Chromebooks As Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2016-05-06
·
1,033 words · ~5 min read
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as satisfying as it might be to piece together a high-end computer capable of
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doing everything from running games at 4K to trying to find the grand unified
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theory often times you probably find yourself just needing something to check
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your email or post a video selfie about how much you hate people who take
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selfies and even though you can do these things with a tablet or with a
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smartphone there's no denying the convenience of being able to use a good
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old-fashioned physical keyboard well Google jumped on this idea a few years
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back by rolling out the Chromebook a line of lightweight laptops tightly
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integrated with Google online services and pushed as an alternative to
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Windows-based laptops but how exactly are they different then from the
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traditional notebook PC and are they actually a compelling buy for people who
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don't need the you know peasant Destroyer over 9,000 gaming laptop will
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Chromebooks differ from regular laptops in two main way ways one they ship with
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Google's own operating system the Linux-based Chrome OS instead of Windows
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this OS relies heavily on web applications such as Google Drive and is
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essentially built around the Chrome web browser two because they are so tied to
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the internet and specifically to cloud storage they tend not to come with a
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whole lot of on device storage capacity
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most Chromebooks only pack 16 to 32 GB
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of internal storage though at least they are ssds so while you won't get a whole
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lot of space your read and write speed should still be quite a bit faster than
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a traditional laptop with a mechanical hard drive well lonus that actually
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sounds pretty dumb uh why would I want a laptop with a tiny drive that basically
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needs to be connected to the internet all the time great question although
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Chromebooks aren't as feature Rich as Windows laptops there are some distinct
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advantages the most prominent of which being cost Chromebooks are generally
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cheaper than traditional laptops and while prices do depend on the hardware
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inside you can get them new for as low as 150 bucks although 250 is a more
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common price point Chromebooks also try to blur the line between laptop and
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mobile device with long battery life most Chromebooks can get between 8 and
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13 hours on a single charge not to mention that their lightweight usually
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in the 2 to 3 lb range on surprisingly though the focus on web-based
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applications and Ultra portability comes with some compromises Windows
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applications won't run on Chrome OS meaning you'll have to find alternatives
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for things like Skype and iTunes uh it
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may come with 100 gabt of cloud storage for two years but after that you'll have
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to start forking your cash over to Google negating some of those cost
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benefits that you got for yourself by spending Less on your laptop and because
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most Chromebooks have Celeron or even ARM-based processors you won't be able
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to do a lot of that computationally intensive stuff that we alluded to at
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the beginning of the video unless you purchase one of the few higher-end
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models that spored an Intel core I3 or better processor but even with these
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limitations developers are coming up with tricks to make the Chromebook a
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more capable machine for instance Adobe has come out with a version of Photoshop
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for Chromebooks that actually offloads the processing to Adobe servers so you
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can still edit photos even on a low power CPU cool right and Google does
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include functionality for things like creating memos in Google Docs without an
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internet connection Chrome OS is also capable of running most Android apps
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natively and can even connect to an Android smartphone and even though the
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OS is designed to be a secured Walled Garden of sorts including storing boot
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code in a ROM chip to ensure the system can't be modified by an attacker
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Chromebooks do include a developer mode that enables you to install a different
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operating system on them alog together if you'd like so even though power users
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probably won't be conquering cyberspace with a Chromebook anytime soon it's
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certainly an interesting alternative if your Digital Life is mostly centered
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around sending out tweets pretending to send important emails and of course
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thanks for watching this episode as fast as possible if you like the video do
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that thing if you didn't do the other thing leave a comment if you have suggestions for future fast as possible
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John's usually trolling through there he's our main writer these days and uh I
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guess that pretty much wraps it up thanks again for watching don't forget to subscribe and follow and all that
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good stuff for more videos just like this one