Chrome OS early review.

In the past I would definitely say that I was definitely anti-Chromebook and anti-Chrome OS.

Right now, I'm writing this post from a Chromebook and my thoughts have changed a bit.

That isn't because the world has changed or I have changed or anything deep like that. Chrome OS has changed.

The single biggest change, and the one which drove my decision to buy this machine was support for Android apps. When I first saw one of these devices, they didn't support that. And, I believe a number of older devices are even stranded without that support. Honestly, without that piece, it is a really hard sell for anything other than a sub-$150 device. Even at the $200 price point you can start getting MUCH more capable Windows based netbooks. Or, cheap Android tablets or phones.

Now, the landscape isn't perfect. It still feels fragmented. Performance isn't where it should be for the prices. But, on the whole, things are headed in a much better direction.

On the fragmentation side of things, it is fragmented in a weird way. Technically, the "Chrome" part of Chrome OS is very much NOT fragmented. But, Chrome OS, at it's heart is a Linux based OS and different machines are running different kernel versions with different supported features and limitations. For instance, while the Play Store and it's apps are available on my machine Crostini, the Linux app support layer isn't. This goes back to the kernel version. Some stuff will undoubtedly get back ported, to some machines. And some stuff never will. And some stuff may get back ported, but may not mean the same things across the board.

For instance, if Crostini support is worked into an ARM chip, that device would still be unable to run apps not compiled for ARM. That isn't really a Chrome OS "problem"... but it points to some interesting fragmentation problems with enabling Linux support.

Now, as I said, my laptop does NOT support Crostini. And this irks me. This machine runs on an m3 processor, 4GB of RAM and a 64GB drive. I've added 32GB flash drive and I could expand that. In short, this machine... can easily run Linux. In fact, one article described this laptop as the perfect machine to run Linux on in general. The hardware is basically a perfect fit.

I suspect that, in time, support will be ported back into this laptop. And, if not, I can run Crouton. Or perhaps even look into dual booting. For me though, if this machine supported Crostini, it would have helped justify the price.

And that brings me to the next point. Value. Intel may offer lower end chips than the m3 I'm running, but this is still a fairly value oriented processor. The 4GB of RAM is low by today's standards for a laptop and the 64GB drive even more meager. The screen resolution is good but nothing to gloat about. There is no dedicated graphics. In short, there are 0 premium components in this PC. In fact, most of the components are easily labelled bargain. And the components which you might label mediocre only just barely earn even that title. 

If this were a Windows laptop, the price tag would need to be $400CAD or lower. MSRP was more like $650. I got it on a Black Friday deal somewhere in the middle.

At this price, this SHOULD be a core m5 and/or have 8GB or RAM. Or trade one of those specs and up the drive capacity to 128GB and you get something a little more in the mid range where this is priced.

The entry level Chromebook from Google is an absurd $1299CAD for a core m5, 8gb RAM and 128GB drive.

If that were a competitive i5 with 16GB RAM I could get there. I walk away feeling like the platform still doesn't know whether it is a laptop, a tablet or a browser based OS. But, it wants to price itself as a high end laptop regardless of what it can actually offer.

In short, the value is STILL a VERY hard sell for me. Especially since, even on somewhat modern hardware Linux app support is still absent.

If you ignore the value proposition. Then, the OS itself is quite respectable. At the price I paid, this is much less than a decent Android tablet. It doesn't perform as well on the Android front as something like a Samsung S3, but it isn't as far as you might think. The screen is comically large for some apps. And Google hasn't really done a great job even with it's first party apps on Chrome OS devices.

But, if you can justify the cost or just happened to get one of these devices, as long as you at least have Play Store support, you're probably not going to be disappointed. Especially not if you bought it as a laptop. If you bought it for Android gaming and didn't get a higher end one, you might be cringing. But, the form factor for these devices really is primarily that of a laptop. And, bundling Play Store productivity apps with Chrome OS actually makes it a decent operating system.

I may write an update review after some more time with this unit. For now though, I'm happier with this purchase than I ever would have thought possible a year ago or more.