topic Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook in Electronics

I just ordered my first Chromebook

gardenman — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 13:44:42 GMT

I've been intrigued by Chromebooks for quite a while and finally broke down and got one. It's the Acer Spin 15 (currently on sale at a major retailer for $329.) It's a pretty neat looking little gadget. It's a 2 in 1 design so you can use it as a laptop or a really big and heavy (almost five pounds) tablet. It's got a backlit keyboard and generally very good reviews. It's got a 15.4-inch screen and seems to be about what I'm looking for. The end life date is June 2024 which is a bit sooner than I'd like, but four years of use isn't bad. It's supposed to be here by Monday, so we'll see if that happens or not. Deliveries all seem a bit screwy these days. It's a touchscreen also which could be useful. I've got to look around to see what kind of stylus I can find to play around with on it.

So, a new toy is on the way to me. I like the bigger screen so I opted for the 15.4" size. There are similar 2 in 1 Chromebooks in the 11" size range, but I already have a 10" tablet so that seemed kind of redundant. It's nice having a new toy coming. I'll have to see how it lives up to expectations.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

Mz iMac — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 13:51:28 GMT

@gardenman"The end life date is June 2024 which is a bit sooner than I'd like, but four years of use isn't bad."

Does that mean no updates afterwards?

Enjoy your new toy!

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

gardenman — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 14:05:58 GMT

@Mz iMac wrote:
@gardenman"The end life date is June 2024 which is a bit sooner than I'd like, but four years of use isn't bad."
Does that mean no updates afterwards?

Enjoy your new toy!

Yeah, no more updates after that. It's Google's way to try and make sure hardware stays up to speed with their newer software. I suspect it would still be usable in existing form, you just can't update it for new features after that time, should Google offer new features in an updated OS. I'll worry about that in June 2024. They have a six-year life cycle for their Chromebooks and this is a nearly two-year-old model, so it's end of life cycle is June 2024.

Software creators have a real challenge in making software compatible with hardware. Chromebooks don't tend to rely on the latest and greatest in hardware, so they can ignore things like the new Ryzen Threadrippers when they're creating software for Chromebooks but they still want moderately recent hardware.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

millieshops — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 14:20:48 GMT

@gardenmanI know you'll report back to us - and I'll be waiting to see your experience.

Almost bought a Chromebook 15 months ago and bought a traditional instead. Already know that the first time something really goes wrong with it, I'm junking it!

Have a friend who has loved for Chrome for a few years now, but she has a major in-family techie. That always helps.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

Deree — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 14:33:04 GMT

I was also contemplating a chromebook for the longest time but opted again recently for a Win10 laptop ONLY because of the end life of a c-book. That really deterred me because my first (and previous) laptop lasted almost 12 years which I know is unusual but I'm hoping for at least 8-10 with this one. But if this laptop gives me trouble I will go to a chromebook. I wouldn't go less than a 15" and I'm glad Acer makes them. Enjoy yours. Please let us know how it goes.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

Alison Wonderland — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 14:31:26 GMT

I have an Acer Chromebook and love it. Mine is small (smaller than an 8.5 x 11" sheet of paper) and also flips to be a tablet. It's so easy and convenient. It doesn't work for everything. When I was laid off and needed to submit resumes and job applications, I found that my online version of Word often formatted things in a way that didn't look as good as the complete version. I wound up visiting local libraries to use their computers to format and send my resume out.

Aside from that, it's done everything I've wanted it to do and it's so small and light that I can travel with it easily, as well.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

Nuttmeg — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 15:09:08 GMT

@gardenman

LOL, tech folks always enjoy their new toys.

The EOL user date of 2024 is great. Your new Chromebook should run apps from the Google Play Store, .

I am not sure which version of Android this book will run.

I have a new smartphone running Android 10, and this new OS has some nice features, like displaying text in dark mode.

You maybe able to run your Microsoft Word on your Chromebook.

My favorite app is SwiftKey.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

FlowerBear — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 15:08:37 GMT

I got one of these in the summer. i liked it so much, but it had a few issues that couldnt be fixed after calling the customer service and talking with them. they even did some things remotely and still didnt work. had to return it!

