Opinions on Chromebooks?

[vskid3]

Anyone have a Chromebook or a good amount of experience with them? I've been wanting to get a cheap small laptop, and something like the Acer C720 seems like it might be better than a used laptop from several years ago (Thinkpad x200 is what I'm thinking of). The main use would be web surfing, any reason I should go with a Windows system instead?

EDIT: Forgot to add the link to the C720 refurb for $150. Its really tempting me.

 

[samjc3]

They do what they do well. That said, I've found they get bogged a bit easy, but I've never used an intel based one, only qualcomm based. For $150, you probably can't go wrong.

 

[vskid3]

According to the reviews I've read about the C720, it does quite well even with 20-30 tabs open and Pandora playing. While the CPU is half the clockspeed of the C2D in my Asus G60VX, its about 75% as fast, going off benchmarks. Add in that Chrome OS (should) be much lighter than Windows 7, and it should be at least adequate.
I should really set aside money before I start looking for what to get, then I wouldn't have to wait so long.

 

[XCVG]

It does what it does. Don't expect it to do any more than web surfing and a few web-based apps. IMO they're pretty useless, but I do a lot of work on my laptop. For that price it's not too bad if you understand its limitations.

The Chromebook Pixel, on the other hand, was mind-blowingly retarded.

 

[Mako321]

C720s are *Can'tSayThisOnTV*ing great, the celerons in them are as fast as mobile sandy bridges in single threaded applications and the GPU is kickass too.
You can even install windows on them, but I don't know if they have working drivers for anything yet.

 

[vskid3]

Just a little update, I've decided against getting one for now. The main reason is I just can't really justify it right now and I'd rather get some parts for my ebike instead. Saw a display unit at Walmart (wasn't plugged in and it wouldn't power on) and it seemed pretty solid for what it is. Much better than the first netbooks and probably better than most sub-$500 laptops currently for sale. Being able to load Ubuntu on it makes it seem like it wouldn't be too shabby to use for most tasks.

 

[TheRealHickey]

I would love to get one strictly for school. Seeing as it is basically a web browser it limits me to just the Internet so I won't be distracted by steam and what not. But then again 90% of my time is spent on the Internet with my gaming rig. I would also look into installing another operating system on it such as elementary OS as it is lightweight and beautiful. It will add functionality without bogging it down like other Linux distributions like Ubuntu or Mint. Oh and did I mention it's beautiful?

 

[vskid3]

Instead of a Chromebook, I got a Dell Venue 8 Pro 32GB. $200 for a tablet running full Windows ain't too shabby. Its my first Windows 8 computer, so its taken a little getting used to, but I feel like I have it down pretty well. Performance isn't too bad. It plays game ok, Civ5 runs pretty well on it and I've read it'll emulate everything before the PS2 (Project64 is the only emulator I've tried so far). Gaming drinks the battery, probably 3-4 hours of battery life depending on the game compared to the 6-8 hours it usually gets. Office 2013 is included, which is a nice extra.
One of my biggest complaints is the lack of ports. All it has is a microUSB charging/OTG port and microSD slot. Its possible to charge and use USB at the same time with the right adapter, but I wish it just had two ports and some kind of physical video out. 32GB doesn't have much storage space after Windows, but a fast microSD is almost as fast as the internal storage (I currently have a 32GB card, probably upgrade to 64GB in the near future).

I'm really liking this tablet. With a keyboard and mouse, it could do a decent job at being my main system. I don't think I'll ever consider another Android tablet as long as there are Win8 tablets in this price range.