TuxDave
Lifer
- Oct 8, 2002
- 10,571
- 3
- 71
I knew about Netflix and Skype problems. But we don't use either so it's non-issue with us. If it's fixed, great. If not, fine too.
This Chromebook is what I always wanted Netbook to be. Sadly I never found the perfect Netbook. Til now. I own two Netbooks. I had one POS Acer that died within the first year. I never even bothered with fixing it under warranty since it was a piece of shIt. I replaced it with Asus and while it was better than Acer, it wasn't much better. All Netbooks I tried were slow and unresponsive even for basic tasks and web browsing. But I dealt with it since the Netbook I really wanted, Macbook Air was $1100. I always felt Macbook Air was the perfect Netbook for browsing the web, checking email, and light document work. And the form factor was just about perfect. Chromebook is all that plus it's even better than Macbook Air since it doesn't even have fan and has the option of 3G radio. I absolutely love the silence and how the notebook barely gets warm. Lack of any moving parts like hard drive means I don't have to worry about durability and hard drive dying. Everything is instant, fast, and responsive. Full desktop web browsing, speed, and keyboard is great. Battery life is awesome and I can use it basically all day. It is Macbook Air for people who only wanted it for web, email, documents, pictures, and other light tasks. I wasn't willing to pay $1100 for just for that use but $250 Macbook Air is perfect. And I don't even have to deal with the heat and fan like I would on the Air.
People have different needs and Chromebook isn't for everyone. But for someone looking for specialized Macbook Air, there's not a better machine especially for the price.
I share your disappointment with Netbooks and that's why it makes me skeptical of the Chromebook. Technically it ran WinXP fine, but it was just sooooo noticeably sluggish. Surfing around was ok, some webpages caused it to stutter. It was a miserable experience. The Chromebook has improved (although as Anand posted in his review, sluggishness does come up), it's still limited mainly because of its OS. I don't really know what Google is trying to do with pushing Android and now pushing Chrome OS. As you mentioned, crucial apps like Skype or Netflix isn't even available. So again, so surfing and email is better, but still you can't depend on it. At least for the Android and iOS devices, they have a huge app library to make up for the fact that it's a non-Windows OS and so you can't install whatever or run anything. I don't really get what Chrome OS has going for it. $250 is relatively cheap, but $250 is still large enough to spend it wisely.