Support NeoGAF

[Kraftwerk]

Here's the deal;

I'm planning on starting a small business in a year, and need a portable device to type up all my documentation. Going to be using it for word processing, creating powerpoint slides for presentations and all of that stuff. I will probably also use it for Spotify and streaming some videos.

Can a Chromebook do all of that? I was thinking about getting a Macbook Air, but the Chromebook's are so damn cheap. About 50% cheaper. I already have an incredibly powerful computer at home, so don't need anything powerful. Something light that does all I described.

Just want to make sure I am not losing any function for what I intend to use it for.

 

[Kraftwerk]

Bumping, and also found out you can use all office apps on-line, so Chromebook seems the way to go.

Just don't know which one. They all hover around the same price.

 

[Nero3000]

A cheap windows laptop would also fit your need.

Here's one for $249 with no crapware: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store...-Touchscreen-Laptop-Black/productID.288728900

Or something more extravagant like the 2-in-1's such as the Transformer Book or Surface

 

[OminoMichelin]

Can you even watch non-youtube flash videos with a chromebook?

 

[outunderthestars]

I love my chromebook, but their version of PowerPoint is terrible. Spend a few more bucks, and get a cheap windows laptop.

 

[Fatalah]

I've been fascinated by the HP Chromebook 14, though I don't own one yet. Really strong reviews on Amazon, 9 hour battery life, an optional model with free 200mb of T-Mobile monthly data. Looks nice too.

 

[Vanillalite]

Can you even watch non-youtube flash videos with a chromebook?

Chrome has pepper flash built in so yes.

 

[The Albatross]

Chromebooks are awesome. My girlfriend is a teacher & journalist, and needed a cheap computer a year ago. She got the Acer Chromebook and it does basically everything she needs. If you want portability, good battery life, and consistent performance... Plus cost is a major issue, then the Chromebook is perfect for you. I would never trust a similarly priced Windows laptop.

Question about whether you can watch non-youtube flash videos with a Chromebook ... I ... have no idea. I honestly never run into non-youtube Flash videos anymore that don't have some HTML5 or native rendering. Every mainstream video website runs fine.

 

[DaBargainHunta]

A cheap windows laptop would also fit your need.

Here's one for $249 with no crapware: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store...-Touchscreen-Laptop-Black/productID.288728900

Damn, that looks great! Wish I had an excuse to get it... The inclusion of Office makes it a ridiculously good deal.

Edit: I have a Chromebook and like it. Not sure how well it works as a word processor though... Haven't really used it for that. Everything is in the cloud and limited to the Chrome browser, so keep that in mind.

 

[Vandiger]

I'm impressed by the Dell Venue 8 pro tablet. Its like $200 retail and comes with a license to Office Home and Student so you can either install it on any PC/tablet or sell it. Its a full blown 8.1 windows computer in a small tablet form factor. Check one out if the store has one on display.

 

[CyclopsRock]

I've been fascinated by the HP Chromebook 14, though I don't own one yet. Really strong reviews on Amazon, 9 hour battery life, an optional model with free 200mb of T-Mobile monthly data. Looks nice too.

I've got that one. I love it to bits.

 

[smokeandmirrors]

A cheap windows laptop would also fit your need.

Here's one for $249 with no crapware: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store...-Touchscreen-Laptop-Black/productID.288728900

2gb of ram? that's nigh on unusable with any form of windows

 

[Kraftwerk]

I've got that one. I love it to bits.

I want to get one of these, as the white one looks beautiful. For some reason the reviewers say it is slow, which is odd to me. I mean, word processing and slow?

 

[Kanyon]

I basically used Google Docs/Drive to do my uni degree, so if you're not fussy with fancy layouts for PowerPoint then go for a Chromebook. The HP model with the monster battery life would be your best bet as you could probably get a whole day of classes out of it.

