Thank you to Wealthfront for sponsoring this video! Use our link invest.wealthfront.com/linus to open a Wealthfront investment account and get $5K managed for free.
@@doggo_woo Nah, it's likely the sensor on the stand of the Duet because the texture makes it hard for the adhesive to stay stuck. Fortunately, this doesn't compromise the security of the actual device, but it is annoying.
I used to just walk over their with the key to have it stop beeping if I saw someone start walking over there lmao. I swear you just look at it and it started going off
To be fair, some places have tax discounts on items used for school. If you live in the US, most of the things you use for college are tax deductible. Linus might have shot himself in the foot, as he used the device to make video content for sponsors (work use) for a device to be used by his child for school.
I worked for a learning management software company, a HUGE portion of the issues we received were from chromebook users. It was very difficult to tell people they essentially "bought the wrong laptop".
@@virtual2288 People purchased them because of their low cost. If i recall, I believe the issue was the chromebooks being more like a tablet, which would allow certain softwares to run properly, if at all.
@Allen Chester a celeron can still run a bunch of programs (specifically the ones the company had), albeit slowly. Whereas chromebooks couldn't run a lot of those softwares.
@@chazmichaelmichaels88 you and Allen both have valid points. My mid range chromebook runs fast. $600. Yes it doesn't run all the apps. Wait 2 years and buy of ebay for half price (remember support last 5 to 7 years). I paid retail for mine 😭😭😭. It does 90 percent of what I want. I also have a laptop 🤣🤣🤣. I think people should get both a laptop and a chromebook. You should spend most of the time on the chromebook. Chromebook has better battery, clean reinstall in 5 or 10 minutes, don't need to turn off (like a smart phone), no virus but if have, just reset it, extremely hard to hack. Light weight and no fan noise. Laptop windows will last longer because you won't be using it much. I do agree laptop is better if you can only have one device. If you can have two and both have good specs, chromebook will be the one, you be using all the time
imagine being a fan of Valve games, waiting 18 years since the release of HL2, and then finally seeing mention of the word Borealis in an official Valve project… and it’s just Chromebook compatibility
Linus: "knowing that he's my son, he will probably forget his charger" Me: knowing he's your son, he will probably drop it after a segue to ridge wallet.
My kid's school uses the Education version of that and has a tough case on it by default. It's not Linus-proof. Trust me. I had replace the screen on it over break so I didn't have to pay the school for it. (It's a good machine though for a Chromebook in a very sweet spot in the market)
Any kid would need something drop-proof. That's why you don't buy your kid a €1000+ laptop. In fairness, I believe the school should've provided these laptops. It makes no sense to me, to make the parents spend hundreds, just for the kids to be able to participate at all. They used to use physical books, that were also provided by the school.
@@thany3 Definitely agree with that. I used to build laptops for a correspondence school and some got dropped and broken badly to the point where the display was held on by the cables. These included really strong devices like the Lenovo T420 too.
bought mine for under $100, I have a gaming pc I just get distracted so its nice to have something portable I can get school work done on. I actually do understand the criticisms, but for under $100 this shit goes hard. It fits a specific niche of users, dont buy it if you're looking to do everything a pc can
As someone who is an IT support for 10 primary schools, at least half of my week is spent repairing, maintaining, and setting up Chromebooks for students. It's so painful.
@@catharinrin sounds line Chromebooks are easier to lock down? Which would be pretty important for young children, most parents aren't as tech savvy as Linus
@@chrisn5956 It is locked down, easier to setup remote management, easier to operate loan program, cheap and google subsidize chromebook in some countries.
@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks surpise, windows also spies on you. unless you're getting a thinkpad class laptop with linux pre-installed, you are buying a spybook.
@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks Data is still being gathered unless all telemetry is killed along with keeping applications limited due to said telemetry issues. Using a schools network to a degree also allows a portion of web traffic to be monitored requiring the use of a VPN or own mobile internet service. If you really was worried about spying then you wouldn't have a google account and participating in Googles ecosystem.
@@dwirandypradhika6752 Yeah but I think it's easier to disable telemetry and stuff like that on Windows than it would be on a Chromebook. I do not know, but if Android is anything to go by I think disabling stuff like that on ChromeOS would be far more cumbersome than it would be on Windows. Which is ironic considering the "heritage"...
