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Comment by csmuk | Hacker News Reader

I disagree and find this is just another gushing fanboy defending fandom.

Chromebooks are fine for the 80% case like normal PCs but that last 20% is impossible unlike normal PCs. There are certain things that you just cannot do. It is disingenuous to market them as PC alternatives or general purpose computers.

They are merely different and not better

I'm not sure they are ethically acceptable either as they are solely to promote and lock people into google's ecosystem. This is a dangerous line to tread. Vendor lock in has been made socially acceptable now through years of marketing in a typical us vs them fashion. If you're not taking a side, you are an outcast.

And no I don't think installing Ubuntu on them is a good solution either.

I genuinely have nothing positive to say about them. And yes I have owned one.

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> There are certain things that you just cannot do.

Until you snag crouton and then all of a sudden you've got a plenty-fast linux laptop on top of a really nice SSD.

you must be using the phrase "plenty fast" in a way i'm not familiar! They are as slow as mollases. if you just want to do web browsing fine, but as soon as you put linux on it and do anything else it's like watching snails.

Crouton is a defeatist crutch, not a solution for every day use.

If you're using Crouton, you are denying yourself the flexibility of a proper computer artificially.

It's like buying a Prius and sticking a big exhaust and a spoiler on it. Just buy a different car.

Well, there's chrubuntu if you don't like Crouton.

There are also other, far superior laptops that run Ubuntu for the same money.

For example? I recently stepped on my ChroutonBook and am looking for a replacement.

Anything that isn't a ChromeBook that you can install either windows or Linux on be it new or second hand.

I'd suggest a second hand ThinkPad T series as that can definitely be stood on.

If there's something that can beat the Acer C720 in terms of performance/price w/SSD, I'd very much like to see it.

And if all you really need is a decent command prompt and build tools? :)

What $250 price point laptop is far superior?

Crouton is a pain in the ass, not least because you are stuck with much of ChromeOS when you go that route. You are better off just slapping Debian on it properly, unless you reeeaaally need to watch Netflix with it.

>And no I don't think installing Ubuntu on them is a good solution either.

Why?

Because you are promoting the product by contributing to sales figures and because far superior computers can be purchased for very little money. A cheap lenovo laptop can be had for the same price as a basic chromebook in the UK with a larger screen, 6Gb of RAM, 500Gb hard disk and DVD writer. You can choose to use windows that comes with it or install Ubuntu.

Cool, can you point me to a Lenovo that costs $250, weighs 1kg, has >6 hours of battery life, and preferably has no moving parts and runs totally silently?

No.

I can point you to one that weighs 2.5x that, barely manages 4 hours, has a rotating disk and is fairly quiet for that price.

But my printer will work with it so that makes it infinitely more valuable.

And I don't have to sign in to a google account nor be connected to the Internet to use it effectively.

So the point is that a Lenovo laptop is far superior for you, but maybe not for everyone. Maybe the people who talk about how great chromebooks are have come to different conclusions, based on different requirements?

Yes they have. Marketing. Which doesn't fairly represent needs.

Lenovo laptops suffer from eyestabbingly bad screens. To my knowledge, traditional PC laptops with better screens than the Pixel have been announced, but are not yet available for purchase.

No. The screens are fine. Your expectation is exceedingly high.

It doesn't make much of a difference at 2 feet away.

This is marketing carry over from high PPI displays on mobile devices where it does make a difference.

I beg to differ. I can fit several more xterms side by side on a pixel screen than on any thinkpad.

High DPI only becomes pointless if you scale everything up correspondingly. I don't do that.

The expectation that a laptop have a screen with more pixels than a smartphone is not unreasonably high. Excepting less is absurd. I used a eeepc 1001px with a 1024x600 prior to getting a chromebook pixel, and I used a 1680x1050 T60p before that. I am done with that shit resolutions.

Yes but you can't read them without getting eyestrain. I have perhaps three terminal windows open max and use cwm.

I've had old Dell 15" 1600x1200 laptops which aren't even near to that and that was virtually unusable. I'm now using a 14" 1440x900 and it's about right.

Accepting less is fine. Eating all the burgers on the table because they are there is absurd.

> "Yes but you can't read them without getting eyestrain."

Maybe I'm working on borrowed time with young eyes, or maybe I work too close to my screen, but I certainly can.

I am sitting here at work on a company T420 with a 14" screen at 1600x900. Laptop on my lap, back of the laptop at my knees with the screen tilted away from me and my body reclined away from it. Feet kicked up on another chair. ...I find this anything but satisfactory.

I can get two decent vertical panes with tmux over putty, with three being possible for some tasks. At home I frequently do double this, or more.

> It doesn't make much of a difference at 2 feet away.

Which is about the distance that most people hold their mobile devices. So why in your opinion is it not valid for laptops to have similar PPI?

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