ranger Smith wrote:
Notebook. The chrome is proprietary to google. Get her a nice surface pro 3. Just bought one and love it.

X2

My wife and I each have a chromebook as well as a laptop for each of us, not to mention the large AIO desktop and we spend almost all our computer time on the chromebooks. By the way, HP has it's own version of the chromebook, called the Stream. At $229 for the 14 inch model, with win8 installed and a 32gig hd with 2gigs ram, you may want to consider it.

One thing you have to look at when looking at a Chromebook and hard drive size, remember you will no longer have a massive operating system taking up large amounts of space. Instead there is a small operating system and you can add what you want by way of adding apps, more apps are coming all the time. We have a Acer C720P with a Intel processor, full touch screen and keyboard and 32gb solid state hard drive. If you run out of HD space just move it to the cloud.

Denny

jcpainter wrote:
Consider what your usage is and what your internet access is. If you travel and are on a limited cellular data plan and you use applications that would normally be installed on the laptop, stay with the laptop to save data usage.

A laptop is best for "creating" data, tablets, etc. are great for just consuming online data.

No, this is not true, add a high capacity SD card, then you can carry plenty of stuff with you, offline. The only thing I don't like is the card does not go completely inside on my Acer 720P.
A Chrome costs 1/3 the price of a Surface Pro 3, Office is also extra - we talk about 700$ or more, lots of money.

Consider what your usage is and what your internet access is. If you travel and are on a limited cellular data plan and you use applications that would normally be installed on the laptop, stay with the laptop to save data usage.

A laptop is best for "creating" data. Tablets, etc. are great for just consuming online data.

Denny & Jami wrote:

We went with a Chrome Book because we just didn't need all the MS programs...
Denny

The 'poor' students are using Chromebooks nowadays for their homeworks, replacing MS Office. It can do Docs and Spreadsheets.

Hook up a 2T HDD then you have plenty of place ! You can also add a SD card.
Beware that the are two families of Chromebooks, one using the ARM processor, the other Intel.
I own an Acer 720P (Intel). I dual boot it with Ubuntu (using Chrubuntu), but find out that I never touch it (Ubuntu).