Temptation to Buy a Chromebook

Gdetrailer wrote:

Gulfcoast wrote:
I need a laptop or Chromebook to use in my trailer, which is 12-volts on 400-watts of solar. A long battery life and low power draw is important. I do not wish to use an inverter. Can you recommend a laptop or Chromebook? No tablets.

Very easy solution very few realize is available for Laptops (IE Windows PCs) is a universal 12V laptop charger.



The Charger in the pix and plug into 120V AC OR 12V DC and can adapt to a wide range of laptops and even different manufacturers by simply selecting and changing the tip that plugs into the laptop charging port.

That one is available HERE for $35.

Bought one similar to the one in the pix for my DD 4 yrs ago for a I7 Hyper threaded quad core processor "2 in one" touch screen laptop I custom ordered from Dell for her College courses. The one I bought her is still going strong and she liked it better than the original Dell charger..

For longest battery life, you will want a bit slower processor than I7 and for general PC work a I3 or I5 can work great, speed takes more battery. Believe it or not, spinning rust hard drives require much less power than SSDs. Typical 1TB laptop drive will use 3.75W, Typical 1TB SSD 8.5W! Although some of my research on SSDs Samsung EVO SSDs are a bit more efficient on power use, typically around 4.5W.

Sadly, when you buy laptops, manufacturers do not typically give you a choice of HD brands. On the upside, as long as the drive is removable SATA you can opt to install the brand of choice after you buy it. You can get free HD cloning/imaging software that allows you to copy/clone/image your existing drive. Then you can simply keep a backup drive for those oops moments.

I keep a backup drive by periodically making an image backup of the entire drive. I can overcome malware/virus/hacker/bad software by taking a couple of minutes to pop a backup drive into my PCs and I am up and running in minutes without having to re-enter passwords, reinstalling software or resyncing files.

You can't do any of that with any Chrome books.

Backup image of your PC results in a much faster recovery than Chrome books "power wash" which wipes out all settings and you have to start from scratch.

If you like "tinkering" with your OS and software and keeping your information/files local, more secure and private, a Windows PC is where you want to be provided you disable silly things like One drive or other cloud storage.. Once that information leaves your PC, it is never safe.secure or private. Google rakes through all of your files and builds a personal profile of your usage, habits and other web based use.

Yes, I have some concerns with anything Google. I never use Chrome browser, but prefer Firefox instead (sometimes Edge). Even so, I think I'd give a Chromebook a try.

Another thing I have some concerns with the iPad, is that they receive updates for only about 4-5 years, or so I've read.