Google Chromebook Explained

Yes, a Chromebook is a laptop. A laptop is a portable computer meant to be placed almost anywhere, including your lap, but still have the same basic functionality and input devices as a desktop. A Chromebook meets all of the specifications. It is simply a laptop running a different operating system (Chrome OS). So if you can buy a Windows-based laptop for as cheap as a Chromebook, why buy a Chromebook? Windows is designed for the enterprise, not low-end laptops. Therefore, it doesn’t scale down very well. It requires more hard drive space, more memory and more CPU power. If you buy a cheap windows laptop you will wish you had not because it will be painfully slow. Chrome OS is built around the Chrome web browser and brings us full-circle back to the days of terminals and mainframes. While those ‘dumb’ terminals were completely dependent on the mainframe, they had one major advantage: they didn’t need to be perform well. The heavy lifting was done by the mainframe. This is the same model that makes the Chromebook so popular. The Internet does the heavy lifting, allowing a $250 Chromebook to perform as well as a much more expensive laptop. You often won’t get much in terms of storage when you buy a Chromebook. The good news is that you won’t need as much. Chromebooks are designed to be powered by the web, and this includes leveraging cloud-based storage and streaming websites like Pandora, Spotify, Hulu and Netflix to reduce the need for extra gigabytes of storage for your laptop. The average Chromebook comes with 32 GB of storage, although higher end models can expand this to 64 GB or 128 GB.

Conclusion

Chromebooks are perfect for people who primarily need to surf the web, browse Facebook, catch up on e-mail, stream music and movies, create documents in Google Docs, balance your checkbook in Microsoft Excel online and many other tasks. They also tend to perform better than similarly priced laptops.

 Windows-based laptops and MacBooks are for people who need to leave the browser for dedicated apps and are willing to pay the price to do so. Cheaper laptops in the Chromebook range tend to be too frustratingly slow to be worth it, and a decent laptop will easily double or triple the price of a Chromebook. But if you need specific software or higher-end performance, traditional laptops are worth the extra price.