Chromebook Question

[THRiLL KiLL]

Recently i got a chromebook acer c710 series. I had it a week before i returned it. (everytime i would do anything video intensive, watching movies, youtube, etc i would get a burning plastic smell. newegg refunded my money instead of sending a new one.

that got me interested in ultra portables, 2 laptops later (hp 11.6 amd e350 and then a dell venue pro 11) i find my self still wanting the chromebook

i need help deciding what one to get. I will primary be using this for watching videos and youtube.

the debate is between 3 diffrent ones.

the acer c710 (where i can upgrade the memory and hdd space)
the acer c720 (faster proc, more battery life)
hp chromebook 11 (ips screen, poor build quality)

would the c710 be faster with 8gb ram, and a 120gb samsung 830 ssd then the c720, or does the 30% faster proc on the c720 justify the less ram?

 

[DaveSimmons]

For watching videos and youtube, a SSD and more than 4 GB RAM will not help with ChromeOS. You want the faster processor.

 

[THRiLL KiLL]

that helps narrow it down to the 720

now with the announcement of the apps from google play store coming to chromebooks, should i waste the money on a touchscreen...

 

[CuriousMike]

The touchscreen question is a good one.
The announcement makes me excited for the future of my Chromebook.

 

[ninaholic37]

Apparently a new C720 is coming out in July/August with an i3-4005U, 32GB SSD and 4GB RAM:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Acer...Haswell-in-Pre-Order-for-360-264-448311.shtml

At ~$360 it doesn't seem as good of a deal though.

 

[s44]

hp chromebook 11 (ips screen, poor build quality)

What!? The original HP 11 is much better built than the C720. And the screen makes it by far the best for video/Youtube.

 

[Muyoso]

I have owned multiple Chromebooks and currently own (and am typing this response on) an HP Chromebook 14. Here are some things to note about Chromebooks:

Do not buy an ARM based Chromebook.
- At this point, no ARM based Chromebook has arrived which has a single advantage over the Intel based Chromebooks. You will bring the ARM processor to its knees while doing simple browsing and you will start to hate your laptop. I have experienced it. Also, if you get an Intel based Chromebook it gives you the option of running Ubuntu if you ever want to delve into the mess that is linux.

Touch screen is essentially useless now, but maaaaaaybe
- Don't buy a touchscreen Chromebook thinking that in a month Google is going to have thousands of Android apps ported to ChromeOS, which would be the only real reason to splurge for the feature. Currently ChromeOS is not really optimized for touch, and while it works and works well, there really isn't much point to it. Once Android apps start to arrive, the feature could be and probably will be something you wish you had. Which brings us to how fast Google will be porting over Android apps. I hope I am wrong, but I dont think this is something that we will be seeing anytime soon. Perhaps in the fall we will see a handful of apps ported over when they officially roll out Android L, but i dont think Android apps on ChromeOS will be a major feature until at LEAST next Google IO.


You can get these things for really next to nothing. Refurbished models are on sale all the time for ridiculously cheap prices. I saw a refurbished HP Chromebook 14, the same model I have, with lifetime 4g 200mb free, on sale for $189 the other day. Get on slickdeals and find the model you want. Even if you hate it, you can just chuck it up on craigslist and you won't lose any money selling it most likely.

 

[s44]

- At this point, no ARM based Chromebook has arrived which has a single advantage over the Intel based Chromebooks.

Wrong. The only way to get a decent screen is with ARM. (Unless you're made of money and buy a Pixel.)

Refurbished models are on sale all the time for ridiculously cheap prices. I saw a refurbished HP Chromebook 14, the same model I have, with lifetime 4g 200mb free, on sale for $189 the other day. Get on slickdeals and find the model you want. Even if you hate it, you can just chuck it up on craigslist and you won't lose any money selling it most likely.

Good advice.

 

[Muyoso]

Wrong. The only way to get a decent screen is with ARM. (Unless you're made of money and buy a Pixel.)

Good advice.

Yea, it sucks that the displays on the intel based laptops are TN panels with low resolution, but personally I think they are good enough, especially for the price. I think the performance boost the intel based chromebooks have over the ARM based ones is worth taking the hit on the display.

 

[Vesku]

If you just plan to use the default Chrome OS then I recommend going with a Haswell Acer C720 or similar. However, if you plan to run Chrubuntu or completely replace Chrome OS with another Linux distro then I can recommend the C710, using the C710-2834 with Fedora with self installed 8GB of RAM and 120GB SSD. Shame the Haswell versions ditched the memory slots, wouldn't mind the extra battery life.

Display is fine especially given the price.