How I survived 7 days in Chromebook exile - damianoupinedegs
I'm not a Google fangirl. I have Gmail accounts for personal and work use, and I spend some time in Google Docs and Calendar, simply that's about IT. And until a few weeks agone, I had never even much glanced at the Chrome OS or browser, rent out alone touched a Chromebook.
I have, even so, read the sulfuric acid aimed at Chromebooks by my technical school press colleagues. The affordable laptops that make up the majority of the Chromebook market sustain been dismissed as usable toys. The new Chromebook Pixel, lag, has attracted untold greater interest—and even greater disdain, because it's seen every bit an atrociously expensivedisposable toy.
But is the Chromebook platform really such a bad thought?
With a underlying Samsung Chromebook 3 in one hand and Google's parvenu Chromebook Pixel in the other, I spent a week finding out. I lived off of the two Chromebooks as much as I could—at work, at home, and out and about. My goal: to ascertain whether a Chromebook could second-stringer for a full-fledged Windows laptop, all without performance issues and compatibility headaches.
After that week, I can testify that many of my cohorts have it wrong. They'Re dismissing the Chromebook because it's not for them, merely ignoring how useful IT mightiness be for broad swaths of users.
Power users don't aim the Chromebook
Most tech journalists are power users: tinkerers and early adopters. They want full laptop computer tractability. They want to play games and discharge processor-intensive applications the likes of Photoshop and TV editors.The Chromebook is not for them. Yet many of them have compared the Chromebook to the full desktop get, where Google's hardware platform not surprisingly falls short.
Google I understand the Chromebook's shortcomings, and I'm non giving up my Windows machine anytime shortly, either. But I likewise have sex that there are millions of users who have happily abandoned experienced PCs for tablets and smooth smartphones for many common computing tasks. For these users, Chromebooks offer something more: a decent keyboard and a bigger display—like the one on the new HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook, or, of course, the mesmeric, 2560-by-1700 display on the Chromebook Picture element.
We technorati need to step aside and let the rest of the planetary enjoy the Chromebook—and especially, the Pel—for what it is: the more functional alternative to a smartphone or tablet for online life.
The Chromebook idea is right
The first day I got my Samsung Chromebook, it was stolen. Not by some metro thief, only away my husband, who pretended to greet me at the room access and grabbed the Chromebook while I was taking off my coat. Outright atomic number 2 was on the couch and opening the palpebra. Few minutes later, he was busy downloading stuff from the Chromium-plate Web Store. Wanted home, dear.
When the Chromebook Pixel arrived a week later, IT took me almost an minute to walk with it across our lab. Everyone wanted to concern information technology and check out the show. Everyone treasured to try IT.
Google Present's the point: The Chromebook idea is right. Impartial as IT's fun to download apps for your smartphone Oregon tablet, it's fun to do it for the Chromebook as well. Even break, constricted choices rear constitute surprisingly liberating. The last meter I bought a Windows PC, I had to fuss concluded whether to buy Microsoft Bureau from the PC trafficker, or regain information technology somewhere cheaper online, or fuddle along with my senior re-create—if I could find the CD, and if the product key hadn't expired, so on.
The Chromebook saves United States of America from that hassle. Operating theater at any rate it's supposed to.
Apps make—and break—the experience
The trouble International Relations and Security Network't with Chromebooks, but with the apps. For instance, it took only a few hours for my husband to script the Chromebook back to Maine. He had dependable the movies and the books, and a few separate things. But he spends very much of time in a specialized Windows application that is not available on the Chromium-plate fund, then He returned to his own laptop.
And the science lab staff at PCWorld? They're tidal bore to hack into the Chromebook and load Linux so they can add things they can't get from the Chrome OS.
Google The Chrome Web store looks look-alike it has a lot of apps. Google has worked intemperately to provide alternatives to the major office applications that most of U.S. have a go at it, and it's besides attracted about placeable, popular online services.
Many of these alleged apps, nonetheless, are just golf links to websites, rather than Chrome-specific apps. Same the disillusioned users who wrote in their app reviews on the Chromium-plate store, I can reach my own bookmarks, thank you. And around of the separate apps are worse than junk, throwing finished ads or other than taking you for an online ride. People expect more from something called an app. They also want choices, and there might live only scant or second-class choices in the Chromium-plate store.
I preceptor't call back I'm alone, however, in not needing much more than what the Chromebook can give Pine Tree State. I'm a arduous Web surfer, not a onerous app user. I don't even play games.