On cybermonday i ordered a lenova thinkpad on a good sale and like it SOOO Much. it is totally awesome.

DO hope that your new chromebook will work great!

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

MorningLover — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 16:46:33 GMT

@gardenman wrote:
I've been intrigued by Chromebooks for quite a while and finally broke down and got one. It's the Acer Spin 15 (currently on sale at a major retailer for $329.) It's a pretty neat looking little gadget. It's a 2 in 1 design so you can use it as a laptop or a really big and heavy (almost five pounds) tablet. It's got a backlit keyboard and generally very good reviews. It's got a 15.4-inch screen and seems to be about what I'm looking for. The end life date is June 2024 which is a bit sooner than I'd like, but four years of use isn't bad. It's supposed to be here by Monday, so we'll see if that happens or not. Deliveries all seem a bit screwy these days. It's a touchscreen also which could be useful. I've got to look around to see what kind of stylus I can find to play around with on it.

So, a new toy is on the way to me. I like the bigger screen so I opted for the 15.4" size. There are similar 2 in 1 Chromebooks in the 11" size range, but I already have a 10" tablet so that seemed kind of redundant. It's nice having a new toy coming. I'll have to see how it lives up to expectations.

First let me say, I'm not a 'techie person' but my husband is.

That is the exact Chromebook I have been using. In fact we have 3 of them right now. My husband is the "computer guy", (has used many different computers and can build one from scratch.) I just asked him what he likes about Chromebooks and he rattled off a few things

1. They stay up to date

2. They are not susceptible to viruses

3. You can browse on them

4. Down load apps

5. Meets our needs and are inexpensive

You can still continue using a Chromebook, or really any device with any operating system, even after the support window has passed; you just won’t get any further features or other updates.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

gardenman — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 20:20:01 GMT

@MorningLover

Yeah, this Chromebook has lots of very good reviews, so I'm giving it a shot. It has a lot of premium features in the touchscreen, backlit keyboard, 2 in 1 folding hinge, gorilla glass touchpad, and more. A few of the professional reviews said the image quality wasn't great, but customer reviews raved about the images, so I'll have to see for myself. I took a peek at the Acer Chromebooks in my local Walmart, which get worse reviews and they had a decent display and keyboard, so that was reassuring. Only Bestbuy sells this Chromebook and they've largely shuttered their stores, so I couldn't see it in person. The combination of features and price was too good to pass up. Now I just have to wait for it to get here.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

Buster43 — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 06:01:46 GMT

I would like to recommend the buteny stylus pen. It works on any touch screen and no pairing is necessary (it is not Bluetooth); just turn it on and it works. I use it mostly for selecting and copying text...much easier and more accurate than my finger...plus you can use it on multiple devices at the same time since there is no pairing. I paid $29.99 for mine (from Amazon but it is available from other places). I have used it with Apple and android devices but not with my Chromebook...I use a mouse with Chromebook.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

gardenman — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 10:30:07 GMT

I'm giving the MEKO universal stylus pens first shot. They get rave reviews and you get two with six replacement tips for around $16, so they're my first try. If they work as well as people say, they should do fine.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

Jordan2 — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 15:52:16 GMT

I bought the Samsung Chromebook Pro, cost me around $500 pricey for a chromebook. I have had it repaired twice in less than a year. I don't love it, I wouldn't buy a chromebook again. Also I have a Garmin GPS you can't update maps using a chromebook.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

gardenman — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 16:36:43 GMT

It shipped today and is coming via UPS. The reviews on this model were really good. There were 337 reviews with 259 five star, 54 four star and 94% would recommend to a friend. Even the professional reviews were generally good. For $329 it has a lot of premium features. It's got a backlit keyboard, a gorilla glass touchpad of good size, a full HD screen with an IPS panel, 13 hour battery life, and a bit more. I also get four free months of Apple Music which is neat.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

Nuttmeg — Fri, 03 Apr 2020 13:17:08 GMT

@gardenman

There are people here, who may want to buy a Chromebook. Please right a review at some point.

LOL, I got hooked on Samsung smartphones, and tablets.

I would not want to play with a Chromebook.

PS. Android 9 and 10 have night or dark mode. This is a very tech feature. II makes reading text better. It came built into my smart phone and tablet, and had to be turned on in the Chrome browser.

