good or bad? are Chromebooks just E waste?

[made zos ion]

Here we will discus this question, "are Chromebooks E waste, or are they just misunderstood?

underrated, we will investigate this question. Note: i'm not  supporting Chromebooks, im neutral about them. let me know what you guys think about them and explain why you think this way or explain your experiences with them.

[Grabhanem]

Chromebooks are great for schools. They're cheap, pretty durable, easy to manage remotely, and do everything most students need from them-- i.e. Google Docs.

 

That said, I'd never recommend one as a personal system. They're just too limiting for that.

[NineEyeRon]

For the right market they are brilliant.

 

They are being marketed incorrectly, leading them to be e-waste.

[made zos ion]

Just now, NineEyeRon said:

For the right market they are brilliant.

 

They are being marketed incorrectly, leading them to be e-waste.

interesting

[Grabhanem]

Just now, NineEyeRon said:

For the right market they are brilliant.

 

They are being marketed incorrectly, leading them to be e-waste.

That I agree on-- chromebook ads are pure e-waste.

[made zos ion]

question. what are these limitations?

 

[Phoned_]

I used to use my chromebook for school now I use my pc. But I use my chromebook now just to tinker with linux and for streaming. also if I need to do my school work on the go

[Grabhanem]

1 minute ago, made zos ion said:

question. what are these limitations?

 

Everything on ChromeOS is a web app, or maybe an Android app. So that means no native executables like you would have on Windows.

 

The hardware is generally low-end as well to save cost. Generally dual-core, low power CPUs with minimal RAM and tiny amounts of eMMC storage, all of which make anything more than web browsing painfully slow.

[made zos ion]

oh, so are they just meant for school? or do only schools buy them for students? 

[kelvinhall05]

Lol fuck no, it seems everyone on this forum completely misunderstands what Chromebooks are designed for and exceed at.

 

If all you do with a computer is media consumption, web browsing, and basic office work, I'd say Chromebooks are probably the best choice out there. They're the best old people computers, great for schools, and tbh I'd happily rock one as my only laptop (well, I'd be unhappy about the hardware itself, as I really value my IO...but whatever, that's besides the point).

[made zos ion]

so Chromebooks do have many uses, do Chromebooks have some benefits over many other laptop competitors? 

[Grabhanem]

1 minute ago, made zos ion said:

oh, so are they just meant for school? or do only schools buy them for students? 

Most schools give them out to students, yea. At least in the IT dept I work in, most student machines are ChromeOS and most staff machines are WIndows.

1 minute ago, kelvinhall05 said:

Lol fuck no, it seems everyone on this forum completely misunderstands what Chromebooks are designed for and exceed at.

 

If all you do with a computer is media consumption, web browsing, and basic office work, I'd say Chromebooks are probably the best choice out there. They're the best old people computers, great for schools, and tbh I'd happily rock one as my only laptop (well, I'd be unhappy about the hardware itself, as I really value my IO...but whatever, that's besides the point).

I find it hard to recommend Chromebooks as a personal machine because there are so many things that just won't run on them. Want to play almost any kind of game, edit almost any kind of audio or video, use the dedicated Discord app instead of the poorly maintained browser one, or store any reasonably sized file offline? You're out of luck.

[Grabhanem]

Just now, made zos ion said:

so Chromebooks do have many uses, do Chromebooks have some benefits over many other laptop competitors? 

Mainly, they're very cheap: schools typically get them at around $100 per student. They're also fully remote-managed, so you can push user policies from a web console, and have excellent battery life thanks to having almost no components to consume power.

[made zos ion]

What about the OS, is it performance heavy? or does it perform good?

[Guest]

Totally not E waste. My kid's school district uses them. They run the education software really nicely and my kids are getting smarter every day!!

 

We signed some waiver for 300$..... lol.

[kelvinhall05]

Just now, Grabhanem said:

Want to play almost any kind of game

Not what they're meant for.

Just now, Grabhanem said:

edit almost any kind of audio or video

Also not what they're meant for.

1 minute ago, Grabhanem said:

use the dedicated Discord app instead of the poorly maintained browser one

I've found the browser one to be equally shit to the desktop app, but ymmv.

1 minute ago, Grabhanem said:

or store any reasonably sized file offline

Ok this just doesn't make sense, because all but the shittiest, low-end Chromebooks have more than 32-64GB of storage. Hell, same goes for Windows laptops.

 

My point, and what I believe is Google's intent, is not for ChromeOS to be a jack-of-all-trades like Windows, but for it to be a lightweight and snappy OS for very basic computer users. If you use a Chromebook as intended (web browsing, light office work, media consumption, etc) I believe you will have a better experience overall than an equally priced Windows laptop. Comparing a Chromebook to a Windows PC is like comparing a supercar to a minivan but only considering grocery shopping, fuel economy, seating capacity, etc. If you consider that the supercar is designed for track performance and compare that one specific aspect to the minivan's track performance, you'll quickly find the jack-of-all-trades minivan losing. See what I'm trying to say?

