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Comment by mrbill | Hacker News Reader

Ordered. I absolutely love my ARM-based Chromebook, and have wished for the same specs with a bit better construction and build quality. This is absolutely perfect for my needs, and the keyboard looks to be marginally better as well.

I've hardly touched my MB Air (2012 refurb) since I got the Chromebook. Small and light enough to throw in any bag/backpack without care, cheap enough to not worry about theft.

I don't mind it being the same CPU and RAM specs as the original; I don't need much for the Chrome browser and a SSH session to the beefy server where I do most of my work.

Also owned the C7 Chromebook for a while; upgraded it to SSD and 8G of RAM, but it felt like an abomination with the fans, heat it put out, etc. Sold it to a friend, who absolutely loves it.

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I can understand buying a Chromebook instead of a Macbook Air, but I see lots of people saying that they have both yet still prefer the Chromebook. What is it that makes a Chromebook so much better than a Macbook that has vastly superior construction, better battery life, and significantly more power?

The Macbook air is small enough to take anywhere, and let me assure you, people will steal anything. Didn't Stallman's ridiculous 200MHZ laptop with a monochrome screen get stolen at an airport or something?

Chrome OS itself can't possibly be that compelling, so does this suggest that people just want a Macbook Air form-factor that runs Linux well?

I don't own either device, I'm just intrigued by the fact that so many people seem to be replacing Macbook Airs with them.

I have an rMBP and a Pixel. I actually prefer the Pixel most of the time - it's smaller and lighter while still packing a high-density display, has a fantastic build quality, and is just zippy. The built-in LTE radio is handy for when I'm out and about, too. The sleep/wake times are incredible (it's generally woken up before I've fully opened the lid), so it's trivially easy to just flip the lid closed, go somewhere, flip it open, and keep doing what I'm doing.

ChromeOS is perfectly functional for so many use cases (though not all of them). I do all my development on a Linux machine on my home network through SSH anyhow, so I can work at my Windows desktop, or pick up the Macbook or Chromebook and continue working easily. It actually outperforms the Macbook in regards to video (I can't watch fullscreen on the rMBP without it going all laggy).

I still go for the Macbook sometimes, but if I just need a portable terminal and browser, the Chromebook is perfect.

I think I could do about 80% of my online life with something like a Chromebook (I'm also looking forward to seeing what the ASUS T100 is all about). I just want something light to take with me for some note taking, email, watching videos, surfing the web. Mostly what I'd use a tablet for, except I need a keyboard to effectively communicate on the web. Some remoting to servers, etc....

I have a full 15" MBPRo, and it'd be nice to not lug that around on the weekends and such.

But then again, maybe we just get a Surface Pro 2 (or similar) and replace everything.

So many choices with how to manage your technology lifestyle now.

As to theft: I think the argument is that you care much less if the Chromebook gets stolen, not that it's much less likely to occur. It's a quarter of the price to replace, and you likely don't have any data on it that's not synced to cloud services.

I personally couldn't bring myself to switch to a Chromebook. My personal time on the computer constitutes ~25% coding and ~75% in the browser. If I did not code, ever, then I would probably invest in a Chromebook. Since I do, I'd prefer to have a Macbook Air or a similar machine.

My girlfriend, on the other hand, spends all of her time in the browser. All she does on the computer is write her papers, surfs the web and check her email/calendar. She could save nearly $700 by purchasing a Chromebook versus the 11" Macbook Air. The Chromebook fills a growing niche, the users who need more than a tablet, but less than a fully-blown desktop machine.

I have zero problems remotely coding. Nothing beats a good Vim environment.

Not everyone is a webdev though. Try todo some C#, Java development (that basically require a decent IDE) or anything graphics related (games) via a remote connection and you will see its justs not there yet.

It's a good question and frankly I was quite surprised to realize, after using my chromebook for a while, that I was subconsciously turning to the chromebook rather than the macbook for browsing because the experience is just better. If you are looking for the least clunky way to browse the Web, it's not the Apple product (that was the surprise). Chrome OS boots faster and feels much lighter without all the icons and menus that you find in a regular OS.

The ARM chromebook also feels nicer because it has no fan. This simple detail makes it feel less like a computer and more like a tablet.

