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On Sun Sep 27, 2020 at 12:54 PM BST, Henry Bremridge wrote: > I have recently been asked various questions about chrome book and have > had to look into it a bit. Still learning but > > - All data seems to be saved to google drive > - Programs seem to be as per play store > - Quite fast when used with reasonable wifi, damned if I know what I > should say if there is internet > - Not cheap Add to this that you should generally be wary of Google products as a whole. Not even just because it's, you know, Google, but because they have an itchy trigger finger when it comes to deprecating things you may have found useful. Take Chrome apps, for example (https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/15/21067907/google-chrome-apps-end-support-lune-windows-macos-linux). They may be getting somewhat more useful with the addition of Android apps but we all know what happens when Google drops support for old systems... The devices have a very limited shelf life for what they are, and Google is quick to drop support for older models once they've had their fun with it. With other operating systems like *Linux/*BSD and even Windows, you could always keep the device updated as long as the hardware was supported, but Google has final say over these devices and like I say: they have a very itchy trigger finger. They have some limited functionality without internet. To be perfectly honest, it's not bad at all, but it is really only supposed to sustain you for short periods of time. As for its expese this varies. A high-end Chromebook will set you back over £1,000, while lower end models hover around £200. They're usually pretty inexpensive for a laptop, but they're also not really laptops in my eyes. > Wished I known about the pinebook I've been seeing a lot about it recently, it's quite the darling among the open-source crowd. The biggest issue with it is that it's ARM based, so that comes with the usual caveats of some software not being available. Most damningly, I don't think Widevine is compiled for ARM on Linux yet which means there's no option to play things like Netflix/Disney +, which is what a lot of people use the Chromebook for. I only know about Chromebooks because I won a free one from Google a few years ago. Its quality was unimpressive, but there were some things it was good at. It had decent battery, the system had a lot more offline functionality than I'd initially feared, and for a little device for basic text editing and web consumption it was perfectly fine. I was living in Aberystwyth at the time and it didn't seem to mind the creaking and archaic internet connectivity all that much. However, even for those tasks it's far from the best machine/OS you could be using. An inexpensive machine running a full *Linux system will see you a lot better overall. Support won't be dropped and you will be able to get a lot more out of it. And for those who say that "learning Linux is too difficult" or "I don't have time to learn something new", honestly learning ChromeOS requires a greater amount of plasticity since it's a total paradigm shift. Plus, they'll have totally changed it by tomorrow. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG https://mailman.dcglug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq