7 ms·

I'm not a kid in school, but a highly paid software engineer and I have gone with a Chromebook. It does what I do, surf the internet and for 10+ hours on a sing

I'm not a kid in school, but a highly paid software engineer and I have gone with a Chromebook. It does what I do, surf the internet and for 10+ hours on a single charge. When I want to do some programming, I just ssh into my several-year-old Linux desktop and use tmux + vim. If ChromeOS opened up its Linux internals without using the crouton hack, it would destroy every other platform out there.

danieldk 9y ago
For a little more, you can get a Windows laptop that runs Office, Adobe Suite and a full Ubuntu environment per Windows Subsystem for Linux. (I am a Mac user, but Windows + WSL would probably be my first choice after a Mac. Especially if Microsoft would stop spying on their users.)
- UnoriginalGuy 9y ago
  And 3 hours of battery life. There are Windows Laptops with good 10+ hour battery life (e.g. Thinkpads). But they aren't a "little more" they're $1K+. Chromebooks are around $250-400.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    My netbook Eee PC manages 5h.
  - JohnTHaller 9y ago
    You haven't looked at Windows laptops in a long time. You can get a 15" 1080p laptop with 8gb of ram and a 256gb SSD that gets 10+ hours of battery life for just north of $500 now. Here's an example with all that plus a dedicated graphics card for $549: https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-E5-575G-53VG-15-6-Inch-Windows/dp/B01DT4A2R4 https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-E5-575G-53VG-15-6-Inch-Wi... Or without the dedicated graphics for $470: https://m.newegg.com/products/N82E16834315779 https://m.newegg.com/products/N82E16834315779
    - VLM 9y ago
      If its OK to play the "why not double the price" game then at $500 you're getting close to why not get a mac laptop for $1K?
      - liareye 9y ago
        because he wants to be productive, not "work" on twitter and facebook all day.
      - danieldk 9y ago
        I am in the Mac camp (as mentioned upthread), but I think there is a serious risk here for Apple. That $550 Acer has the same amount of memory and an as large SSD as my new 2016 MacBook Pro that is Euro 1699 new. Plus a dedicated graphics card. Of course, the MacBook will have a better quality, but the price gaps between MacBooks and similarly spec'ed laptops are getting quite large. Currently, a Mac or not is not a question for me. I prefer macOS with such a wide margin over Windows and Linux (for the desktop) that I am willing to pay the premium. Moreover, macOS has many applications that I like and are not available on other platforms (OmniGraffle, OmniFocus, Alfred, Tweetbot, Pastebot, etc.). However, after trying WSL I for the first time had the feeling that Windows could become an alternative to consider.
      - JohnTHaller 9y ago
        It's a direct response to this incorrect claim: "There are Windows Laptops with good 10+ hour battery life (e.g. Thinkpads). But they aren't a "little more" they're $1K+" They aren't $1k+. They're literally a little more than the $400 Chromebook.
        jdietrich 9y ago
        You can buy a perfectly usable Chromebook for $170. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019G7VPTC/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019G7VPTC/
        JohnTHaller 9y ago
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- jcastro 9y ago
  Depends on the use case, chromebook for battery life and speed of updates is nice.