The most astonishing is that these two points give the ARM chromebook the edge over the macbook even despite its very poor screen.

That being said, I do occasionally turn to the macbook for in-browser work, when the low power of the ARM chromebook is too palpable.

For me personally Chrome OS is that compelling, that is what I like about Chromebooks. The browser, where I live 90% of the time on computers, is the default view in Chrome OS. And I get an extremely secure OS that acts as a dummy terminal to more powerful computers.

Exactly. I do all of my development in vim on a vm hosted elsewhere. A chromebook seems like the perfect 'dumb-terminal' for what I need. I'm mostly concerned about the screen resolution, so I'm tempted by the pixel, but it's more than I want to spend.

Basically, I love the concept of a computer that I don't have to setup, worry about backing up, etc. By using a remote VM, I get access to a more powerful machine that is backed up daily, and I won't misplace. This is the main advantage of "the cloud" (or whatever you want to call it) to me.

Chrome OS "gets out of the way", and it's very easy for most people to use, since it's just a browser. Steve Jobs would've appreciated it.

You can actually replace 1 Macbook Air with 4 Chromebooks

But more generally, most of the things most people do on a laptop can be (or are) done in the browser. You can even do image and video editing in the browser nowadays, as well as programming.

> You can actually replace 1 Macbook Air with 4 Chromebooks

If the web browser is your only application...

I seriously doubt there are many people with MBAs that prefer using a Chromebook. It's worse in every way except cost.

This entirely depends on each person's specific use case. It's not a black or white answer. Sure, the MBA is "better" - and more expensive - but it's also a case of the Chromebook being "good enough" for a lot of tasks where the MBA is overkill.

Also you can quickly wipe the thing before entering a situation where it might get lost/stolen/confiscated [1]. Then take 5 minutes to set it up again on the other end.

[1]: Such as:

- A sketchy neighborhood

- Leaving it at home while you're away for a long time

- Customs/border (where 4th amendment is N/A)

- Non-border transfer at LHR (e.g. David Miranda)

> - Non-border transfer at LHR (e.g. David Miranda)

No, in this case the authorities would have asked google to seize/snoop on your account ages ago, so they wouldn't need to bother.

ChromeOS may be the right answer in some cases, but secure against authorities it is not - please don't kid yourself.

If they're after you in particular, yes. But the standards for seizure at the border are basically at the customs officer's discretion and requires no forethought or preparation. They can just decide you are suspicious and take your machine, making a copy if they like.

Also, you can encrypt all settings and history locally before syncing in ChromeOS. While that won't help your gmail account or search history, those are products you can much more easily use alternatives to while still using ChromeOS itself. That leaves you vulnerable pretty much only to the authorities forcing google to send you a corrupted update, which can't be trivial and is an even higher barrier protecting you from casual and dragnet snooping.

Many not-high-profile people are forced to turn over their electronics at the border on a regular basis. A device that you can wipe and restore once you're through customs is quite valid here.

> cheap enough to not worry about theft

This is definitely a valid point. I'm terrified of losing my macbook pro :-/

Just curious, what are your use cases with it? I've been considering one as a cheap Linux dev box but it seems like installing a second OS is a pain and that there's little to no HD space left after doing so. I've been eyeing a Sony laptop that costs ~$370 bit it is quite bulky.

This. As much as I like Google, I've griped before that the Chromebook is a tempting but raw deal for a power user.

[1] You get a pretty locked down laptop that you have to boot into developer mode to do anything useful (which adds an additional 5-second boot time) [2] I'm a happy camper at setting up dual-boot systems with Windows laptops, but crouton sounds like a pain to me. [3] Limited disk space: I would think we would need at least a 64 GB or 128 GB SSD to do anything useful.

Note that I'm only speaking as a power-user. IMHO, the Chromebook is actually a great laptop for the older generation and people who use web-based products all the time ... but I do wish Google had put in some more though on how to make it useful for power users who need the Linux utilities as well as Eclipse, Thunderbird, and other X-based applications etc.

I really hate having to buy a good laptop that has Windows pre-installed and having to wipe it out just to install Ubuntu/variants, but it still is my only choice at this point. (Yes, I realize there are companies that produce pre-installed Linux laptops, but their build quality doesn't compare to the HP/Dell/Asus/Samsung kind.)

