Chromebook

I was pleased recently to have the opportunity to examine and review a Google Chromebook by Acer.  The Chromebook is a “non-traditional” laptop running the Chrome operating system, as opposed to a Windows operating system.  Chromebooks are made by a number of different manufacturers in cooperation with Google.  They are non-traditional in that they depend on the Internet rather than a processor and hard-drive for most of what they do.  All of the typical productivity programs—programs for word processing, presentations, spreadsheets, etc. are housed on the web.  The documents produced are also intended to be stored on the web (although they can be stored locally on the Chromebook.) In fact, without an Internet connection a reviewer in the CNET Community states that “these laptops are pretty much like a paper weight.”

Because of their reliance on the Internet, rather than high end processors and enormous hard drives, the price for Chromebooks start at around $200.  At that price ACPS could by five of them for what we have been paying for a single laptop computer—and we would save on the cost of software as well. There can be little doubt, that somewhere in the future, school systems will supply computing devices on a one to one ratio with their students.  This price puts that day within reach.  Thus, our technology department is taking a close look at them. 

I was quickly impressed by a couple of things with the particular Chromebook I looked at. First, by eliminating the frame around the keyboard, the 11” by 8” case is able to house a keyboard as large as the one on my laptop.  Second, after using our current laptops, one also has to be impressed with the start-up time of a Chromebook.  They boot up in seconds and once started, you generally close the lid, they go to sleep, and they wake up instantly when you open the lid.

One of the drawbacks of this particular model is the relatively short battery life of four hours. The machine I reviewed has a 16 GB internal memory, although, at the same price Acer currently offers a model with 100 GB of memory. I should also mention that in the interest of keeping the Chromebook light weight and portable, they do not come equipped with CD drives. 

The low cost of Chromebooks seems to invite comparisons to iPads and other tablets.  One big advantage of the Chromebook over most tablets is that they have more ports—USB ports, a VGA port, a place to plug in speakers.  I gave these a try—I plugged in speakers, an external monitor, and a keyboard.  They all worked immediately without any of this “found new hardware” rigmarole.  As far as storage devices go, I plugged in an external hard drive, a USB drive and a memory card.  I found that the Chromebook had no problem reading jpgs, document files or MP3 files created on my Windows computer.  I didn't try my USB turntable (for vinyl records) because there is no Audacity type software available for the Chromebook at this point. 

Another interesting point of comparison with an iPad is that whereas Flash doesn't work on an iPad,  Java and Silverlight will not work on Chromebooks.  As a consequence of that, sites such as Successmaker and Imagine Learning will not work on a Chromebook without some type of virtualization.

The lack of an Audacity type program brings out one disadvantage of “cloud computing” as opposed to running programs locally.  Audacity is the only program I found, in my one week trial, that didn't have a free substitute available through Google or the Chromestore.   There are free, on line, photo and movie editors which work just fine on Chromebooks.   I understand that if you are into gaming, a Chromebook is probably not what you are looking for.  Because it is being done over the Internet, I experienced a bit more delay in response time as I made changes in word documents, etc.  The speed of one’s Internet connection is a big factor with a Chromebook.

There are, however, a number of advantages to cloud computing.  The files I create are available not only from the Chromebook but from my school issued laptop and iPad and potentially from  a smart phone.  When opening the Chrome browser, from any device,  I can scroll through home pages displaying thumbnails of frequently visited webpages (similar to Internet Explorer) and Icons for various apps from the Chromestore.  To me, these apps seem something like a hybrid between a web page and an iPad app. 

Overall, if one keeps in mind their limitations and realizes that they are not suitable for every application, then they are an excellent machine for the price.