 

[The Abominable Snowman]

2gb of ram? that's nigh on unusable with any form of windows

I don't think anyone has complained in practice on Windows 8. I think the image of Windows Vista pre-SP1 has been engraved into everyone's heads though

 

[smokeandmirrors]

I don't think anyone has complained in practice on Windows 8. I think the image of Windows Vista pre-SP1 has been engraved into everyone's heads though

i should say i wouldn't use an os with less than 4gb minimum unless it was a real lightweight linux distro so

 

[CyclopsRock]

I want to get one of these, as the white one looks beautiful. For some reason the reviewers say it is slow, which is odd to me. I mean, word processing and slow?

I can't even imagine what you could do with it that'd slow it down. There are two 14" HPs, the older one is Pavilion branded. The new one has a Haswell processor (albeit a Celeron) so the onboard graphics are better and better battery. But ultimately you can't do video editing and simulation computing or something. So I dunno - I haven't experienced any slowdown at all.

 

[NotBacon]

A cheap windows laptop would also fit your need.

Here's one for $249 with no crapware: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store...-Touchscreen-Laptop-Black/productID.288728900

Get this and put Linux Mint on it.
It's a full OS like windows, with the simplicity and ease of use like chromeOS (and it won't choke this laptop like W8 would).

 

[Kraftwerk]

I can't even imagine what you could do with it that'd slow it down. There are two 14" HPs, the older one is Pavilion branded. The new one has a Haswell processor (albeit a Celeron) so the onboard graphics are better and better battery. But ultimately you can't do video editing and simulation computing or something. So I dunno - I haven't experienced any slowdown at all.

Yeah, thats what I sadi to myself. I will mostly use it for typing.

 

[Nero3000]

i should say i wouldn't use an os with less than 4gb minimum unless it was a real lightweight linux distro so

Windows 7/8/8.1 do well on 2GB of RAM for lightweight use - web browsing/office etc.

 

[NotBacon]

i should say i wouldn't use an os with less than 4gb minimum unless it was a real lightweight linux distro so

Or any distro. Modern Ubuntu runs comfy on 1gb.

 

[CyclopsRock]

Yeah, thats what I sadi to myself. I will mostly use it for typing.

FYI the Screen viewing angles are pretty crap if you're watching videos. Some reviewers have complained about the resolution but I think that's partly because reviewers get all these amazing Ultrabooks for free to review, so the price differential doesn't mean as much to them. IMO the resolution isn't a problem at all - again, bearing in mind what you can do with it - and I dont know why anyone would buy a Chromebook Pixel - BUT it's fine for watching videos by yourself, but I can't imagine being able to watch a video comfortably with another person, where it looked good for both of you.

 

[Mesousa]

Can you code on these things?

Would be a nice small thing to lug around and shoot code out with without having to bring my labtop full of porn with me to school lol

 

[CyclopsRock]

Can you code on these things?

Would be a nice small thing to lug around and shoot code out with without having to bring my labtop full of porn with me to school lol

You can't install anything that's not in the Chrome Web Store - so if you need some compiler or VS or something that's installable on Windows or Linux, you won't be able to.

But it has a text editor!!!

 

[Mesousa]

You can't install anything that's not in the Chrome Web Store - so if you need some compiler or VS or something that's installable on Windows or Linux, you won't be able to.

But it has a text editor!!!

Ah I see. Thanks!

 

[toweringinferno]

A cheap windows laptop would also fit your need.

Here's one for $249 with no crapware: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store...-Touchscreen-Laptop-Black/productID.288728900

Or something more extravagant like the 2-in-1's such as the Transformer Book or Surface

Cheap windows laptop get so slow and frustrating after a while

 

[CyclopsRock]

Or you could put Ubuntu on the Chromebook.

Then it's not really a Chromebook anymore. At least MacBooks are a brand and well put together, so even if you put Windows on it you can still sort of argue it's a MacBook. But Chromebooks are just made by PC manufacturers, with varying quality and specs. If you get rid of ChromeOS, it's really not a Chromebook anymore, IMO.

