Chromebook or small laptops, any experience?

I know how you feel. Over the holiday a nearby Best Buy tried to sell me a "refurb Toshiba laptop". They said it had no operating system. What it had was no hard drive. The bay was an open hole. I've worked electronics retail. I'm not going to blame Google, or Dell or even MS for a retailer not knowing the products they sell. They can Google it just as well as we can.

I've got a Samsung Chromebook 303C which I find is pretty good for writing. Since I'm comfortable using a command line, I installed Ubuntu on it using a system called Crouton. This runs the Chrome and Ubuntu desktops simultaneously, so you can switch between them with a few key presses. You can install almost any Linux software on the Ubuntu side, including traditional offline apps. I'm a fan of minimalist word processors, so I chose one called FocusWriter.

One limitation of this particular Chromebook model is that it has an ARM CPU instead of the usual Intel type, so it can only run software that can be compiled for ARM. This excludes most non-open-source software, notably Dropbox, which I would have found useful. But I can always email my writing to myself for backup purposes, or use a USB drive. Crouton sets up Ubuntu so that it uses the same Download folder as the Chrome desktop, which gives an easy way to transfer files between them.

Aside from the lack of Dropbox, I think the ARM chip gives a very nice combination of cheap + light + good battery life (I regularly get 7 hours or more). It's not very powerful, but I don't need a powerful machine for writing. It is extremely quiet, and the keyboard and trackpad are much better than on my old netbook. All in all I'm very happy with it.

Since you mentioned screens, some people have issues with the screen on the Samsung Chromebook. It's a non-glossy screen and the colours aren't particularly good; I'm happy with it, but some people seem to think it's not bright enough. I've heard the HP one is better in this regard. I bought mine before the HP came out, so I didn't get a choice.

Selcaby said:

I've got a Samsung Chromebook 303C which I find is pretty good for writing. Since I'm comfortable using a command line, I installed Ubuntu on it using a system called Crouton. This runs the Chrome and Ubuntu desktops simultaneously, so you can switch between them using the keyboard. You can install almost any Linux software on the Ubuntu side, including traditional offline apps. I'm a fan of minimalist word processors, so I chose one called FocusWriter.

One limitation of this particular Chromebook model is that it has an ARM CPU instead of the usual Intel type, so it can only run software that can be compiled for ARM. This excludes most non-open-source software, notably Dropbox, which I would have found useful. But I can always email my writing to myself for backup purposes, or use a USB drive. Crouton sets up Ubuntu so that it uses the same Download folder as the Chrome desktop, which gives an easy way to transfer files between them.

Aside from the lack of Dropbox, I think the ARM chip gives a very nice combination of cheap + light + good battery life (I regularly get 7 hours or more). It's not very powerful, but I don't need a powerful machine for writing. It is extremely quiet, and the keyboard and trackpad are much better than on my old netbook. All in all I'm very happy with it.

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I would be interested to see how Android runs on it. I had the opposite problem, I installed Android in virtual box in Ubuntu, but because my pc doesn't have an ARM processor, most of the apps don't work.

On a side note, how big is your hard drive, because I've heard that the chrome books are quite light on space

ave said:

I would be interested to see how Android runs on it. I had the opposite problem, I installed Android in virtual box in Ubuntu, but because my pc doesn't have an ARM processor, most of the apps don't work.

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The chip in the Samsung Chromebook is the same as in some of Samsung's Android devices. I didn't realise Android was usable without a touchscreen, though.

On a side note, how big is your hard drive, because I've heard that the chrome books are quite light on space

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It's only 16GB, and Chrome OS reserves a lot of that for itself. On the other hand, my first PC had only a 2GB hard drive, and I still used to dual-boot Linux from a partition the size of a CD. I keep my media library on my main computer and reserve the Chromebook for writing and web browsing, and I'm nowhere near hitting the space limit yet.

Selcaby said:

The chip in the Samsung Chromebook is the same as in some of Samsung's Android devices. I didn't realise Android was usable without a touchscreen, though.

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Now that you mention it I used a x86 iso from this site and the mouse works perfectly. Perhaps they had to fiddle the code to get it to work, who knows. I'm sure there must be a way to install android on a chromebook seeing as how the architecture is so similar

Selcaby said:

It's only 16GB, and Chrome OS reserves a lot of that for itself. On the other hand, my first PC had only a 2GB hard drive, and I still used to dual-boot Linux from a partition the size of a CD. I keep my media library on my main computer and reserve the Chromebook for writing and web browsing, and I'm nowhere near hitting the space limit yet.

