../chromebooks

In defense of Chromebooks

Today at work I dealt with a fleet of MacBooks. They were a few OS versions behind, and despite being the same slab of aluminum hardware, they had all sorts of varying failure states when trying to upgrade. Some of them had time/date sync bugs. Others had DHCP issues. Others would hang on installation.

Do you own a laptop? Specifically, do you own one for work?

I want you to seriously think about the programs on your work laptop that you really use from day-to-day.

Is it an office suite? Is it used for video conferencing? Email? Do you use it for light programming?

Do you use it as a leisure machine? Netflix? Prime Video? YouTube?

I'd argue that outside of intensive workloads like CAD/3d modeling, gaming, machine learning, and video editing, most people don't really have demanding needs out of their laptop.

Additionally,

Most everything on their laptops runs in a browser.

Whether you like it or not, more and more applications are becoming web-based. It offers a lot of benefits -- the ability to run it on any device that can also run a browser. Less work porting to different types of systems and less work in installing and setting them up.

Google's office suite and Microsoft Online are both functional office suites for most end-user tasks. They meet the needs of most people besides Excel VBA hounds and Word power users trying to make it a LaTeX replacement.

Easy to use, entry level graphic design tools exist in abundance now. Stuff like Canva is used very often for churning out quick posters and designs. Photopea is a modest Photoshop-like that runs entirely in your browser.

VS Code is web-based and if you punch in [https://vscode.dev] right now, you'll have a somewhat functional IDE right there in your browser. Using remote instances with GitHub Codespaces, you can even have a Linux dev environment to work from.

If that isn't enough, because Chromebooks are just Linux-based, they can utilize container technologies like LXC using Linux cgroups. You can spin up a mini Debian container and do all sorts of work straight from your Chromebook with full GPU access easily. It's even presented within Chrome OS as the "Linux" feature. They also have Steam functionality a few clicks away.

Lastly, the people working with high-end applications like CAD software, dense Premiere or Resolve timelines, and complex Blender models can always remote into a workstation from the comfort of Chromebook's remote desktop feature.

My point is, Chromebooks are a lot more capable than you might think.

Market mismatch

Chromebooks are very limited. However, this is an ADVANTAGE for the audience that's interested in owning one. When large chunks of the operating system stack top to bottom are immutable and set in stone, it becomes a godsend provisioning out laptops and setting up forms of mobile device management on them.

The laptops all come with "H1" security chips utilizing Cr50 firmware. If something in the boot process isn't right when detected by the chip, the system will lock or won't boot properly. When you're issuing out laptops to hundreds, thousands of users, remote wipe on this level becomes really appealing.

Sometimes they are really dumb.

Chromebooks should not ever go for more than like $300-350. Expensive Chromebooks miss the entire point of being very disposable and repairable computers. If you see high-end specs on one of these computers, steer clear immediately.

To students dealing with laptop lockdown

I understand the frustration in feeling like you have no mobility or flexibility in what you can do on a school-issued computer. However, the blame shouldn't be pointed at Chromebooks serving their purpose, or even the poor IT staff issuing them out. Express your issues with the higher-ups, and if possible just try and look for a more flexible computer if you want to do other things on them.

Budget Windows and Mac laptops are terrible

Good luck getting a half-decent Windows laptop, factoring in cost of OEM license, at a $200-250 price range. You'll have to compromise on SOMETHING, and it's just not going to run anything particularly great. The used market does have a lot of great laptops: ThinkPads and Dell Latitude/Inspirons can be a great value at that target. However, that's just not an option when you're issuing out hundreds of new computers to a site or location. That may be a great value for you as an individual user, however. It could also be a good option for a relative or friends. I recommend researching yourself.

Windows laptops really struggle with either being aggressively throttled and pared back to eke out a couple extra minutes of battery life, or being awful power and noise hogs. At that price range, and with all the drivers and futzing around you have to do concerning ASPM and quality control, you can't really hit that target without something having to give.

Macs at that price range are just consistently terrible. The Good MacBooks, the ones from around the 2010 to 2015 range, are quickly and unfortunately aging. They were really upgradable, modular, flexible, and well-built. However, 2016 up until early 2020 was a dark age for Apple's laptops. Suddenly, they shipped with garbage butterfly keyboards, questionable build quality, terrible thermals, and were super overpriced. MacBooks also generally retain a lot of their initial value, so good luck sniping a good deal on one these days.

In the medium to high price bracket, MacBooks have become really appealing, ever since the switch to in-house Apple silicon. The M1 MacBook Air is an awesome device to issue out to employees that need a little more "oomph", with great build quality, all-day battery life, a decent display, trackpad, and keyboard. It's not going to replace a proper workstation, but it gets close for a lot of people. These can be found on the used market for as low as $600-700, and even new they go for sub $1K. However, when we hit this bracket we've kind of drifted away from the audience of Chromebooks.

You cannot have:

Something has to give here. Chromebooks meet that need by ditching the last thing, and that's OKAY.

Keep it simple, stupid

At the end of the day, Chromebooks are refreshingly simple appliances. There's nothing wrong with appliances, and we need to stop expecting them to replace a full-on workstation computer. They have a very clear focus, aim to do it well, and succeed most of the time. Easy to use and secure devices are not the downfall of computing. They're just making it more pleasant for a large amount of people.

/google/ /linux/ /unix/ /tech/