As someone who has used Windows (though not solely Windows) for a long time I'd say the "half-life" (like the much joked about instability and constant crashes)

As someone who has used Windows (though not solely Windows) for a long time I'd say the "half-life" (like the much joked about instability and constant crashes) is something that used to be true but hasn't been true for quite a long time now. Despite the terrible reputation it has, Vista is where Microsoft really started turning it around in a big way when it comes to stability, security, etc. (XP/Windows 2000 was obviously good too for moving the consumer OS to the protected NT kernel, but things really picked up in the subsequent releases). My current Windows desktop system is running Windows 8.1 after in-place upgrades from Win7->Win8->Win8.1 (in place Windows upgrades being another previous no-no that now pretty much Just Works) and it still feels as zippy as the day I first started using it, despite having a hard-drive full of large RAW photos, videos, music, etc, and many dozens of apps installed, uninstalled, reinstalled, etc over the years. All that being said, I own two different Chromebooks and I use them as mobile development systems running crouton and I really like them a lot and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to anyone who isn't pinned to Windows due to other app constraints like needing Photoshop, Lightroom, games, etc.