On a recent trip my laptop lost it's hard drive and I wasn't staying in any one location long enough to have it looked at. I called a couple of places and they wanted 7 - 10 days. I looked at buying a new laptop but didn't want to pay the 8.2% sales tax (Phoenix area) and I didn't have my discs with me to load programs like MS Office. I was going to be home in Alaska in several weeks where there isn't any sales tax, so I lived using my phone.
Anyway, when I got home a local computer shop only charged me $213 to put in a new 1T HD and that included labor. Since I had been looking at new laptops and wanting a back up unit from now on, I still wanted to buy something. The "something" that caught my attention were the Chrome books. I bought a Samsung Chrome book and so far it's been a perfect machine for emails and the internet. The local Best Buy matched Amazon's price of about $217 - you can't beat that and I didn't have to wait for it.
Because I use Gmail, about a year ago I accidently got Chrome on my Windows laptop. Since I didn't load it on purpose, I didn't realize what was going on and didn't know what Chrome even was since I didn't have any interest in it. Eventually I got it off of the laptop.
Because of the low cost, just about all of them are in the $2 - 300 range, I started looking at them as a back up unit. Chrome books have both advantages and disadvantages. And forgive me here for the items I miss as I've only owned mine for two weeks and am not a tech person.........
The Chrome book operates off of Wi-Fi only - it will not connect directly to the internet without going through Wi-Fi from the RV park, you home router, Starbucks, or you smart phone hotspot. And, your storage is on the cloud or an SD card.
NOTE: You cannot load any software onto a Chrome book - it is a locked or closed system. Chrome has it's own App site from which to download apps. Because Chrome books have a closed system, you don't need (that may be debatable) and can't load things like Norton anti virus software even if you wanted to. The closed system keeps the Chrome book secure. I believe Google has a $1.4M bounty out for anyone who can hack a Chrome book and no one has collected it yet. If you're using Windows XP and thinking about buying Windows 7 or 8, you can buy a new Chrome book for about the same cost.
And because it's closed, you aren't going to load MS Office, S&T or any other software on it either. There are Chrome apps to replace Excel and Word and of course there Google Mail and Calendar. All and all this is a big cost savings - have you looked at the cost of MS Office, Windows 7 or 8 and Norton 360 lately?
Pros
- Very lightweight, partially because the screen is 11.6", but it also doesn't have all of the hardware in it that a regular laptop has.
- Very good battery life, I've getting 7+ hours out of it
- The power supply is a lot lighter and smaller
- It has an HDMI port for plugging into a monitor or TV with an HDMI port, this actually then gives you dual monitors
- Has both a USB2 and 3 connection
- It will take an SD or mini-SD with an adaptor
- The volume control keys are better, they're separate keys so you don't have to also use the Control key
- Though the unit is smaller than my laptops, I have no problems using the keyboard and I have large hands. (I'm 6' 2") and the keyboard has a nice feel - it is not back lit.
- Start up time from pushing the button until it's ready to go is 15 seconds - have you timed your laptop lately?
- There's no cleaning up the Startup registry anymore
- You don't have to download MS's updates every month
Cons
- No optical disc drive, but then very few of the new laptops have them anymore
- The battery cannot be removed with a couple of buttons like my old laptops if I needed a second battery when on a long flight - but then none of the new laptops I looked at had changeable batteries either
- It doesn't have a dedicated Cap Lock key
- I haven't figured out how to scroll Page Up or Down
- I can't use my Western Digital Passport portable hard drives the way they are
- So far I haven't figured out if there's a GPS program for it, but I haven't really looked for one.
- The hard drive in it is very minimal (16gig) and is mostly taken up by Chrome. You have to store your info in the cloud though you can store it to a SD card (they're now up to 64GB for $47 at Costco) using an SD card adapter in one of the USB slots.
- Because of no storage except for an SD card, I wanted to use my Western Digital Passport hard drives. My understanding is I can make them work, but since I'm not a technical person, I think it's going to be a pain. Apparently I have to transfer the data from one HD to another, then reformat the empty hard drive and then put my info back on it. This is because Western Digital, like almost all of the other small hard drive makers, requires that the HD transfer some of the program to the laptop it's connected to. This doesn't work with a Chrome book because you can't load anything on it. The new formatting of the WD HD then won't transfer part of its program to the Chrome book. I'm also looking at a Seagate HD that creates its own hotspot and transfers the data wirelessly to a laptop without requiring any of its software to be loaded on the laptop. This wireless HD from Seagate is also neat because up to 7 people can access it at one time - think watching movies if everyone wants to watch a different movie at the same time.......
- For correcting typing errors, I found and use the backspace key, but so far haven't found a delete key to delete things in the going forward direction
Pros & Cons
- It will only print wirelessly
If you look at a Chrome book, I found out after I bought mine, there is one out there that has a larger internal hard drive, but the battery life is not as good. I think either Asus or Acer make it, but I haven't gone looking.
From now on, I'll travel with both my laptop and Chrome book. After using the CB for two weeks and starting to use the laptop again after getting it back yesterday, I think I'll be using the Chrome book more than the laptop.
Bottom line - this is a very good and inexpensive back up in case your laptop fails or someone else always seems to be using the laptop. You don't have to worry about spyware or being hacked. It seems high to me, but I read that 20% of new laptops being sold are running on Chrome. I thought I should learn more about it before I forced into it someday by Google.
Look at a Chrome book before you buy your next laptop so that you make an informed purchase.
Bill
Nodwell RN110 out moose hunting. 4-53 Detroit, Clark 5 spd, 40" wide tracks, 10:00x20 tires, 16,000# capacity, 22,000# weight. You know the mud is getting deep when it's coming in the doors.
