Chromebook? ??

[Steve McF]

What are the benefits of a Chromebook laptop?

Can one run the normal MS Office on them?

[Audax]

If you have a Chromebook you'd be better off using Google cloud apps rather than Office but if you really wanted Office then you can install the versions of Office for Android on the Chromebook.

[Steve McF]

Well it's  just that every thing I do tends to be on Office, and want to be able to use the same files on more than one of our laptops......and all others are Win 10 with various versions of MS Office.

[fka]

I run Word, Excel, Outlook etc on my Android phone. Like you, I'm use to MS Office but also our work email server is Exchange, so I prefer to use Outlook.
No major problems with MS on Android, other than I use Google Calender and Outlook calendar wont sync with it via Outlook. So I have my Exchange account also on the Google email client but only sync the calendar.
 

[carrera]

  I just got a Chromebook yesterday for deployment in a bit less than a couple of weeks time if you see what I mean.

The focus on a Chromebook is use of "the cloud", they don't have much local storage space compared to a laptop. A lot of schools are moving to Google docs too.

They tend to be lower spec hardware, but the one I got still shows over 9 hours battery life on one charge, which is very much better than most laptops (I'm not comparing to fruity products).

You generally can't upgrade them like a laptop either, only a few have an SSD that can be swapped out, and memory RAM tends to be soldered to the motherboard so not upgradeable.

There are ways to get other operating systems on them too, Ubuntu is pretty easy.

Hope that helps

[Geoff1951]

There's a review today (Sunday 15th) on a respected and grown-up Android website called androidpolice.com, of a Dell 2-in-1 14" machine. The site generally is worth a look for information on Chromebooks, but the first paragraph from the review is worth quoting. It backs up carrera's comments on hardware spec, etc. By and large, they need less processor power and RAM than a Windows machine to carry out the same tasks under Word, etc., apps take up less HD (or rather SSD) space than Windows programs, and storage is as carrera says, cloud based. However some manufacturers really are having a laugh with some of the low-end hardware they install.

"For reasons unknown to me, most Chromebooks larger than 13 inches usually have extremely low-end hardware. The 14-inch Asus Chromebook C423 has a dreadful Intel Celeron N3350 processor, and the Acer Chromebook 15 has a slightly better Pentium N4200 CPU. If you've been waiting for a big Chromebook with decent hardware, Dell might have the laptop for you."

The Dell under test has a Pentium i3. UK availability of this exact model is not known. Admittedly androidpolice is an American site, but they do appreciate they have a world-wide readership, and as I mentioned above there are some good pointers generally about what to look for - and avoid - on the website.

(I've just seen a Lenovo 13.3" with an i3 processor for £440 from CCL online. Based in Bradford.)

[Steve McF]

Hi all,

I'm coming back to this again!!! Here's a query for all you techies out there.

My mum (who is 85) has an ancient laptop that now keeps coming up with error messages about software out of date, security at risk, you need to buy this anti virus, that anti malware, blah blah blah. She doesn't want to know now, She just wants to be able to email, surf the net etc, without worrying about stuff.

So, if we replace the laptop, I  can either get a new Windows 10 laptop, that will probably continue to pester her for updates she doesn't understand, etc. Or I could get her a tablet that I would probably need to teach her to use all over again, or I could get a Chromebook.

I keep coming back to Chromebooks, because they are apparently fast, have built in anti virus, and can run Windows Mail and Office applications that Mum is used to. The smaller hard drive is not a problem, because Mum doesn't save/store loads of files etc.

She just wants trouble free email and surfing ability, without continual error and update messages she doesn't understand, and which worry her.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

[StanleyB]

My mum (who is 85) has an ancient laptop that now keeps coming up with error messages about software out of date, security at risk, you need to buy this anti virus, that anti malware, blah blah blah.

In most cases if you get those kind of error messages it tends to be a virus or trojan that is trying to get you to enter your credit card detail into some website to "buy" those security programs. From then on your life will be made a hell.
You could get a PC with Windows 10. But I still hang onto Windows 8.1. It is a lot more user friendly to me, especially since it runs all my old software that I just can't get W10 to run.

[Steve McF]

Stanley, her laptop is even older than that. It is running Windows Vista, and wasn't one that you could do the free upgrade to Win10 on.

It currently has free anti virus software on, but this keeps saying we need to subscribe for a year to get "full protection", and telling us about alll the different things it is finding that it can only deal with if we sign up.

Then you've got Windows saying that software is out of date, and Vista is no longer supported, Google saying that Chrome is no longer supported on Vista etc.

So all in all, Mum keeps seeing what are essentially innocuous messages connected to the age of the computer and it worries her continupusly.She wants to be able to turn it on, do what she has to, without worrying why the computer can/can't do one thing or another, or throw up error messages that she doesn't understand.

I was looking at some laptops yesterday, and spotted a Chromebook, which is supposedly fast, can do most things, and is cheaper. If it is simpler to use, without the errors, then it may be the right thing for my Mum to replace the Vista machine with.....

[carrera]

Steve.

Santa's delivery was very much appreciated by my daughter, she was more pleased with it than I hoped, so a good win there for me.

Having seen it in action what would I say ?

It's fast, especially on booting
Stuff generally just works
Printer was detected and installed without issue
Browsing, gmail (what she has a school), you tube all work fine
You can reduce the amount of spying google does if you want.
Updates are dead easy

If you are looking at a new Chromebook, then I would make sure that it has access to the Google Play store. That way your mum will be able to install outlook, word etc, which should be somewhat familiar.

As to windows, I have never seen a need to downgrade from Windows 7. The tiles thing in 8 never worked for me (35 years with computers) though the start menu did come back, and I don't like the data collectiion / spyware / non ownership model implied in Win 10.

The warnings are probably to do with her browser being out of data. Some (annoying) website check your browser version and decide to tell the user the software is out of date, need to upgrade etc, ultimately you end up in the situation that IE8 is in where many sites simply will not respond to a page request.

What browser does she use, you might find changing from IE8 or whatever to Firefox will solve the problem ?

On antivirus, I use Avast. It used to be simple and great, now it's a bit like nagware always suggesting upgrades, but the basic protection remains free and it's a decent free AV product.

[weetabixface]

if it is only web browsing and email have you considered Linux on the laptop she already has

could try something like Ubuntu on a live USB first to see how she gets on with it

W