Son: "Dad, I need a Chromebook for school." Linus: "Our family has been dishonored. Shameful display! I mean, seriously, look at that picture quality, and those bezels. Eugh."
The issue with school issued or required chrome books and iPads that a lot of people who grew up with the one computer in the back corner of the library or who got a laptop for accessibility don’t clock is the ridiculous oppressive restrictions and surveillance placed on “education” software. Time locks and software restrictions on something you’re forced to buy that remain restricted and may even remain attached to their network long after you should leave it.
Those restrictions are often required by the School Board or Government in those areas. In America, it's required by law to have some form of Internet Filtering for school children, so if there's a mandatory device, it often will have mandatory bloat to meet regulatory spec
Yes, I’m in high school and am so lucky that we have macs. Our districts it director tried so hard to get us the freedoms to not have those shitty chrome books. It was difficult because google practically pays districts to go chrome. To do who knows with your data
"knowing that he's my son he'll probably forget his charger". that's not a problem with chromebook. one of the beauties of chromebook is that they all charge via USBC - the same cable that charges all phones and all chromebooks. wherever he goes, as long as there are other people around, he's bound to have access to a USBC cable.
Linus' son is one of the few where parents know exactly what they need to buy whereas other parents will most likely get one that only has 6 months of OS support left or have some ridiculously overpriced Samsung
and that's exactly the reason why I did my own research when looking for a laptop. My parents had found one with a 17 inch screen which was the same price as the laptop that I eventually got (15 inch), but it had a worse processor (can't remember which one it was) and speakers (this one has ridiculously good speakers, but I barely use them since I'm usually using my earbuds). It was also more expensive, so I definitely don't trust my parents when it comes to look for stuff like computers
I know you guys like to talk about repairability on this channel. I work in the tech department at a high school and once warranty runs out on these things, being able to buy a screen or battery for $30 and swap it out is huge. Those are the two things I see broken most and they are the easiest to fix. Some windows laptops aren’t even that easy.
its also nice for schools that deploy all the same brand and model of chromebook to be able to have those spares on hand and be able to make 10 min repairs on campus, my high school bought the chrombooks for the students as part of the school fees for that reason.
I work in a school district's IT department. A whole bunch of the Chromebooks we're buying this year are still using the same screen models as the Chromebooks we're currently retiring because they're no longer supported. This basically makes screens kinda "free" for us because we can harvest them from the units we're ecycling. Kids break A LOT of screens so that's good.
Thankfully I went to high school just before the rollout of Chromebooks, but during the time where schools were rolling out tech to their students. My school had decent enough Windows machines and few restrictions on what could be installed on them. My bread and butter for games on that thing was Minecraft, Portal 2, and Kerbal Space Program.
Also the way I see it... in school things are broken or stolen so there is little point in getting a premium chromebook broken/stolen in school if the mid-tier sensible one is also available... and Linus's reasons are also valid.
I love my HP Chromebook! My company replaced my laptop with one. I hated it at first but I love how quick it is. I'm an accountant and it does Excel calculations SO MUCH FASTER than my windows one. I'm talking genuinely 5 minutes faster for the most laborious tasks (30 minute calculations take 25!). This is apples to apples with i7 processors and SSDs.
Linus' son is lucky to have a tech savvy father who knows exactly what to look for in these things, makes using a Chromebook a lot smoother that way. But I feel old when a kid is taking a laptop to school, not a laptop in sight in my schools until my final two years lol
Linus should've just gotten him a crazy gaming laptop. When teachers ask him about why he doesn't have a Chromebook, he can just tell them that Chromebooks are for peasants.
Been working the Chromebook for the last 2 yrs in a school environment. The main issue is not the OS, it is the manufacturing side. Cheap build materials, where screws fall out/ left hinge screw mountings breaks after the amount of usage these CB going through in an average school day and/or @home. Plus the general kids handling/ carrying in school bag...ect just being kids. Also be very warry about repair costs, especially replacing the glass. Some cheaper models, its cheaper just to buy a new 1.
