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Seems to be a lot of Chromebook comments. Has anyone actually seen one used in the real world? I contract at a bunch of different places and I've never seen any

Seems to be a lot of Chromebook comments. Has anyone actually seen one used in the real world? I contract at a bunch of different places and I've never seen anyone use one in a business setting. I'm not sure just learning how to use an iPad is better but I definitely see those being used.

taspeotis 9y ago
I’m in the IT industry in Australia, loosely related to education. Within my job I see an even split between iPads and Surfaces, with MacBook Airs in third place. The closest I’ve come to a Chromebook is when Google offered our company one if we evaluated GCP.
canuckintime 9y ago
I've owned a Chromebook Pixel and a cheap Asus chromebook. For a business setting they are pointless. For schoolkids (or elders who just want to browse the web [1]) they are brilliant. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/1/10884918/i-bought-my-mom-a-chromebook-pixel-the-divergence https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/1/10884918/i-bought-my-mom-a...
AlexeyBrin 9y ago
The Chromebook is targeted toward education, you can use a real keyboard to type your homework and, if you are savvy enough, you can even install Linux on them and learn to program. In a business setting you probably want a light laptop with Windows or macOS.
noxToken 9y ago
I know of two people who used Chromebooks around 2015. One of them basically used it as a light laptop. Took notes with it, traveled with it, etc. The other guy used it as his primary computer. In spite of him praising it whenever someone would ask about it, he was always complaining about how difficult it was to use as a development machine. Once you got external software properly installed and configured, it was fine. Hearing him complain was reminiscent of using Linux in the early 2000s. No one really wrote consumer applications for Linux at the time, and driver support was a nightmare. Once you figured out all the warts and quirk, it was fine. This was 3+ years ago though, so I imagine things have improved in that space.
RobertDeNiro 9y ago
The nice thing about Chromebooks is that they don't really require any special software. Just web apps of the things you need. Though I guess you could say that about any OS at this point. In my case I'm using it in the context of a master's degree, and it's more than enough. I use Google colab for assignments and sharelatex for any reports I have to write. It works quite well and the battery life is amazing. I also don't care if it gets stolen.

taspeotis 9y ago

I’m in the IT industry in Australia, loosely related to education. Within my job I see an even split between iPads and Surfaces, with MacBook Airs in third place. The closest I’ve come to a Chromebook is when Google offered our company one if we evaluated GCP.

canuckintime 9y ago

I've owned a Chromebook Pixel and a cheap Asus chromebook. For a business setting they are pointless. For schoolkids (or elders who just want to browse the web [1]) they are brilliant. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/1/10884918/i-bought-my-mom-a-chromebook-pixel-the-divergence https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/1/10884918/i-bought-my-mom-a...

AlexeyBrin 9y ago

The Chromebook is targeted toward education, you can use a real keyboard to type your homework and, if you are savvy enough, you can even install Linux on them and learn to program. In a business setting you probably want a light laptop with Windows or macOS.

noxToken 9y ago

I know of two people who used Chromebooks around 2015. One of them basically used it as a light laptop. Took notes with it, traveled with it, etc. The other guy used it as his primary computer. In spite of him praising it whenever someone would ask about it, he was always complaining about how difficult it was to use as a development machine. Once you got external software properly installed and configured, it was fine. Hearing him complain was reminiscent of using Linux in the early 2000s. No one really wrote consumer applications for Linux at the time, and driver support was a nightmare. Once you figured out all the warts and quirk, it was fine. This was 3+ years ago though, so I imagine things have improved in that space.

RobertDeNiro 9y ago

The nice thing about Chromebooks is that they don't really require any special software. Just web apps of the things you need. Though I guess you could say that about any OS at this point. In my case I'm using it in the context of a master's degree, and it's more than enough. I use Google colab for assignments and sharelatex for any reports I have to write. It works quite well and the battery life is amazing. I also don't care if it gets stolen.