On 04/10/2014 10:01, The Medway Handyman wrote:
Do any of the many clever people here have a view on the Chromebook? I
understand it uses a different operating system? e.g. not Microsoft?

In plain English please :-)


There are plusses and minuses. Bought one for my wife a few years ago
because they were very cheap, now laptop prices have come down in
comparison. It is relatively fiddly if you want to share files with PC
users. You don't have to buy software to do the basic stuff but you are
locked into Google's ecosystem. The cloud environment is good, no need
to worry about backups etc as long as it is always used in a wifi
environment. More fiddly if you are using it "offline". Microsoft has
caught up in providing comparable cloud services. Wife continues to use
it in preference to her newer Win 8 laptop even though the battery is
knackered so that she needs mains most of the time.

I quickly decided these were not for me (but I work in a Windows
environment). Daughter thought about getting one to use on the train on
her commute, but decided against; now uses Ipad and Kindle.

So they are viable for "simple" user who just wants basic WP, email,
browsing, shopping, and can be used in a community who share data
provided "pc" users don't mind working with Google Docs files. Probably
fairly secure compared to Windows.