The Chromebook (and Chromebox)

Second Summer

Second Summer

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I just saw this today:
http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en_uk/chrome/devices/chromebooks.html
Looks a bit like a Macbook ... and like the Macbook it doesn't have page up and page down buttons! (I bet Apple has a patent on that, so now Google & Samsung are in trouble again!)

Then there's the Chromebox:
http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en_uk/chrome/devices/chromebox.html

I'm curious what sort of "apps" you can get for these, if the OS will be supported by serious software developers etc. I've been thinking of upgrading my computer lately, but can't really afford it at the moment. Oh well, I'll probably just stick to proper Linux anyway, but thought this was interesting nonetheless. (Google Chrome OS is Linux-based.)
 
I've seen these and I want one too! I think they're a great and affordable option for new PC owners. Hell, even veteran PC owners (like myself). Beats the hell out of a Mac (as usual).
 
Curious as to why you don't like Macs. :) I think it's a familiarity thing with me, but I find the OS amazingly easy to work with, compared to Windows at least.
 
Ball and Chain said:
Curious as to why you don't like Macs. :) I think it's a familiarity thing with me, but I find the OS amazingly easy to work with, compared to Windows at least.
Click to expand...

They're so damn expensive and don't have much to show for it! You can get a top-of-the-line PC for under 1,000USD and pay 1,500USD for the same thing in a shiny Mac shell. I think that's just silly and wasteful. But people like Macs because they're shiny (and perhaps it's what they're used to, which I can understand I guess). You pay for the name, basically.
 
Apple stuff is very confusing. I am trying to sync an ipad and an iphone atm (both not mine), and it is driving me cray. The ipad was only purchased in January but already apple has decided its software is too archaic to sync with the iphone and is making me go through a very complicated process of downloading this update via a pc. I have tried to do it before but for some reason the update wont take and it reverts back again.
 
Ball and Chain said:
Curious as to why you don't like Macs. :) I think it's a familiarity thing with me, but I find the OS amazingly easy to work with, compared to Windows at least.
Click to expand...
Apple is trying to patent everything on earth so no other company can compete. Example: when a phone # appears on a web page on your phone and you tap the phone # to dial it? Apple says that is theirs. Plus they want you to buy everything from the I store, so they are loath to put USB ports in their products.

I used to be in love with Macintosh. I got a Mac Plus in the mid 1980s and loved it. Had other apple computers until they became so expensive.

I love my Android phone, it is a Google phone by Samsung, and Apple is trying to take cool stuff from my phone! I can't stand Microsoft either, btw, separate rant . ;)
 
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More ifun- have to try and sync the two devices again. Great :pout:
 
Hm. I really, honestly find them to work in a much more intuitive way than (Windows-based) PCs. I've been using Apple machines both in home, school (and later at university) though for most of my life, so maybe that plays a part. :)

Now, if we want to get into the philosophical/ethical arena, there's a whole mess o'crap that displeases me. The control issues with the app store and the treatment of workers in China were enough to convince me to buy an Android phone when we got smartphones a couple of years ago.
 
Yeah, I'm a bit unclear on that. There's something sort of repulsive to me though about how Apple, this company that started out as wanting to change the world, yada yada has now become the Man.
 
On another message board I frequent (the political one), a question was asked: What are it's advantages over a PC?

My response:

For starters, there's all kinds of PCs (Dell, Gateway, HP, etc.), and they're all designed and engineered to work with an operating system (Windows) that isn't necessarily designed and engineered to work with your specific brand of PC.

But there's only one kind of Mac, and that's Apple. So when you purchase a Mac, you're getting a computer that is designed and engineered specifically to work with an operating system (OS X) that is designed and engineered specifically to work with your Mac.

OS X is a UNIX-based operating system, so you don't have to install and routinely run a bunch of anti-******** software. But no computer is immune to viruses and such, so caution still needs to be taken when browsing the Internet. I use a program called commonsense. It's free.
 
Ball and Chain said:
Curious as to why you don't like Macs. :) I think it's a familiarity thing with me, but I find the OS amazingly easy to work with, compared to Windows at least.
Click to expand...

Expensive.
Not being able to build/customize/improve.
Not as many choices of programs.
 
Ball and Chain said:
Hm. I really, honestly find them to work in a much more intuitive way than (Windows-based) PCs. I've been using Apple machines both in home, school (and later at university) though for most of my life, so maybe that plays a part. :)
Click to expand...

Same here; I just find things easier on a mac. I know my way around a PC just fine, but there's just a lot of little things that a mac does that the PC won't, which you really notice after a while.
 
AeryFairy said:
Same here; I just find things easier on a mac. I know my way around a PC just fine, but there's just a lot of little things that a mac does that the PC won't, which you really notice after a while.
Click to expand...
What kinds of things? I use Linux, which is also Unix based, so maybe I don't see too much difference. I use windows at work, yech.
 
led.boots said:
What kinds of things? I use Linux, which is also Unix based, so maybe I don't see too much difference. I use windows at work, yech.
Click to expand...

The multi-touch gestures for scrolling and viewing your desktop and so on, screen brightness adjusting to the light in the room, the auto-organising whenever you move/delete/rename things, being able to trip over the cable without making the lappy hit the floor, the 'multi-screen' thing it does where I can tab onto various different desktop setups (work in one, distracting insternet windows in another). A few other bits. Nothing major, really, just things that seem to streamline the computer-using process for me.

(I don't know how many of these things you can make a PC do, I've not had my own in a while, but the ones I've used haven't had these features).
 
The samsung chromebook looks remarkably like my old samsung netbook. Funny that.

I guess it would be useful if I ever wanted another light portable computer that wasn't a phone, who knows. Can't see the point in the other one though since to me a home computer is for playing games, thus uses windows. Anything not doing that I typically put linux on. And I have no idea why people use macs anymore, except I guess it's convenient if you don't want to make the thing or select components yourself. I'd never buy one of those random PC's they have in a store, with a bunch of crap in/on it that I don't want; I either order one custom online or order the parts and make it. I also know an art student who has a mac because it's a requirement at her school (uses windows at home), but I'm guessing that's rare.
 
AeryFairy said:
The multi-touch gestures for scrolling and viewing your desktop and so on, screen brightness adjusting to the light in the room, the auto-organising whenever you move/delete/rename things, being able to trip over the cable without making the lappy hit the floor, the 'multi-screen' thing it does where I can tab onto various different desktop setups (work in one, distracting insternet windows in another). A few other bits. Nothing major, really, just things that seem to streamline the computer-using process for me.

(I don't know how many of these things you can make a PC do, I've not had my own in a while, but the ones I've used haven't had these features).
Click to expand...

Not sure what some of those are and I wouldn't know about gestures 'cause I hate touch screens, but the multiple workspace thing also exists on some kinds of linux and new versions of windows. The latter has had it for a while, but I think I first saw it in windows at vista or 7. 'Course, since I tend to just hook up more screens and display everything at once, I don't use it.
 
K-II said:
Not sure what some of those are and I wouldn't know about gestures 'cause I hate touch screens, but the multiple workspace thing also exists on some kinds of linux and new versions of windows. The latter has had it for a while, but I think I first saw it in windows at vista or 7. 'Course, since I tend to just hook up more screens and display everything at once, I don't use it.
Click to expand...

The gestures aren't about touch-screens, it's about the trackpad (you can make different movements to make it do different things). I figured a few of the things I listed would be possible on other systems, though.
 

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