You can do all that in the browser or via remote desktop to a server or desktop. Eclipse Orion works in the browser (as do several other IDEs such as cloud9).

You can do all that in the browser or via remote desktop to a server or desktop. Eclipse Orion works in the browser (as do several other IDEs such as cloud9). Office works in the browser (but I prefer Google Docs). For simple image editing, I just use pixlr.com. If I really needed advanced features from photoshop (or gimp), I can A) remote connect to a desktop or B) boot to ubuntu from a flash drive. If you need Visual Studio and don't have access to a desktop computer you can remote connect to, then yes, don't buy a chromebook. Or of course if you are developing native iphone/ipad apps (i.e., not phonegap, etc.) and don't have access to a mac computer, then yes, of course, get a macbook instead of a chromebook.