let's get one thing straight here i like Windows okay i mean i'm a nice guy like
if i saw a chromebook shivering in the cold as it sat abandoned on a best buy
demo rack i'd feel bad for it
but given that there are Windows laptops and macbooks that can do everything a
chromebook can do and more i just haven't seen any reason why i or pretty
much anyone else who has real work to do would ever consider getting one
that is until now
because bam yep that is a complete Windows 10
installation running inside chrome os
absolutely perfect i like chromebooks now they're great
and so is our sponsor today's video is brought to you by nicehash nicehash is
the largest hash power broker rent out your computer when it's not in use to
crypto miners and get paid immediately in bitcoin with nicehash you can learn
more at the link in the video description
but not so fast chromebook lovers you can't run Windows on just any old
chromebook that's lying around in a third grade classroom this
is the acer spin 713 it's a chromebook
for big kids it's got a core i7 with 16
gigs of RAM a nice high res 3x2 display
a 10 hour battery and a military grade aluminum chassis whatever
that means but really the big boy pants that it wears to the party is that it
runs chrome enterprise a suite of business focused extra features like
advanced security protections and device management for now enterprise
chromebooks will be the only devices that you can officially infect with
Windows 10. that's because this unnatural union is actually the result
of a partnership between google and parallels the company that's best known
for running operating systems inside other ones using virtual machines but
make no mistake google isn't simply allowing parallels to bring Windows to
the unwashed masses no no this alliance is meant to help chromebooks replicate
in the business world the success that they've had in education and what better
way than a sweet targeted exclusivity deal now that's not to say that running
Windows apps on chrome os is a new idea
options already exist for doing just that the problem is that they're
at least a little janky the best one is crossover which lets you
run individual Windows apps through the wine compatibility layer for Linux
but the apps that we wanted to install using crossover weren't in their
official list and the installation got stuck every time when you compare that
to this well right off the bat parallels gets points
for just running when you full screen this vm its
resolution dynamically adjusts and if you never bump the screen edges with
your mouse you might just be able to delude yourself into thinking this is
just a regular Windows laptop
if it wasn't for the confusing keyboard layout and the really low screen refresh
rate as strange as it is to say though once
you get used to that choppiness overall performance is
actually not bad the Windows 10 version of geekbench
delivered only a slightly worse score than the Android version using the same
hardware here and photoshop was a lot
more usable than it was on microsoft's own ARM-based surface pro x you might
even be able to do some video editing in premiere if you keep the preview quality
low of course these types of tasks are more specific
to our needs as media professionals for
enterprise users the ability to run fully featured versions of microsoft
office will be far more attractive even if it's not quite as attractive as
you'll be with our sick merch from lttstore.com parallels also offers
crossos integrations that sweeten the experience
shared folders are set up by default so you can easily access any file from
either operating system chrome os printers are
automatically accessible in Windows and you can also add Windows only devices if
you want you can even set chrome os as the default browser in Windows so links
will open in a new tab outside of parallels because using chrome inside of
Windows vm inside chrome os
would be a little silly wouldn't it while there's clearly some optimization
that still needs to happen the fact that a chromebook is running a full fat
installation of Windows 10 at all is a big deal chrome os has never supported
fast kernel virtual machines presumably because google's original vision for the
chromebook was as a simple portal to the web not as a bloated computer that you
could defile with something as clunky as Windows
but that vision has apparently changed as has the hardware
parallels owes its chromebook venture to the fact that newer chromebooks are
coming with specs that would have been absolutely unheard of in the early days
they're not just for students and the tech illiterate anymore they are for
serious business too and serious business frankly requires something more
than a celeron of course being able to access Windows should appeal to any
chromebook user with or without the serious business mostly because chrome
os by itself just still kind of sucks
it's come a long way since the start i mean it's had support for Android apps
since 2016 and the ability to run Linux apps since 2019 which is impressive for
an os that google bragged didn't run any apps when it launched i mean you can
even install Linux versions of firefox vivaldi or brave and not even use the
chrome browser at all on a chromebook that's a hilarious prank to play on our
old friend google but despite its transformation from literally just a
browser to an actual operating system the fact remains that chrome os is just
missing support from many professional apps and pretty standard enthusiast
features as for the support that is there again
it's kind of jank like our chrome enterprise installation just refused to
connect to our servers for file sharing here at the office even though we
repeatedly asked it to very nicely i mean don't get me wrong the simplicity
of chromebooks is perfect for people who ain't got time for that but it's
definitely not for the linuses of the world
so having Windows on your chromebook is an imperfect way then to fill in some of
those holes in chrome os's functionality at least for now
ultimately google really should fill these holes in themselves if they're
going to convince anyone that these things truly are the future but they're
certainly trying in an interview with the verge a google rep likened chrome os
to a state-of-the-art home theater setup and Windows to the dusty vcr that you
keep around to play those old home videos um
i believe this is what the zoomers refer to as a bra moment
anyway though google if your plans for the future still involve this wacky
keyboard layout you can count me out uh honestly i need to talk about this for a
second chromebooks have a search key which fulfills sort of a similar role to the
Windows key or the command key on a mac but instead of putting it on the bottom
left where we're all used to it being they make the control and alt keys super
huge and put the search key where your caps lock usually is
i mean sure you can press alt search and activate caps lock and alt backspace to
forward delete since the delete key is also missing but
uh-oh neither of these shortcuts work in Windows 10 because pressing alt
highlights the menus i meant to convey that i was mad about this and that i was
yelling but there's no caps lock google
i don't want a line graph also acer this
trackpad unusable it just doesn't register small
movements and can even move the cursor backwards sometimes like i love all the
ports the keyboard the screen just get
rid of this part thanks anyway though
whether i like it or not that chromebook dominated future may actually be a
possibility while Windows laptops saw some growth in 2020 probably due to that
pandemic thing that growth was absolutely dwarfed by the increase in
sales of chromebooks which already dominate the education market and i'm
going to make a similar point to the one that i made in our pixel book go review
if google can penetrate the enterprise market now with that baked in Windows
support see that they'll be laying the groundwork for a
future where kids who have used chromebooks their whole life in school
grow up enter the workforce and choose the laptop they're
more familiar with so there we go i guess
that's the reason Windows isn't available on non-enterprise chromebooks
google's shooting themselves in the foot if they let students get used to Windows
there's a plan here man things are in motion
are you awake awake to hear this message from our
sponsor nicehash nicehash makes it easy to turn your pc into a mining machine
you can quickly see how profitable your machine will be with their quick miner
tool no registration is needed and nice hash is also in exchange so you can
trade your coins into other cryptocurrencies also they have a hash power brokerage
that you can simply rent out your machines so that other eager miners can
take advantage of the power you get paid out every four hours once your rig is
rented out you'll even get paid in bitcoin so try it out it's free at the
link in the video description if you enjoyed this video maybe check out our
head to head showdown between the surface pro x running Windows on ARM and
the macbook pro running apple's m1 soc
which is also ARM who will win spoiler alert the mac but
still interesting