My school-issued chromebook lost a hinge. Not broken, LOST. It completely snapped off without any heavy wear and tear. I had to be without a computer at school for 3 weeks before it was fixed. So glad I'm out of high school and still against the chromebook.
I went to a rural highschool and they had Chromebook carts in most classes. Some of them had mobile processors from galaxy 3 smart phones. they had trouble running flash games
I handle the IT for a school district that deals exclusively in special needs students, middle/high school age. They’re basically as disposable as pencils at this point.
I was quite skeptical about getting a Chromebook, because no one spoke well of them, and especially here in Italy . They call them "junk" here . , however I wanted to try to get one . I have to be honest I feel very good with it for my use . Video lectures , documents , some movies , update and maintenance of some online websites , everything I need I have it .
I do actually know someone (former ChromeOS Dev @ Google albeit) uses a Pixelbook as his main laptop. Obviously can't just live with ChromeOS, so as a Linux user he has Crouton with Wayland and Sway and some magic that gets that to actually work (no idea). I think the main reasoning is that the Pixelbook is a really nice laptop and that cros is a nice OS.
@Prince Cooper I beg to differ: premium TP is way more useful and makes way more sense than a premium chromebook :D Indeed my ass loves premium toilet paper, but can't really say the same about any chromebook 😆
@@ehhthing indeed, Im also a high end chromebook user and i love it. the reason i went for chromebook is the linux integration and the fact that i find windows an absolute pain to work with. Chromeos is nice and elegant. And its also super easy to deploy some containers, code some stuff and dont forget it has amazing battery life. For quite some time i debated to buy a macbook but I like to stay in the google ecosystem because i have a house full of google home products and a pixel phone (and soon a pixelwatch). I think a premium chromebook as main driver is something that is done by people that would choose to use linux as their default OS but also likes to have the convenience of being able to run default apps without the hassle.
@@JohanAntonissen I wonder how many users bought one JUST for the great battery life. As I understand it, high-end Windows laptops are improving-slightly-but-still-poor in this regard, compared to Macbooks and Chromebooks.
Chromebooks actually do make sense for schools. Cheap 'individual unit' prices mean even cheaper bulk purchase prices, and with ChromeOS's deplopyment options, it means that these machines are pretty easy to set up and manage from an IT technician's view.
except that not a single piece of software used at our school was compatible with them, so when the macbook people had to get a different laptop because they couldnt run the software, they still couldnt, because our school only had chrome books... facepalm moment..
It wouldn't be possible for us to maintain a 1:1 program if we had to use conventional laptops. The cost of the device would be too high and the logistical challenge of maintenance and support would be too high.
@@Monsuco Precisely my point. With these cheap but somewhat durable machines, and easy software management, 1:1 is so much easier! Course, you could also go green and recycle old machines.
Got a $400 Chromebook for $100 as an openbox and it's honestly quite nice. Feels good and responsive. Lenovo and the battery life is awesome. Even sitting around for over a month when it was off I came back to a full battery. I actually think it's the Lenovo you were looking at.
They're actually really useful for system admins. Mass software depolyments and simple enough that the kids can't mess them up as easily. But you're right, they've gotten better with android support and Linux beta. As someone who's set these up in schools, I understand why they did it.
I geniuenly dont understand why my school opted for cheap windows laptops that you cant download anything on as opposed to chromebooks. Without us having the ability to use downloads it is just a glorified web browsing device that costs twice the price of a chromebook and causes tons of management headache with figuring out updates whenever I'm doing IT assistant as one of my classes.
@@echonuim Cheap Window laptops that are just a walking security risk. From computers, to the potential of kids infecting the network to everything. ChromeOS isolates it before it even gets out, allows for cheap, and if you're careful. You're paying the 100 dollars less for a more secure device, easier managed, easy to repair (You can run a computer class and the kid doesn't need to know any complex computers). Why spend more for computers that will inevitably cost more to run, cost more to maintain, leads them to cyber attacks, can be misused and requires more time to program? Like seriously. Why would you go for windows laptops?
to be fair the chrome books are REALLY good at what they’re built for. like if you’re basically just writing papers and researching and that sort of thing then it’s all you really need. i’m in college and i’ve been using one and it work perfect
Yeah though i would argue it also depends on what you study. It lends itself way better to text etc, but doing something like programming is probably going to suck or using something like ltspice for electronics simulation, in which case you would have to jump through the hoop of doing crouton install anyway. In which case like linus said, it would be better to just get a machine that runs windows/linux, since you would probably also wont some hardware to for stuff like that i would assume.
