I’m becoming increasingly intrigued by the idea of using a Chromebook for mobility.
This Windows notebook I’m using started out fast and has become slower and slower — as Windows usually does. I’m sick of that. There’s just no damn excuse for it in 2015. Yes, it’s Windows 7 — but if you think I’m going to do a disk wipe for Windows 8.1 or 10, you’re living in techie bubble where 1TB hard drives for backups grow on trees for free and people have lots of time to devote to such an arduous task.
There are just a few things I do with a notebook:
1) Browse the web
2) Screen snapshots, cropping them
3) Blog posts
4) Use the dotEPUB extension
5) Download and look at PDFs
6) Download and play video
I think all of that can be done with a lightweight Chromebook without the malignant slowing down inherent in Windows.
I’m impressed by Chippy’s video that shows a Chromebook can have a massive amount of internal storage:
That SDD is, at post time, just US$65.00 — and that price will likely keep falling.
And there’s really no advantage I can see for going for a 4GB Chromebook:
I’m also curious about a Chromebook with Chromecast:
This post is just to collect more Chromebook information I can refer to later.
Anyone else who’s interested should take a look at Chromebook World and their Twitter.
Previously here:
ChromeOS Vs. Windows 8.1: Fight!
Google Books PDF Test: Samsung Chromebook
Chromebook Test Post
Mike Cane’s xBlog 
I have an Acer C720 that I would be happy to give you.
No.
I’ve used a Chromebook for a couple of years now, and do everything you want to do except dotEPUB. I’ve used it a bit, but didn’t really need it for what I was doing. But as I remember, it ran fine. Don’t quote me. YMMV. And I don’t do a lot of photo cropping, but you can with several online programs that are fast and efficient. I don’t usually download PDFs or videos, but have done so. Mainly because I’m on fiber, and don’t need to keep copies. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what you can do with a Chromebook. And you’re right – if you don’t have a lot of tabs open, you don’t need 4G. Good luck!
Thanks for the info.
While for your tasks every OS is good enough, modern Windows does not by itself become slower. Apart from insufficient hardware and heavy calculations / media (bad under any OS), there are two factors that can slow down Windows: slow (often big) applications and superfluous autostart entries of applications. Avoid the slow applications. Avoid those requiring bad autostart entries. Detect and deactivate / remove all remaining superfluous (non-Microsoft, non-essential drivers) autostart entries. The Microsoft / Sysinternals tools Autoruns and ProcessExplorer help you greatly:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653
I would understand if did not want to apply such tools at all but do not blame Windows. Blame the bad applications and your unwillingness to apply the proper tools for detecting and avoiding or taming them.
I have ripped my hair out investigating why it slows down. Nothing helps. Ever.
Which Windows version? HDD or SSD? (XP and HDD means you must defragmentate regularly. An SSD without trim becomes slower. A too full SSD becomes slower. Don’t tell me you are using eMMC and surprised it is slow.) How much RAM? (Too little makes the system very slow.) Are you sure to have identified all superfluous processes and autostarts and the CPU consumption of your processes? Enough cooling? (A hot CPU becomes slower.)
I have done everything, trust me on this. I am sick of Windows.
Sorry, but I don’t buy it. Have you secure-erased your SSD, then clean-installed Windows 7 or later (on a fitting hardware) and drivers from the manufacturers of the hardware components (to get a clean device manager)? Then, one by one, installed your programs and, one by one, checked their impact on CPU and RAM usage and autostarts and deleted all the nasty program components and programs?
Stop. Your interest in this is just weird. People can use what they want to use.
No doubt that people (and you) can use what they want. – I am criticising your unjustified criticism of Windows, where there is no evidence yet whether the cause of slowness is Windows or some applications (or malwares). Many Windows sceptics criticise Windows because they do not realise that the fault is not Windows but careless use of bad applications or overestimation of hardware.
Fair point. But I don’t run anything weird, have few apps, know what’s happening at startup, always call up the Task Manager to see WTF is slowing things down (a mystery when it’s not fucking Flash Player), and have run scan after scan. I’ve wasted enough time with it. No one should have to become MIS to just use a computer.
Just reinstalled Windows 7 on laptop whose HDD died. 4 days later still getting massive updates. 203 updates day before yesterday took 6 hours, 70 updates last night about 30 minutes. I feel your pain.
I have a C710 and a C720 and they are both my favorite computers ever. Looking at your list, I don’t know what a dotEPUB is, but that would be the only use I can see that might cause you issues. The C720P (same as the C720 mentioned above, but with touchscreen is brilliant). Fast, quiet, 7 hour battery life. I could live without the touchscreen, so the C720 would be good if you didn’t need that feature. Also, while 4GB doesn’t necessarily offer any performance advantages, if you are one of those people who has dozens of tabs open at a time (and especially with photo-editing) 4GB might not be a bad idea.
I also use mine with a Chromecast and it works great at streaming stuff to the big screen.
I still keep an old Windows laptop around just for iTunes, to keep my ebook library organized (Calibre) and for tax software, but it rarely gets pulled out anymore. I used to use any computer that was around, but now I will walk by an already on Windows computer to get my C720, which I never turn off, but just sleep, so it is ready to go in about 2 seconds flat.
Before you buy any Chromebook, Google to check it’s ease of upgradability. Not all of them easily are.
Hope this helps.
Very helpful. dotEPUB is a Chrome extension that can take the text of a website and turn it into an ePub or Kindle eBook file. Good for reading long things offline.