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Anyone have any experience with Chromebooks? I'm looking at this one:

Amazon.com: Dell Chromebook 11 3100 11.6" Touchscreen 2 in 1 Chromebook - HD - 1366 x 768 - Intel Celeron N4020 Dual-Core (2 Core) - 4 GB RAM - 32 GB Flash Memory (Renewed) : Electronics
Amazon.com: Dell Chromebook 11 3100 11.6" Touchscreen 2 in 1 Chromebook - HD - 1366 x 768 - Intel Celeron N4020 Dual-Core (2 Core) - 4 GB RAM - 32 GB Flash Memory (Renewed) : Electronics

I haven't personally used Chromebooks very much, but have a fair bit of familiarity with them from the kids using them for school. Honestly, they are a great option.

I absolutely hate tablets because having a keyboard and a mouse (or trackpad) is important to me--as you all know I can be a little long-winded lol. So I need to be able to actually type. To me, tablets are mostly toys for gaming or online content consumption. A real keyboard and mouse/trackpad is essential to actually do something. 

But the problem with traditional PCs/notebooks is that they run hardcore full-function operating systems, are expensive, require lots of RAM and storage, etc. Which is fine if you need that. But if 99% of what you do is web-based, there's really no need for that. A quality laptop is dropping a lot of coin to get a good one, when most people don't actually need the functionality they're paying for. 

So a Chromebook is a perfect middle ground. You get something much more functional than a tablet while not dropping the level of coin you need on a laptop. And because they're designed to be low-power and not need a lot of compute/memory resources as most of the "processing" happens on the other end of your internet connection, they usually have fantastic battery life. 

If your goal is to have something that's super-convenient for being online, a Chromebook is great. If you already have a PC (whether desktop or laptop) for the few times you really need that kind of capability, having a Chromebook for 90%+ of the rest of it is a good way to not put yourself in a position that you feel you need to refresh the PC for something newer on a constant basis. 

Put simply, a Chromebook is a simple tool for getting on the web. They're designed specifically for that purpose and they're ideally suited for it. If that's what you need, IMHO it's the best option for that job. 

I’ve had one for about 8 years now. It’s long in the tooth, and I’ve had to replace the battery once (a couple of years ago) and probably need to again. Nonetheless, it’s been useful to use for limited function (access to the web), and it’s been good for accessing my work stuff through Citrix. I don’t love Citrix, but it works on the Chromebook pretty well. 

For the price, mine was/is well worth it.

Yeah my kids have them, they're the current evolution of home-use thin client.  As bwar discussed, perfect if all you're really doing is accessing web-based applications and resources.  Obviously you're not going to be doing any heavy compute on them, but nobody expects that anyway.

As far as I can tell they're fairly reliable, but the school issues them and performs all maintenance and support for them, so if they're crashing regularly I wouldn't really know, the kids are taking them in to their IT office at school for support.

On any computer I always recommend buying the best/longest service contract you can get for it.  I'm not sure how that works through Amazon, you might check into the same/similar config on the corporate website.

Facebook absolute worst of them all. 

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/04/unitedhealth-cancels-investor-day-after-reports-of-executive-shot-in-manhattan.html


This is a crazy one.