[Grabhanem]

1 minute ago, made zos ion said:

What about the OS, is it performance heavy? or does it perform good?

The OS is extremely light, being basically just a Chrome browser, but that's often offset by the hardware specs being extremely minimal.

[made zos ion]

oh, I see. what about the durability of the hardware?

[Grabhanem]

1 minute ago, kelvinhall05 said:

Not what they're meant for.

Also not what they're meant for.

I've found the browser one to be equally shit to the desktop app, but ymmv.

Ok this just doesn't make sense, because all but the shittiest, low-end Chromebooks have more than 32-64GB of storage. Hell, same goes for Windows laptops.

 

My point, and what I believe is Google's intent, is not for ChromeOS to be a jack-of-all-trades like Windows, but for it to be a lightweight and snappy OS for very basic computer users. If you use a Chromebook as intended (web browsing, light office work, media consumption, etc) I believe you will have a better experience overall than an equally priced Windows laptop. Comparing a Chromebook to a Windows PC is like comparing a supercar to a minivan but only considering grocery shopping, fuel economy, seating capacity, etc. If you consider that the supercar is designed for track performance and compare that one specific aspect to the minivan's track performance, you'll quickly find the jack-of-all-trades minivan losing. See what I'm trying to say?

But to the average family, would you recommend the supercar or the minivan?

 

Sure, chromeos is a fine web browser. But a lot of people will end up wanting to do things down the line that require more than a web browser, and I find it very difficult to recommend a platform for individuals that can't adapt to their needs as they change.

[Grabhanem]

1 minute ago, made zos ion said:

oh, I see. what about the durability of the hardware?

Generally pretty decent. A lot of the education-geared Chromebooks have rubber bumpers around the edges to protect from physical damage, and they're so light that it's hard to damage them by dropping them anyway.

 

I end up having to do a lot of repairs on chromebooks being in an IT dept, mostly broken keyboards, motherboards, and screens, but we deploy nearly a thousand of the things so I don't think the failure rate is out of line.

[kelvinhall05]

1 minute ago, Grabhanem said:

But to the average family, would you recommend the supercar or the minivan?

Very good point that I completely agree with. Maybe supercar was too niche; sports car or coupe, maybe. Whatever, you get my point, I agree with yours.

2 minutes ago, Grabhanem said:

Sure, chromeos is a fine web browser. But a lot of people will end up wanting to do things down the line that require more than a web browser, and I find it very difficult to recommend a platform for individuals that can't adapt to their needs as they change.

I know a LOT of people who run Windows but would benefit from ChromeOS, so I guess it really depends who we're talking about. I just hate seeing people shit all over ChromeOS beacuse they completely ignore what it was designed to do and excels at.

[aisle9]

17 minutes ago, made zos ion said:

Here we will discus this question, "are Chromebooks E waste, or are they just misunderstood?

underrated, we will investigate this question. Note: i'm not  supporting Chromebooks, im neutral about them. let me know what you guys think about them and explain why you think this way or explain your experiences with them.

Jesus Christ, how many times do people have to ask if Chromebooks are useless?

 

The point of a Chromebook is not to play games or do production work or find the next Mersenne Prime. Chromebooks are intended for three customers:

1. Your grandmother who uses the internet to read the news, check her email and, occasionally, "Watch the YouTubes".
2. Companies with employees who have very general, basic task loads and don't need full-on Latitude or ThinkPad setups to get their jobs done.
3. Educational institutions that need to provide a method of internet access to students, but know better than to hand a fifth-grader anything of actual value.

I have a ThinkPad X61 that's set up as a Chromebook. When I've used it, I've used it as intended, and I've never felt like it was slow or clunky or e-waste at all, and that's on a laptop from 2007 with a Core 2 Duo, a 40GB hard drive and 4GB of DDR2. If you treat a Chromebook like what it is and set your expectations accordingly, you'll like your Chromebook. Of course, if you already have a much more powerful computer at your disposal, you have no need for one, and you're outside of the intended customer groups.

[made zos ion]

I see, thank you guys, I just wanted to get everyone's opinion on Chromebooks, because I was thinking on getting one as a backup in case my main laptop breaks or something happens, thank you all for the information.    

[PineyCreek]

I'll put it this way...almost a decade before Chrome (not Chromebooks) was a thing, there were devices dedicated to web browsing and email as a form of really cheap, easy to use laptop, and they had a market.  Example, the I-Opener from Netpliance.  Chromebooks are better than that, and still can be considered easy to use.  So there's a market.

There's always alternatives to even that, like a Raspberry Pi with a special case...but the Chromebook actually is marketed and has a major corp behind the OS, so it gets a bit more visibility.

[made zos ion]

so Chromebooks are just netbooks