But there is a point where the chromebooks they buy in bulk for the kids are so bad they literally cannot handle scrolling through a 2 page google doc. I can say from personal experience.
Nah it's a POS, 100%. I'd rather be working with a pen and paper than withstanding that hunk of junk which resets and slows down all the time even though it has a Core i7 8tg gen on it.
Two notes: 1. Crouton is officially deprecated and 2. While running steam on Linux on crostini is great, Google still blocks exec from SD cards mounted by Linux preventing you from installing games on external storage. With most chromebooks made prior to 2021 (and even now) only including 32GB internal storage, gaming is not the greatest experience yet.
Not sure why the "yet," it's a no-brainer that Chromebooks would never be great in gaming for almost every case scenario. But it's sad to see Crouton getting discontinued, it was honestly fun just messing around with an desktop environment that looks really odd for it to be a Chromebook (which also feels 100% more usable IMO). With the bonus of being able to play games, amid the driver issues. While GalliumOS 3.1 is already two years old with last update being June 2021, it's almost a dead project as well at this point.
It's pretty awful to see these things essentially turning into e-waste once the OS is no longer officially supported while they would still be perfectly usable if they just didn't artificially lock them down
@@MPereira75013 I assume stopped support means no more security updates which is a pretty big deal for a device which is primarily intended for tasks such as browsing the web...
@@adsensiv end of support for android devices commonly means you cant update your apps much longer, and i expect these to be the same (although i haven't tried a chromebook) so unless you have things you could run the old version of without too much issues they pretty much become unusable
Yo, I had a chance to play with a Framework Laptop. Holy crap! No wonder Linus is invested, it's gotta be the best idea since the ssd. A fully upgradable laptop. The drawback seems to be that you have to wait a little while for parts to become available, but it seems like a seriously solid idea if you wanna game on the go
I remember revisiting my highschool years later to find they'd swapped out all the Windows laptops with Chromebooks, I felt so bad for the students. The laptops were nothing special, but BYOD was allowed. We'd play Halo CE in the library and snatch up all the ethernet ports. Played a long cat and mouse game of finding websites the school had yet to ban, especially web games and anime streaming. Can't do any of that now, school internet and devices are super locked down (can't even open task manager or settings on Windows).
@@TheRavenCoder lol ik, but Linus seemed dead set on keeping that thing, without Yvonne's input i think we would have been seeing it in every home video of his.
@@darryljack6612 nah, I think that was mostly show. He said on a WAN Show that he approved the project because he expected it would be easy to sell (it wasn't) and worst case scenario it can just be melted down.
Linus son: dad, I got something to tell you. Linus: don't worry son, I'm not mad. Did you get a bad grade? Son: no, it's worse than that. Linus: you started smoking? Son: worse. Linus: you got in a fight? ... Son: worse. ... Linus: I was FORCED to buy a Chromebook….
The kid should be glad it didn't have to be a macbook then. If my kid's school would require that, it would mean an immediate transfer. Luckily, they don't because I'm not a parent. But if I was, I'd be furious.
our school district recently gave every single student (besides the elementary, cheeto dust crusty 1st graders /j) new laptops. this is great and all, but since they are all chromebooks (which run on chrome OS) they are very limiting, and annoying. want to change your desktop? you cant. want to add people shortcuts for when you boot up the device? cant. want to use the stylus? pay $30 please. (lenovo did that, still annoying how the school advertises that.) what really ticks me off about those computers is that they all have this really thick case (very difficult to remove.) it's uncomfortable to type while the case is on, and the top lid is much harder to open with it on. it adds like a pound to the original lightweight computer, personally very annoying considering we all walk around with 15 pound backpacks already.. the computers themselves have pretty good specs. (for what they are-) touchscreen and 360 hinge design with 4gb of ram, but i think that since it's on chrome OS the computer is being limited to what it could really do. note: my classmates and i have been speculating if our school district is spying on us with our computers, even if we aren't on our administration managed account. can the administration access our other accounts if we are on a school-managed chromebook?