The Pixel's got 64 GB available, and afaik, crouton's pretty easy to install: http://lifehacker.com/how-to-install-linux-on-a-chromebook-a...

Note: not that I'm suggesting you get one, I'm just adding what I know. I've been tempted by the screen: the LTE version with a DigitalOcean SSD-based VM to do all the painful work (and completely disposable, my favorite part), combined with that screen for text editing, makes a lovely combination.

But, I just run Arch on a thinkpad. I still get a little kick when I boot a machine the first time I get it, try out the hardware to make sure it all works, get annoyed with windows being utterly awful, and then get to wipe it over. I might dd it with all zeroes first, depending on how annoying it was :-)

I find the 32GB Pixel more than adequate, but admittedly I am probably weird that way. The last time my primary computer happened to have 32GB was only 2007 and I've never really grown out of those usage patterns.

> IMHO, the Chromebook is actually a great laptop for the older generation and people who use web-based products all the time

I think a lot of us in the younger generation do this too, including the more tech savvy. I'm a software engineer in my 20s and my Chromebook is just fine for me 95% of the time. Sometimes I wish it had a little more RAM for when I get lazy about closing tabs, but that's about it: it's rare that I care about desktop apps.

Chromebooks are convenient if you fall on the lightweight side of the "power user" spectrum. With the help of Crouton, a chrooted "traditional" Linux environment is easy to set up. If all you need is Emacs, your command line utilities, and 10 gb of disk space for active development, then you would be surprised at how capable chromebooks are as lightweight development machines.

Yeah I have been wanting to pick a Chromebook up for exactly the same thing. I can imagine Arch with Awesome being great on one but it seems Google have made it a pain in the ass to get rid of Chrome OS and stick something else on. While I live in my browser I still work in a text editor/IDE and need a terminal with GCC and other bits. Lenovo have some nice portable machines but, like you said about the Sony, they are bulky.

I would love a Chromebook I could easily install a Linux distro on (I don't mind which, I can work within any distro quite happily although I would pick Debian if I had a choice) with a good 13" screen of 1440x900 (IPS). Don't care or want touch. A solid trackpad with multitouch. All the ports on the left (like this HP) as I am right handed an use a mouse to the right mostly so anything plugged in there gets in my way. A 128GB PCIe SSD. 8GB RAM. 8+ hour battery life. CPU I don't really mind but an Intel i3 would be the best (for me) due to compatibility with everything else. Backlit keyboard would be awesome. I am sure they could do all that for $500 or less. Even if I can't take Chrome OS off and have to dual boot that is fine with me as I quite like Chrome OS for a lot of things and only need a real OS for work. If anybody knows of such a machine please let me know!

>at $500 or less

You might be interested in our 2016 models.

Ok I am pushing it a bit with the 128GB SSD but if you stick a standard HDD in there they should be able to keep it at £500 or less quite easily. There are similar spec machines in the 15" range from Acer and others for that sort of price it would just mean scaling down to 13" :)

Buy this and then apply http://blog.zfeldman.com/2013-10-05-setting-up-a-chromebook-... and/or http://afaqdar.blogspot.com/2013/10/5-different-chromebook-d... to solve your needs?

Bookmarked to read later. Thanks!

Seems like your best bet would be an Intel Chromebook like the Acer C7 - you can easily swap the SSD with bigger one, add RAM and install XFCE/Unity using one of the many options.

It has fans though and you will notice those! And the battery life isn't stellar. But at least it is cheap and relatively light weight and comes with USB ports.

The Acer C720 actually looks quite nice although AFAICT you still can't wipe and install your own OS? You have to use the same methods as we currently have like crouton.

That's right. Something to do with the different type of firmware used in the Chromebooks you couldn't install Windows on them. XFCE on ChromeOS is as close as you'll get.

I don't care about Windows but Chrome OS is based on Gentoo so why the hell can't I just install some other Linux distro like I do on any other computer? It annoys me that it is coming to the end of 2013 and I still can't get the kind of laptop I want running Linux. The closest I can get is the Dell XPS 13 DE but I don't want to run Ubuntu and people I know with them have found getting other distros to work well a pain in the ass. I don't know if things are any better now as I know Dell was trying to improve things for other distros by making drivers more available outside of Ubuntu.

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