There is an app you can buy " DARK Mode" for $1. If your device does not include this mode.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

gardenman — Fri, 03 Apr 2020 13:34:13 GMT

According to UPS, it'll be here sometime Saturday (4/04). I'll post some early impressions probably on Sunday then a more thorough review later on. One of the things I want to learn is if I can install apps on the micro SD card and run them from there. You generally can't on Android-based phones, so it'll be interesting to see if you can on the Chromebook.

I know some apps can read and write data to a micro SD card, but I'm not seeing a lot about whether you can install apps on one. With just a 32 GB hard drive and some of that taken up with the Chrome OS and preinstalled apps, it's not unreasonable to assume you could run out of hard drive space fairly quickly. While you can store data in the cloud and Chrome does so by default, having more storage that I could use on the device for apps might be handy.

Micro SD cards are pretty cheap these days and it's easy to add 128 Gbs of data (or more, but the 128 Gb cards seem to be the sweet spot pricing-wise these days) by simply plugging one in, but can the Chromebook store apps there and access them or is it just for data? I'll find out pretty soon.

It'll be interesting to see how it compares in terms of speed and ease of use with my 10" Fire Tablet. In tablet mode, it'll be 5.6" bigger and almost five times heavier, so I probably won't use it in tablet mode all that often, but it's still a handy feature to have for when the keyboard would get in the way like for sketching or drawing.

Once I get it and get a feel for it, I'll likely add a laptop bag or backpack for it and also a micro SD card. It'll keep me pretty busy for a few days adjusting to it, getting it set up how I like, and experimenting with it.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

Nuttmeg — Fri, 03 Apr 2020 22:13:54 GMT

@gardenman

Some Chromebooks may give customers free or low cost online storage for a period of time.

Microsoft office 365 includes 1TB of storage with an account.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

gardenman — Fri, 03 Apr 2020 23:41:51 GMT

@Nuttmeg wrote:
@gardenman
Some Chromebooks may give customers free or low cost online storage for a period of time.
Microsoft office 365 includes 1TB of storage with an account.

Yes. You get 100 Gbs of storage through Google free for one year and I have Microsoft Office 360 which gives me a full terabyte, and I also have Amazon Prime which gives me unlimited photo storage. Google also lets you store your music free on their cloud and I've got over 8,000 songs there now.

I'll be interested to see how Office 360 handles it when I save files on my desktop using the Microsoft cloud then access it through the Chromebook. I'm guessing it may take a while for things to sync, but I'll find out starting tomorrow. I'll also have to see what happens with the Grammarly and Kindle plug-ins on Word. Will they pop up automatically or will I have to add them, or can they even be added? Lots of stuff to learn.

My Chromebook is due between 2 pm and 6 pm tomorrow. So it'll be later in the day. I've read the manual already by downloading it from Acer's website. I'll be ready for it when it gets here. Step one will be plugging in the charger to wake it up, then log into Google and go from there. I don't know if it'll automatically load the apps from my Android phone or not, but I'll find out. There will be lots of stuff to learn. It'll be interesting. How will phone apps look on a 15.6" HD screen? Probably not great, but we'll see.

I think I can do about 95% of what I do on my desktop on the Chromebook. Maybe even more. Some programs like Sketchup require a mouse, but that's easy to add to the Chromebook. Adobe Photoshop Elements can't be used on a Chromebook, but there are alternatives. It'll be an interesting learning experience. I'm looking forward to it.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

gardenman — Sat, 04 Apr 2020 17:17:18 GMT

The new Chromebook got here a bit after noon and I'm posting this from it. It's very nice. Good bright screen. Very sharp and clear. Good sound. I'm pleased so far. Pretty easy to set up. I find I use the touchscreen a lot more than I thought I would.

Re: I just ordered my first Chromebook

gardenman — Sun, 05 Apr 2020 11:31:32 GMT

I used the new Chromebook for a bit over six hours yesterday and it's very nice. The screen is nice and bright and sharp. The keyboard is good. The battery life is excellent. It was still showing more than 50% battery left after 6+ hours of use. It doesn't get too hot. Maybe 95 degrees at the most on the left-hand side when I was really pushing it hard with videos playing, but most of the time it felt like the ambient room temp.

