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Chromebooks

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…are about to get awesome.

This seems like what I probably need. My Gateway laptop is impossible to use on a plane unless I’m in first class (which I rarely am), and it’s getting a little long in the tooth, with some keys starting to fail. It also tends to hang after a while in Fedora 23. So if I can replace it with something with a touchscreen and separate keyboard, compatible with my Android phone, that’s probably the way to go now.

11 thoughts on “Chromebooks”

      1. There is very limited local file storage. But for the most part, you need cloud or a local file server from what I have read.

  2. I was tired of my Sony and it’s dreadfully slow Windows system, but didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a new machine. After investigating Chromebooks, I decided to try one. $175 for an Acer, and I couldn’t be happier. The Google office suite is perfectly fine for almost all purposes (though Sheets – Google’s Excel – maddeningly lacks “goal seek”).

    The one thing I did want to have is something akin to MathCad, which I’ve used for 30 years. Wolfram now has Mathematica in a cloud-only version, so I subscribe to that. Now I can do everything I do on any computer.

    Local storage can be done with an SD card, but has never been an issue anyway. I’ve never been without an internet connection, though I’ve had to use my iPhone hot spot on occasion. Amazingly, the speed remains quite high even then.

    The best parts are that the device weighs less than two pounds, and has a battery that lasts nine hours. It’s perfect for travel, but I use it as my home office device as well. Best computer purchase for basic work I’ve ever made.

    2. We got one for use by our middle-schooler, and it’s been great for that; it’ll be a no-brainer to do the same for our youngest in a couple years. I’m even considering one as a secondary computer for myself when the next generation comes out…

      That said, I’d go a notch or two above the base models. You can get a perfectly functional machine for under $200, but for $300 and change you get twice the RAM and a better keyboard and screen, which makes a huge difference. For $400-500 you get a high-end laptop body with chromebook guts; those are very intriguing.

  3. …All your bases are belong to us…

    Cloud storage is an easy way to back up your data. But in no way should it be a total replacement for local storage either.

    Maybe I’m paranoid, but I don’t believe in an all eggs in one basket strategy either. As long as Google Cloud services allow local backups I would have no problem with that.

    But as with all types of SaS (Software As a Service) who actually “owns” your data is always of paramount importance. Today the cloud service providers fall over backwards to stake the claim that “you do”. And that’s fine as far as it goes. A decade down the road that might become a more problematical proposition, esp. if the cloud providers decide to raise their rates. And they undoubtedly will. It’s a double edged sword. It will be easy to subscribe to larger and larger amounts of storage, but rue the day when a price hike is offered with no recompense. And the kicker? Network speeds will not keep apace with storage capacity. Thus if you’ve abandoned local storage altogether it may not actually be *possible* to recover all your cloud storage within your lifetime. You are then in the unenviable position of pick and choose. Or pay or be cut off. Or pay an enhanced surcharge to get a speed boost that will allow you to make a copy to local storage before you die.

    Ahhh the urban angst of the 2040s…. Do we ditch grandpa’s baby pics of our parents? For that matter do we flush grandpa & grandma down the memory hole altogether? Their data is getting expensive…

    1. Eh. Network speeds are already plenty good enough to download and save unreasonable amounts of anything but video footage, and even that may be doable.

      I’m also unconvinced about pricing going up. The trend in IT till now has been geometric drops in pricing, not increases. Front page of the local computer parts store has a 5 TB external drive for $130, and we all know that’ll seem absurdly overpriced in three years…

      1. Network speeds may seem adequate today. But I think you fail to grasp the enormity of data that will be “in the cloud” in 20 years time. Think high def video well beyond today’s 4K, probably some kind of immersive data tech that even goes beyond today’s VR. Every piece of homework or anything you ever wrote, sang, performed, participated in as a kid and as a family, preschool to college will be in the cloud. Tax forms, medical records, credit card receipts, banking data, employment data, parking tickets, who you voted for, or when you didn’t vote, what do you have your thermostat set to, whats in your refrigerator, how’s you car running? Where’s it been? Where ARE you? How are YOU running today? Heart-rate, breath rate, blood O2, skin temperature, and if your helicopter parents had you chipped as a baby even more… Data about you you never knew existed will be there too. There will be companies glad to sell you a service to mine all that data about you, you didn’t know existed. Data handed down from parents to children, etc. that was actually never on a physical device. It’s primarily a question of cost of infrastructure. As we’ve already seen and as you say, storage costs are dropping fast, and when that storage is concentrated at a cloud service the economies of scale get even better. Network infrastructure? Well that requires physical infrastructure that is costly to deploy. And don’t forget it comes at a cost to the cloud providers as well. An example of this asymmetry exists today: the common video services like You-Tube, Vimeo , etc. They are great at downloading & watching, but have you tried uploading? Another story, it’s like living in 1991 with dial-up again… Cloud storage providers will be faced with this performance dichotomy big time and will undoubtedly optimize for data most recently used. You want same speed access to ALL your data? That will cost you extra, and they may not even offer it.

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