Does anyone own a Chromebook?

[jjfanec]

This may be a topic for another forum but does anyone own a Chromebook and if so what are their thoughts?

[1992casey]

I split this off from the iPad topic to give it more visibility. I was going to bring up Windows 8 in that thread, but I decided that it would deserve its own topic too.

[1992casey]

I don't own one, and I don't think one would appeal to me. The way I understand it, a Chomebook would require an Internet connection to work. Also, it's designed to work with Google's services. It bothers me that Google doesn't care much about privacy. I use Gmail, but I've shied away from everything else. I especially refuse to use their contacts list.

[jjfanec]

The need for internet wouldnt be too terrible for me if it is a second device for a family. It could not be a primary device but since I work on a college campus or from home 95% of the time the need for internet isnt a huge issue. The lack of privacy is a concern. I like Google Drive so it would be useful there but I am just not sure if it is worth it. My brother who is a Mac guy actually is really interested in it and talks very highly of his hands on time with it.

[thebruce44]

I'm currently setting up a Chromebook for my parents, except that it will be running ChromiumOS, the open source variation. Long story short, they are going on a month long vacation to a condo in Florida where they will have free wifi and they don't want to take their desktop. I have my girlfriend's old Netbook which is more or less worthless at this point as WindowsXP is just too slow and recourse intensive. I could probably give Windows8 a shot on it, as it seems pretty lightweight on my desktop but I figured I would give Chromium a try and it hasn't disappointed. Its super fast, and it will do everything my parents need.

 

If you are interested in playing around with the OS, you can do what I did and make a bootable USB drive with Chromium. It took about 10 minutes.

 

In terms of the privacy concerns, I really don't get it. I know a lot of people were up in arms when Google updated their TOS back in the spring, but most of the people who were upset didn't seem to really know what was changing in the TOS, just that a lot of other people were upset. All Google did was make it so that information could be shared between their platforms, hardly as big of an issue as a lot of the other large internet companies who are tracking us in ways that could actually be detrimental (Facebook).

 

I use most of Google's products, so its been very beneficial for me. I like that GoogleNow can pull tracking numbers from my Gmail and tell me when things will arrive, or tell me when a concert is going on in Chicago for an artist I searched for a few months back, or when my friend's flight is delayed based off me searching for it the day before. Its pretty awesome actually.

[Invader3K]

I got one for Christmas. It's good for what it is...I just wanted a basic laptop to use in the kitchen and living room, as I was missing having a somewhat portable device with a keyboard (I got tired of my Playbook tablet a while ago). It's very light, has a pretty decent display, and a good keyboard. It's also very quick...boot time and internet connection time are virtually nonexistent. That said, you won't be able to do stuff like install Windows based programs, etc. but you probably already know that.

 

I guess my summary is that I like it, but I wouldn't get it to serve as a primary laptop/computer.