As I said in a post a couple days ago, I am the proud owner of a new, to me, HP Chromebook. I said that I would keep you posted as we roll along and so here is my second post about the CB.
I am not new to computers. I know my way around pretty well. My first was a Commodore Amiga 1000 purchased in 1985 or so for the price of my Macbook Pro (it ran at 6.25Hz, had no Hard drive and 512k of RAM). I have had Macs and PC's of varying levels of power and performance for the past 30 years (holy crap, 30 years!). My current arsenal includes a Dell Laptop running Windows 8, A Macbook Pro running Yosemite, various iOS tablets and smartphones and the Chromebook.
So impressions after two days.
First, it's lightish and hasn't added too much to the weight to the commuter bag. The color was referred to as "cute" by a female co-worker (it's turquoise) which was not really what I was going for....
The touch pad while far more Mac-like than the Dell isn't Mac-like enough. For those of you in the strictly PC world the Mac touchpad has no buttons, you push on the pad until it click for well, clicking on something. You can two-finger for scrolling and panning too. The gestures are the same for the CB but the mechanical part of interface is clunky. It's like the comparing the difference between the fit, finish and solidity of a BMW 7 Series versus that of a Chevy Spark. You can get there using both but one makes you feel better during the trip.
The WiFi only issue hasn't been a problem so far since there is WiFi virtually everywhere I go. When there's not I have a 3G internet hotspot on my phone when needed.
This post was started on my Macbook last night and finished during my lunch break in the Chromebook. That illustrates the way things are going, less loaded on the hard drive and more in the cloud and in that respect Chromebook is the Model T of it's market.
It's not perfect but it works and, with a lower price point (mine was a refurb for $185), is accessible to a great many more individuals, companies and school districts.
I am not new to computers. I know my way around pretty well. My first was a Commodore Amiga 1000 purchased in 1985 or so for the price of my Macbook Pro (it ran at 6.25Hz, had no Hard drive and 512k of RAM). I have had Macs and PC's of varying levels of power and performance for the past 30 years (holy crap, 30 years!). My current arsenal includes a Dell Laptop running Windows 8, A Macbook Pro running Yosemite, various iOS tablets and smartphones and the Chromebook.
So impressions after two days.
First, it's lightish and hasn't added too much to the weight to the commuter bag. The color was referred to as "cute" by a female co-worker (it's turquoise) which was not really what I was going for....
The touch pad while far more Mac-like than the Dell isn't Mac-like enough. For those of you in the strictly PC world the Mac touchpad has no buttons, you push on the pad until it click for well, clicking on something. You can two-finger for scrolling and panning too. The gestures are the same for the CB but the mechanical part of interface is clunky. It's like the comparing the difference between the fit, finish and solidity of a BMW 7 Series versus that of a Chevy Spark. You can get there using both but one makes you feel better during the trip.
The WiFi only issue hasn't been a problem so far since there is WiFi virtually everywhere I go. When there's not I have a 3G internet hotspot on my phone when needed.
This post was started on my Macbook last night and finished during my lunch break in the Chromebook. That illustrates the way things are going, less loaded on the hard drive and more in the cloud and in that respect Chromebook is the Model T of it's market.
It's not perfect but it works and, with a lower price point (mine was a refurb for $185), is accessible to a great many more individuals, companies and school districts.
Comments
Post a Comment