 

[Just_myles]

I'm no chrombook fan but, I think for that basic of a need, go ahead and get one, there are alot of great deals at a best buy or something, i've seen them. Google doc is fine.

 

[NotBacon]

Then it's not really a Chromebook anymore. At least MacBooks are a brand and well put together, so even if you put Windows on it you can still sort of argue it's a MacBook. But Chromebooks are just made by PC manufacturers, with varying quality and specs. If you get rid of ChromeOS, it's really not a Chromebook anymore, IMO.

I don't really see your point. ChromeOS is Linux(albeit a gimped fork), so swapping it out for Ubuntu is a really good option to consider.

 

[tokkun]

Try the keyboard before you buy.

 

[Kraftwerk]

Try the keyboard before you buy.

For sure. Going to go and test some out tomorrow. Keyboard and trackpad are really important for me. I will get whichever one feels best.

 

[teruterubozu]

Word processing these days can be a system horde - from clipboard memory to complex docx documents. Spotify desktop app is also pretty bloated. I would go with laptop.

 

[Tablo]

I'd get a cheap laptop, the online MS store has a lot of good options.

Here's one, http://www.microsoftstore.com/store...003sLV-Touchscreen-Laptop/productID.299202500

 

[CyclopsRock]

I don't really see your point. ChromeOS is Linux(albeit a gimped fork), so swapping it out for Ubuntu is a really good option to consider.

I agree, but the question was whether you could code on a Chromebook. My point was that if you install a different OS, it's not really a Chromebook and the parameters of the question changes.

You're not paying for windows when you buy one.

You can also have them installed simultaneously. And with Ubuntu at least you can switch between them actively with a key press.

Having them both installed simultaneity is a good idea, but if you want to go down the tinkering route, in not sure why you'd bother with A Chromebook in the first place, as it's basically just an uber light weight Linux distro with far less flexibility. That's not really it's use case (in the same way you *can* install Ubuntu on an ARM phone if you wanted to). Similarly, Chromebooks are rarely good value on a per-Spec basis even without the Windows license to pay for.

 

[The Albatross]

You really can't code on a Chromebook unless you're using something like Cloud9 IDE. Which is perfectly useable and functional, but not native.

If you want to code, put ubuntu on a $400 PC laptop and it could last you years.

 

[Palette Swap]

It really depends on who you'll be exchanging documents with and how important formatting is but in my experience, I've always had to fall back to MS Office because of compatibility issues. YMMV obviously and I have no love for Office per se but it's a de facto standard for a lot of people and dealing with compatibility issues can be super time consuming and counterproductive.

Edit: MSO 365 might make this point moot though.

 

[phillipgessert]

Depending on what sort of business you're going to be starting, I personally would want to have to horse around with 'alternate' software as little as possible. So if word processing is going to be a big part of your business, I'd want to be using something that could use actual full-featured Word.

 

[EulaCapra]

I got a refurbished Samsung Chromebook 11.6" for $180 a year ago and love it. Out of the other Chromebooks I tried, this one had the best keyboard feel to me.

Every now and then I crave for software and suites you just can't get on the limited Chrome store, but I've learned to adapt and use an actual computer. My Chromebook is perfect for the on the go. Really light, compact, a great battery life especially if you stretch out to offline Google Drive use, and the matte screen is great against the sun.

 

[Mutagenic]

I bought a cheap Thinkpad years ago for heavy Office use. The keyboard is a dream, but I believe they've unfortunately switched over to the chicklet style.

 

[Somnid]

Can you code on these things?

Would be a nice small thing to lug around and shoot code out with without having to bring my labtop full of porn with me to school lol

Not really. There are a few mediocre cloud-based IDEs for javascript but that's about it.

I'll also use this opportunity to vent about Chrome disabling third party apps and extensions because it basically disables entire classes of software on Chromebooks. You know that alarmism about PC and Mac app stores? Google went and did it. As an additional FU you get this annoying popup every time Chrome starts when you have developer mode extensions. Now unless you plan to release your work publically it's not really worth it.