- was_boring 9y ago
  Yes, you can, but my question would be why would you want to? I don't know anyone personally who uses Office or Adobe for anything but work. Even then, the vast majority of professional use of Office is handled perfectly well by their online offering or Google's Docs. Image manipulation and video editing are the only reasons I can think of someone would want something other than the hardware of a Chromebook. If Google opened up the Linux internals or made it dead simple to dual boot they would have a perfectly good development environment for web developers as well.
  - danieldk 9y ago
    Even then, the vast majority of professional use of Office is handled perfectly well by their online offering or Google's Docs. In a lot of professional environments it is not. First of all, many employers do not like uploading documents into a cloud. Secondly, in an organization that uses Microsoft Office (which is probably still the vast majority of organizations), it is often not a replacement. A lot of Office files (especially with macros, etc.) do not work properly. Colleagues expect you return a document with updates with Office's 'track changes' functionality ("here, you have a Google Docs link with my changes to your Word document" will not fly). I think Microsoft still has a large advantage in big organizations, due to their traditional dominance. And Office 365/Exchange has added collaboration features as well (that work with Office on Mac and Windows).
    - bspn 9y ago
      > I think Microsoft still has a large advantage in big organizations, due to their traditional dominance I agree, and in fact would extend it to dominance in entire industries where compatibility is key. I can imagine if a lawyer returned a 100 page M&A agreement via Google Docs they would be laughed out of the room and told to try again. Or an accountant sharing a company's entire set of financial statements in Google Sheets rather than Excel - same result. Cloud collaboration offerings are fantastic tools in my opinion, particularly for lightweight idea sharing. I know Google has grand plans for its productivity suite, but I think it will be an uphill battle to de-throne Microsoft anytime soon due to its widespread acceptance in a lot of industries as the "standard".
- tdicola 9y ago
  You also get worse battery life, constant updates at the most inopportune times (that you can't even control anymore), advertisements in your OS, and very sketchy security/privacy.
  - sz4kerto 9y ago
    Genuine question: how can the privacy of e.g. Windows (that sends back _some_ data, supposedly mostly telemetry to MS) than an environment that runs fully inside Google?
    - criddell 9y ago
      It depends on who you trust more.
- JCharante 9y ago
  > a full Ubuntu environment per Windows Subsystem for Linux The Windows Subsystem for Linux was so much slower than just running Ubuntu the last time I tries, the only reason I have for booting into windows is to update the skill queues for my eve characters once every few months.
bluedino 9y ago
Ssh'ing into Linux servers and using vim doesn't do much for school kids.
- was_boring 9y ago
  Which is why I say they should open the platform up.
tedmiston 9y ago
Are you using the Pixel or another Chromebook?
- was_boring 9y ago
  I use Dell Chromebook 13. I got it for about ~350 USD.
AnOscelot 9y ago
If you're running a Chromebook with Android support, you have the option of Termux for a local Linux shell without needing Crouton or developer mode.

