4 ms·

I believe such comments were once called "FUD". Are folks still being paid by M$ and others to randomly reply in various forums and discussions? What do you ba

by eliben 14y ago

I believe such comments were once called "FUD". Are folks still being paid by M$ and others to randomly reply in various forums and discussions? What do you base your "cheap crap" comment on? Using the laptop and not liking it? What did you not like about it?

wes-exp 14y ago
What don't I like? For starters, the exterior is basically a knock-off of the Macbook Air. This type of crummy me-too design is consistent with other products considered cheap crap. Next, in terms of functionality, I am to understand that the Chromebook does not offer much more than a web browser. To some people this is just how our cloud-filled future will be. To me, it just does less. That's not a feature. It's just crappy. Third, I am to understand that it is loaded with, and possibly tied to Google services. I like Google search fine and well, but I'm very sick of Google trying to turn the entire population into "data prostitutes" who trade privacy for convenience. No, I don't want to upload all my documents into Google. No, I don't want all my communication stored by Google. No, I don't want my location and all my movements tracked by Google. No, I don't want all my web browsing activity to be tracked by Google. The whole prospect seems orwellian. I'm guessing someone will tell me that my concerns will be resolved if I load Linux on it. Well, I used Linux on the desktop for years, and I got tired of having to cruise forums and bug reports to work around whatever the latest issue with it was. I finally bought a Macbook and you know what? It just works. It has all the cool unix stuff I need on the command line, plus a pretty solid package manager in the form of Homebrew. Not to mention the hardware is first-class. I'm sorry if it sounds like FUD to you that I don't want to jump back into a tar pit of f'ing around with Linux on the desktop. My time is worth more than that. Note: I still use Linux on the server and it's pretty great. It's the desktop that I consider a waste of time. So in summary, it just looks like a crappy knock-off that sacrifices user privacy and does not do very much. And the price is cheap, that's a fact.
- eliben 14y ago
  Awesome, so you didn't even try using such a device - all your criticism is based on hearsay and reviews. I do appreciate a more elaborated reply though - I think you should've written all that from the beginning.

by eliben 14y ago

wes-exp 14y ago

What don't I like? For starters, the exterior is basically a knock-off of the Macbook Air. This type of crummy me-too design is consistent with other products considered cheap crap. Next, in terms of functionality, I am to understand that the Chromebook does not offer much more than a web browser. To some people this is just how our cloud-filled future will be. To me, it just does less. That's not a feature. It's just crappy. Third, I am to understand that it is loaded with, and possibly tied to Google services. I like Google search fine and well, but I'm very sick of Google trying to turn the entire population into "data prostitutes" who trade privacy for convenience. No, I don't want to upload all my documents into Google. No, I don't want all my communication stored by Google. No, I don't want my location and all my movements tracked by Google. No, I don't want all my web browsing activity to be tracked by Google. The whole prospect seems orwellian. I'm guessing someone will tell me that my concerns will be resolved if I load Linux on it. Well, I used Linux on the desktop for years, and I got tired of having to cruise forums and bug reports to work around whatever the latest issue with it was. I finally bought a Macbook and you know what? It just works. It has all the cool unix stuff I need on the command line, plus a pretty solid package manager in the form of Homebrew. Not to mention the hardware is first-class. I'm sorry if it sounds like FUD to you that I don't want to jump back into a tar pit of f'ing around with Linux on the desktop. My time is worth more than that. Note: I still use Linux on the server and it's pretty great. It's the desktop that I consider a waste of time. So in summary, it just looks like a crappy knock-off that sacrifices user privacy and does not do very much. And the price is cheap, that's a fact.

eliben 14y ago
Awesome, so you didn't even try using such a device - all your criticism is based on hearsay and reviews. I do appreciate a more elaborated reply though - I think you should've written all that from the beginning.