Need a Chromebook! Advice?

Supahawk01 · Jul 6, 2017

Just as the title says, I want a new Chromebook. I am planning on attending college soon and after heavy self-debate, I have decided that in rather than selling my Gaming PC and picking up a high-end gaming laptop, I am going to keep my PC and pick up a Chromebook. I decided that instead of a overpowered word machine on the go and awesome gaming laptop stationary just wouldn't meet my needs, considering slower boot times, less than horrible battery life, and the risk of damaging/losing a $2000 laptop doesn't sound good. Basically my budget is up to $400, although I know most of these things go for sub-$200, I just want some opinions on the best ones.

Basically what I'm looking for is insane speed (as in boot times and application opening)
Superior WiFi capabilities (college WiFi is glorious, or so I'm told)
Unparalleled battery life.
Size doesn't really matter to much to me, I do like desktop real-estate, but I also want it to be feather light.

dudeman509 · Jul 6, 2017

Insane speed and Chromebook don't really go hand-in-hand.

Why don't you pick up a laptop with an i5-7200u and SSD? Should accomplish what you want from it.

Supahawk01 · Jul 6, 2017

dudeman509 :

I'm not a computer engineer-guy but im pretty Chromebooks are popular for being the fastest in what they do.

dudeman509 · Jul 6, 2017

Supahawk01 :

Opening a browser to the internet? Sure. They check most boxes for people that just want a device to pull out & get on the Internet. Long battery life, portability, etc.

Generally, Chromebooks are glorified Android devices with a small amount of flash-based storage and a processor slightly more powerful than a phone or tablet and still much less powerful than your typical i3-i5 x86 based processor and pretty decent battery life. Some even get up into the $400-600 range, at which I feel you would get more value with a Windows-based x86 system.

When I think Chromebook, I generally think of the cheaper ones on this list, powered by a fan-less Celeron or Pentium, and super laggy when you open a whole bunch of tabs on the thing. I can't stand them. The Samsung and Acer offerings at the top look like they offer pretty solid build quality for what you get though - a Windows laptop with a screen this nice (and with similar build quality) would probably be in the $800 range.

http

/www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/laptops/best-chromebooks-top-5-chromebooks-in-the-us-1233696

Supahawk01 · Jul 6, 2017

dudeman509 :

I see where you are coming from, but I think you don't understand what I meant by insane speed. You seem to be going on about raw horsepower rather than speed for simple tasks. I mean, the most this thing will do is probably have a word processor open with a couple tabs open while sending emails. I don't need a $800 laptop to do that. I already have a $1200 Acer gaming laptop and $1700 desktop setup for my more serious tasks. I just want something extremely lightweight as il be carrying EVERYWHERE and have superb battery life, which you can't find in 90% of Windows laptops of any price point. It seem like the cheap ones have a shit battery because they are cheap and the expensive still have shit battery because they have overpowered hardware in them, so I'm right back to square one again either way... And btw, I'm not one of the "gotta have 15 tabs open" type of person. Most tabs I ever have open is 3, and that's if im busy.
P.S.: I do thank you for that link, has some great options in there im checking out.

dudeman509 · Jul 6, 2017

Supahawk01 :

dudeman509 :

I see where you are coming from, but I think you don't understand what I meant by insane speed. You seem to be going on about raw horsepower rather than speed for simple tasks. I mean, the most this thing will do is probably have a word processor open with a couple tabs open while sending emails. I don't need a $800 laptop to do that. I already have a $1200 Acer gaming laptop and $1700 desktop setup for my more serious tasks. I just want something extremely lightweight as il be carrying EVERYWHERE and have superb battery life, which you can't find in 90% of Windows laptops of any price point. It seem like the cheap ones have a shit battery because they are cheap and the expensive still have shit battery because they have overpowered hardware in them, so I'm right back to square one again either way... And btw, I'm not one of the "gotta have 15 tabs open" type of person. Most tabs I ever have open is 3, and that's if im busy.
P.S.: I do thank you for that link, has some great options in there im checking out.

In a sense, yeah. In that case, the Acer or Samsung at the top of that list may be what you're looking for if you're a fan of Android. Quick to pop open a web browser or other apps, long battery life, nice screen and keyboard, etc. You'd preferably want to stick to the Core m processors (m3, m5) over the low-powered Celeron or Pentium Atom-based processors in the Chromebooks, though - they will make it viable for a few years instead of feeling dated like most cheaper Chromebooks do quite soon.

I'm one of the multitasking fiends myself, and I get annoyed at my i5-4210u at times for not being powerful enough for me. I usually have Spotify, lots of Chrome tabs, and other things running on my laptops all at once. Battery life on the ULV U-series processors is usually quite good though - this HP's 8 hours if you're not working it hard.

Search

Need a Chromebook! Advice?

Supahawk01

Estimable

dudeman509

dudeman509

Estimable

Supahawk01

Estimable

dudeman509

Estimable

Supahawk01

Estimable

dudeman509

Estimable

Similar threads

TRENDING THREADS

Moderators online

Share this page