I went to my own PC and uploaded some documents I needed to my Google Drive account for work. I had to commute my Office documents to Google Docs to be able to redact them. Then I hopped rearward to the Chromebook and started working.
I used to hatred Google Docs, but my feelings have mellow as the functionality has improved. Hard spreadsheet jocks and specialized papers creators need to stay interior full-fledged applications. But many of the relaxation of us can employ Google Docs without tactile sensation much of a nip.
Offline and corporate features crapper be tricky
I ran into real roadblocks when I arrived at act. For one thing, the Offline subprogram was not enabled for my house Google accounting, indeed I had to hurriedlymove terminated my professional work to my individualised Google history. Offline saving also taxes the Samsung Chromebook's underwhelming processing power—information technology by all odds felt slower when IT was busy redemptive topically. However, I did corresponding how swimmingly the offline docs synced when I following hit a network connection.
It was determination that network connection that proved tricky. Our corporate network at PCWorld didn't like the Chromebook. This is a BYOD problem, but IT's a problem nonetheless. I was able to log onto the guest meshwork just to get online, but I couldn't get onto our servers or use our online content direction system. The IT staff, which is familiar wacky requests, tested a workaround, but information technology didn't work reliably for me.
At the office, therefore, I led a double life. I wrote calm on my Chromebook with my personal Google account, and and then shared the documents with my professional Google account so I could transfer it to our corporate applications. It isn't quite a as klunky atomic number 3 it sounds. It was actually very easy to keep off working on the same, shared Google MD as I stirred between my two Chromebooks and my work PC. I even enjoyed a bit geeky fun by loading the same text file on all three systems, editing it on one, and watching it change dynamically on the others arsenic I worked. The obnubilate's non completely trusty yet, to be sure, just it has its charms.
The Pixel adds more than-needed luster
Working connected the Samsung Chromebook's smallish projection screen got used. For this reason solitary, I can take care wherefore the lowset-end Chromebooks that possess flooded the market haven't received much love.
But the Google Chromebook Pixel, now, that's a machine I could get utilized to. That design. That power. And especially, that gorgeous exhibit. But I really fell for it when I left work with it one dark, and my commuter rail got stuck behind an fortuity for almost two hours. I found an AC plug on the train, discharged awake the Picture element's LTE connectivity, and I was set. Even the touch screen came in handy: In the train's cramped seating, it was easier to hit forward to the screen than cram my elbows against my trunk to use the trackpad. I was probably the lonesome reasonably happy person on it train until IT started fast-flying once more.
Robert Cardin Is the Pixel overkill for now's Network-based life? Absolutely. Is information technology the marquee product needed to move the Chromebook category away from its econobox reputation and give it a futuristic gleam? Absolutely.
If you enquire whether the Pixel is necessary, you might equally well ask why we call for sports cars or haute couture. We don't need any of these things (though the Pixel is a lot more practical than Porsche 911s and Alexander McQueen gowns). But all three set lofty standards that benefit their industries—including merchandising a lot of cheaper products to median people.
Chromebooks are for the rest of U.S.A
Speaking of normal citizenry, I'm going to share something that Google probably doesn't want to hear: I want to get a Chromebook for my mommy.
She's not the urban hipster that Google almost certainly wants to butt. She's 79 years old, and whol she does is use email and surf the Network. Just she constantlygets lost in the Windows jungle on her PC, and I have to thwack in there with a matchet to get her out. She also clicks the wrong farce, and suddenly there's some virus or malware causing trouble. The Chromebook's just-a-browser ease and Google's constant updates make it a pleasing choice for users just like her. And for me, her technical school support department, I love the Powerwash feature that lets me return the Chromebook to a pure state if I really need to.
Google Simply I wouldn't mind ace for myself, either. During my time in Chromebook exile, my life got simpler. I didn't miss my personal desktop, and I got hooked on having my Google Docs available from any connected PC or Chromebook I happened to be using. I'm not at the ready to surrender all my content to the cloud, just information technology's certainly handy for day-to-day use.
The Chromebook is still an juvenile platform. The app deficiencies are a huge issue. Only these devices unmoving don't merit the derision that they've received. The Chromebook ISN't suppositious to be the desktop they want it to make up. It's the antidesktop that's the improve solution for many hoi polloi going impertinent.
Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/457064/how-i-survived-7-days-in-chromebook-exile.html
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