The trackpad is good but has an odd quirk. You use a two-finger tap to right-click and I was updating my list of bookmarks, removing old ones that I no longer use, and you remove them by right-clicking on them to bring up a menu. I did the first three or four with no trouble, then the two-finger tap was launching the websites instead of bringing up the menu letting me delete them. It turns out my fingers had drifted to the edge of the trackpad and the trackpad doesn't recognize the two-finger touch if you get too close to the edge. I don't know why, but it doesn't. When I moved my fingers in just a bit, it worked again. Go figure. It recognizes either finger independently at the edges, but not the two-finger tap.

Other than that minor quirk, all's good. The keyboard is fine. I'm used to typing on my Microsoft Natural keyboard with the split, angled keys, so there's an adjustment when I move to the more conventional layout of the Chromebook keyboard. It's a smaller keyboard than the Natural one but oddly feels bigger. I sometimes tend to land between keys instead of on keys despite them being closer together than on the Natural keyboard.

The screen is a very good one. I was sitting eight feet in front of my 55" 4K HDTV and had the same YouTube video playing on both and the image on the Chromebook was as good as, if not better than the 4K image from 8' away. With the relative closeness of the laptop the apparent image was even bigger on the laptop.

The speakers are good. I have all of my music on the Google Cloud and the Google Play Music app lets me listen to them with no trouble. Are they the best speakers I've ever heard? No, but they're fine. It's got Bluetooth which should let me pair my Bluetooth earbuds to it, but I haven't tried that just yet. (Someone, me, forgot to charge the earbuds.)

I played with it in tablet mode and it's a very, very big and heavy tablet. It's usable, but not overly comfy. I did use one of the drawing apps in tablet mode and that was very nicely handled using the new stylus. I suspect I'll reserve tablet mode for drawing and stuff like that. That's pretty much what I'd planned anyway. It's nice having the keyboard out of the way when you're drawing.

Bookmarks transitioned over from my desktop with no issues. (Other than the fact that I hadn't updated them recently and had some old ones that needed deleting.) I got Grammarly installed and working fine. My Word files popped up from OneDrive with no trouble. My Prime Photos showed up with no trouble. The same with Google photos. Outlook opened with no trouble and my email was all there.

The version of Word on the Chromebook is okay, but not what I'm used to. I'll be mostly writing on my desktop because of that, but it's usable. The formatting got a little screwy though. I use a Kindle plug-in on the desktop version of Word that's not available (or I haven't found it anyway) on the Chromebook version. That Kindle plug-in lets you use drop letters to start a new chapter, but when I look at the same file on the Chromebook the drop letter is sitting all by itself with the rest of the text under it.

All in all, I'm very happy with it. It gives me portability. The weight isn't an issue other than in tablet mode. I can pretty much forget it's on my lap. It weighs less than half of my lighter cat (Callie who's about eleven pounds) and maybe a third of my heavier cat (Lizzie, 17 lbs.) and it doesn't claw, knead me, or beg to be pet as it's lying there. It just lies there. (Bear in mind I used to hold my old 95-pound German shepherd on my lap for hours at a time, so anything feels light in comparison.) The touchscreen works well. I have to be a tick more forceful with it than on my Fire tablet, but it works. It works very, very well with the stylus. By the way, the Meko styluses (styli?) I bought have a clear disc interface which lets you see exactly where things are being drawn. I really like that.

No major issues, a few minor quirks, as is to be expected with new tech, but all in all, I'm very happy with it. It was a good $329 investment. In a perfect world it would weigh less, but it's not all that heavy and I can remember back when portable computers were the size of suitcases and weighed about as much as a fully packed suitcase. This weighs less than five pounds, so it's not bad.

I'd assumed I could just use a photo from Google Photos for my wallpaper, but it turns out you have to download it to the device to use it. Not a big deal. I downloaded a few of my favorite wallpapers from Google photos and they're now on the Chromebook. The camera is okay but nothing special but I don't intend to use it anyway, so that was no big deal. I'm happy with the new Chromebook. It's a pretty neat little gadget and gives me a backup computer to my desktop.