Or better, never buy a chromebook to start with.
I was thinking of someone who does not have the money for a new device, but acquires a salvage one.
There are people in the world, many people, who do not have any access to either money or the ability to choose their computing device, and the only devices they have available to them, if they are lucky, are the ones which they have already been granted by the circumstances.
These people include, but are not limited to, people in disadvantaged financial situations, such as countries with low monetary flow; those living in abusive households, especially minors; those imprisoned or otherwise having their freedom restricted; those attached to a device for sentimental reasons; those who are able to exchange money for a device, as you suggest, and are waiting for it to arrive.
To the overwhelming majority of the world, 300 dollars, or even 20 dollars, is a huge sum, one that is either unattainable, or can only be attained through much struggle, difficulty, and sacrifice.
To an individual in such a situation, their Chromebook, or 10-year-old Android phone, or 20-year-old PC, may be the only option at accessing the digital world. And we should do everything in our power to facilitate their ability to use such a device.
Prisons are an interesting one. The constraint is political not financial, at least for US prisons. Probably giving someone a access to a $1k computer requires $10k to feed the rent seekers inbetween. And that is if we even value not punishing prisoners beyond the fact they are inside anyway.
=> buy or obtain (an asset or object) for oneself.
It surely shouldn't be hard for any clever person to find out such offers, it might even lie beside that shinny chromebook one.
Then, those seeking updates were stuck finding a distro that worked well, with available drivers, had to deal with the stupid keyboard and remapping the keys, etc.
I'm not going down that road again.
If only software didn't get more and more heavy.
The sound has always been capricious though, but it was also the case on GalliumOS.*
I think buying this machine was a good call at the time, almost 10 years ago. Very good battery life, lightweight, cheap and now we know, incredibly durable.
But I'm with you. It definitely was a maintenance burden and it's good that this relative is patient with the flaws that it exhibits, and its slowness.
Today, it would make more sense to just buy a refurbished pro laptop and put Linux on it and be done with it. It'll be as cheap, but the whole experience will be way better. That's what I do for me, and that's what we'll probably do with this relative when they or the machine gives up, which does not seem to want to happen. Good for the environment I guess.
And if one is going for the 1000 euros Chromebook variants, then there are certainly real PC deals much better than a Chrome kiosk OS.
Not everyone lives in Europe.
Also I bet that there are similar offers on their continent.
And pay heavy import duties, or maybe their items seized by customs.
Also I bet that there are similar offers on their continent.
Based on what evidence?
I'll start: Australasia - https://arkpc.com.au/
In the US, decent Chromebooks usually go for about 200 USD. Decent meaning intel mainstream core processors. From what I've seen, those tend to be well supported by 3rd party firmwares; Intel Atom based Chromebooks seem to have a lot of delays in support, ARM based seem to be mostly unsupported, I don't know about AMD based. It's better to confirm the 3rd party firmware details before purchase, of course, but Intel mainstream core is a good rule of thumb; and it's a good rule of thumb for performance too (although current AMD is likely better if you know you can boot your OS of choice)