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My tablet is 32gb, and even with some resource hungry games installed I haven't yet reached 16GB. I just keep all my media files on an external hard drive.

kuwisdelu said:

The Surface runs Windows RT which comes with MS Office. It also runs on ARM (the same kind of chip used in smartphones and most tablets) and cannot run traditional Windows desktop apps (except for MS Office). Otherwise, it's limited to tablet-style apps from the Windows Store.

The Surface Pro runs full Windows 8 Pro, uses the same Intel core chips as traditional notebooks, and can run traditional desktop apps, but it does not come with MS Office (but you can buy it separately).

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With a live/msn account there's something similar to google docs as well.

Wilde_at_heart said:

With a live/msn account there's something similar to google docs as well.

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It's called SkyDrive, and is in the process of renaming itself to OneDrive.

ave said:

On a side note, how big is your hard drive, because I've heard that the chrome books are quite light on space

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The onboard storage tends to be 16 or 32 gigs, but they support a number of cards as well as USB keychain/thumb drives.

Medievalist said:

The onboard storage tends to be 16 or 32 gigs, but they support a number of cards as well as USB keychain/thumb drives.

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I'm so used to my nexus not having any card support that I don't even think about this anymore. That's a very good point you make.

Medievalist said:

The onboard storage tends to be 16 or 32 gigs, but they support a number of cards as well as USB keychain/thumb drives.

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Yes, mine has an SD card slot and a couple of USB ports. You wouldn't want to leave a card in there all the time though - it would stick out.

You might want to look at the Asus Transformer T100; it comes with Windows 8.1 and Microsoft Office (Word! Yay!) and works as both a tablet and laptop, and has about 11 hours of battery life. There is a choice between 32 and 64GB.
I just got one, and apart from hating Windows 8, I really like it

Bushrat said:

You might want to look at the Asus Transformer T100; it comes with Windows 8.1 and Microsoft Office (Word! Yay!) and works as both a tablet and laptop, and has about 11 hours of battery life. There is a choice between 32 and 64GB.

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Will it run anything other than Win8, d'you know? Good battery life there!

Selcaby said:

One limitation of this particular Chromebook model is that it has an ARM CPU instead of the usual Intel type, so it can only run software that can be compiled for ARM. This excludes most non-open-source software, notably Dropbox, which I would have found useful.

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It turns out that Dropbox does release source for some of its software: https://www.dropbox.com/help/247/en That doesn't mean it can be compiled as-is for an ARM target, but someone may have tried.

Alexys said:

It turns out that Dropbox does release source for some of its software: https://www.dropbox.com/help/247/en That doesn't mean it can be compiled as-is for an ARM target, but someone may have tried.

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Yes, I tried that. It's only for the UI - putting sync status badges on icons and so forth. It's no use without the Dropbox daemon, which they do not release the source code for.

Bushrat said:

You might want to look at the Asus Transformer T100; it comes with Windows 8.1 and Microsoft Office (Word! Yay!) and works as both a tablet and laptop, and has about 11 hours of battery life. There is a choice between 32 and 64GB.
I just got one, and apart from hating Windows 8, I really like it

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I'm glad someone mentioned this, as I was going to. I have an old ASUS netbook that I did love to use for writing at one point, but it's too old to be useful of late. That was the problem with netbooks, they tended not to last as long as regular laptops.

Lately, though, I've been looking at the ASUS Transformer books, tablets that come with attachable keyboards running Windows 8 - and up here stores are selling them with a free copy of Microsoft Office for students. The insides are also apparently good enough to play World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, and other games on it, though odds are good the graphic quality wouldn't be great. Here in Canada the 32 GB model runs for about $399.99, the 64GB runs for $449.99

When I get a job, and have some spending money, I'm torn between picking one of these up, or a playstation 4

Reziac said:

Will it run anything other than Win8, d'you know? Good battery life there!

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No, I think you're stuck with Windows 8.1 What a crappy OS

Bushrat said:

No, I think you're stuck with Windows 8.1 What a crappy OS

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Is it locked down in the BIOS, or what?

Cuz normally it's "any Winversion for which drivers exist".

Devil's in the drivers, man.

And I ain't talking Ledbetter, neether.

There's a favorable review of Chromebooks at Dear Author today: http://dearauthor.com/features/essays/my-two-months-with-a-chromebook/

I do all my business, writing, engineering, and music on Alienware laptops. Unfortunately, they're a bit spendy for the average writer's budget.