danieldk 9y ago

For a little more, you can get a Windows laptop that runs Office, Adobe Suite and a full Ubuntu environment per Windows Subsystem for Linux. (I am a Mac user, but Windows + WSL would probably be my first choice after a Mac. Especially if Microsoft would stop spying on their users.)

UnoriginalGuy 9y ago
And 3 hours of battery life. There are Windows Laptops with good 10+ hour battery life (e.g. Thinkpads). But they aren't a "little more" they're $1K+. Chromebooks are around $250-400.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  My netbook Eee PC manages 5h.
- JohnTHaller 9y ago
  You haven't looked at Windows laptops in a long time. You can get a 15" 1080p laptop with 8gb of ram and a 256gb SSD that gets 10+ hours of battery life for just north of $500 now. Here's an example with all that plus a dedicated graphics card for $549: https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-E5-575G-53VG-15-6-Inch-Windows/dp/B01DT4A2R4 https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-E5-575G-53VG-15-6-Inch-Wi... Or without the dedicated graphics for $470: https://m.newegg.com/products/N82E16834315779 https://m.newegg.com/products/N82E16834315779
  - VLM 9y ago
    If its OK to play the "why not double the price" game then at $500 you're getting close to why not get a mac laptop for $1K?
    - liareye 9y ago
      because he wants to be productive, not "work" on twitter and facebook all day.
    - danieldk 9y ago
      I am in the Mac camp (as mentioned upthread), but I think there is a serious risk here for Apple. That $550 Acer has the same amount of memory and an as large SSD as my new 2016 MacBook Pro that is Euro 1699 new. Plus a dedicated graphics card. Of course, the MacBook will have a better quality, but the price gaps between MacBooks and similarly spec'ed laptops are getting quite large. Currently, a Mac or not is not a question for me. I prefer macOS with such a wide margin over Windows and Linux (for the desktop) that I am willing to pay the premium. Moreover, macOS has many applications that I like and are not available on other platforms (OmniGraffle, OmniFocus, Alfred, Tweetbot, Pastebot, etc.). However, after trying WSL I for the first time had the feeling that Windows could become an alternative to consider.
    - JohnTHaller 9y ago
      It's a direct response to this incorrect claim: "There are Windows Laptops with good 10+ hour battery life (e.g. Thinkpads). But they aren't a "little more" they're $1K+" They aren't $1k+. They're literally a little more than the $400 Chromebook.
      - jdietrich 9y ago
        You can buy a perfectly usable Chromebook for $170. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019G7VPTC/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019G7VPTC/
        JohnTHaller 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
jcastro 9y ago
Depends on the use case, chromebook for battery life and speed of updates is nice.
was_boring 9y ago
Yes, you can, but my question would be why would you want to? I don't know anyone personally who uses Office or Adobe for anything but work. Even then, the vast majority of professional use of Office is handled perfectly well by their online offering or Google's Docs. Image manipulation and video editing are the only reasons I can think of someone would want something other than the hardware of a Chromebook. If Google opened up the Linux internals or made it dead simple to dual boot they would have a perfectly good development environment for web developers as well.
- danieldk 9y ago
  Even then, the vast majority of professional use of Office is handled perfectly well by their online offering or Google's Docs. In a lot of professional environments it is not. First of all, many employers do not like uploading documents into a cloud. Secondly, in an organization that uses Microsoft Office (which is probably still the vast majority of organizations), it is often not a replacement. A lot of Office files (especially with macros, etc.) do not work properly. Colleagues expect you return a document with updates with Office's 'track changes' functionality ("here, you have a Google Docs link with my changes to your Word document" will not fly). I think Microsoft still has a large advantage in big organizations, due to their traditional dominance. And Office 365/Exchange has added collaboration features as well (that work with Office on Mac and Windows).
  - bspn 9y ago
    > I think Microsoft still has a large advantage in big organizations, due to their traditional dominance I agree, and in fact would extend it to dominance in entire industries where compatibility is key. I can imagine if a lawyer returned a 100 page M&A agreement via Google Docs they would be laughed out of the room and told to try again. Or an accountant sharing a company's entire set of financial statements in Google Sheets rather than Excel - same result. Cloud collaboration offerings are fantastic tools in my opinion, particularly for lightweight idea sharing. I know Google has grand plans for its productivity suite, but I think it will be an uphill battle to de-throne Microsoft anytime soon due to its widespread acceptance in a lot of industries as the "standard".
tdicola 9y ago
You also get worse battery life, constant updates at the most inopportune times (that you can't even control anymore), advertisements in your OS, and very sketchy security/privacy.
- sz4kerto 9y ago
  Genuine question: how can the privacy of e.g. Windows (that sends back _some_ data, supposedly mostly telemetry to MS) than an environment that runs fully inside Google?
  - criddell 9y ago
    It depends on who you trust more.
JCharante 9y ago
> a full Ubuntu environment per Windows Subsystem for Linux The Windows Subsystem for Linux was so much slower than just running Ubuntu the last time I tries, the only reason I have for booting into windows is to update the skill queues for my eve characters once every few months.

bluedino 9y ago

Ssh'ing into Linux servers and using vim doesn't do much for school kids.

was_boring 9y ago
Which is why I say they should open the platform up.

tedmiston 9y ago

Are you using the Pixel or another Chromebook?

was_boring 9y ago
I use Dell Chromebook 13. I got it for about ~350 USD.

AnOscelot 9y ago

If you're running a Chromebook with Android support, you have the option of Termux for a local Linux shell without needing Crouton or developer mode.