Requiring a chromebook makes close to 0 sense for me. If the school really wants to control what the device is used for, they should be supplying the devices and setting custom permissions. Imagine buying something and then having someone else tell you what you are allowed and aren't allowed to do with it.
This for real! My oldest daughter was issued a chrome book by the school. And at her moms house she uses it. And it has the school restrictions on it. At my house she sits at her desk, uses her full sized desktop and carries on doing her work, and browses whatever else she wants on the side.
Most school's IT departments don't have the time or knowledge to lock down 100s of laptops in a secure way. Chromebooks also pushes to buck to parents to buy the hardware rather than the school.
@@ZNotFound sure, but either way the school should be providing them themselves. Why should I have to pay for something that they will claim software ownership over and lockdown beyond my control?
@@jody5661 Maybe there was an option to buy your own Chromebook and Linus opted for that. In that case, not only would Linus have gotten his son a better chromebook he also had an opportunity to make a RUclips video.
@@ZNotFound This. It has more to do with parents wanting their kid's to have their own individual chromebooks and not ones that may have been shared with other kids/touched. It's a covid precaution type situation.
@rhamlet5290 Only reason against that is, don't saddle little kids with the user unfriendly horror story that is Linux, but otherwise good point on proprietary ecosystems.
My geometry teacher who is a 60 year old grandmother-type lady used to think chromebooks weren't actual computers, just terminals connected to a larger computer, because of how low-power they were and how they were mostly used for connecting to the internet. I mean, she sorta has a point.
I bought a chromebook in 2015. It was a 15 inch acer with 16 GB HD and 4 GB of ram for $250. I don't have a lot to spend on computers and I don't game. This was easily the best computer purchase I've made in the past 10 years. The key points being battery life, portability, ease of use and surprisingly, a linux conversion to GalliumOS with a 256 GB HD upgrade later in life (in which it excels as a work laptop). There are loads of options and they are not easy to sift through, but when you find the right one for your use case they are amazingly capable machines for productivity on the go.
I guess if you must have a new laptop sure, but you can find some pretty nice used mid-tier laptops and desktops for ~$250, heck if you don't need an entire laptop just something to use, you can get broken ones / the motherboard alone for as little as $30 and plug it into a monitor with the disclaimer that not all laptops will work like this or be easy to setup. I picked up a thinkpad T440 motherboard for $20 and it has similar specs to your chromebook, an i5-4300U, 4GB on-board ram and I separately bought a 16GB msata ssd for $7, I've been using it as my homelab PC for the last 3 years, running pi-hole, nextcloud and a handful of other things, but it's also a perfectly fine web browsing PC, it's worked great so far.
I remember seeing Chromebooks with Core i7 processors in them. Kind of overkill, like, very very overkill, unless you plan on hacking it and installing a different operating system on it. 🙂
As an owner of the i5 Pixelbook, I love the overhead. Yes, it is "overkill", but at the same time I never have to worry about running low on RAM or processing power. I can hook up my laptop to a 4k display (which I did all the time in college) and it doesn't lose a beat. I used to have videos and lectures playing on the monitor while I took notes on the laptop display. Most $300 Chromebooks (or Windows laptops for that matter) can't output that many pixels with videos and web apps running. It either crashes or overheats in my experience.
Honestly, I got an Acer R11 chromebook years ago and it was fantastic for my use case at college. I used it to complete basic reports using Word, or take notes and they were fantastic. 10+ hours battery life is amazing, plus it only weighs 1.1kg. It was perfect to just throw in my backpack for daily use, and I didn't have to worry about being super delicate with it. I had my PC for AutoCAD and whatnot, and my chromebook for the more basic tasks on campus. And I only paid €220 for it. Highly recommend a chromebook for those on a budget who need to do basic computing tasks. It's still working fine to this day, although the battery life has gone down from around 10/11 hours to around 6 or so, which is still more than enough.
Yup.. find me a device in the same price range (I paid $120 for my an Acer Chromebook back in the day) that has 10 hours of battery life. I used it in college as well before I could buy a better laptop. Even then, the battery life doesn't compare unless you had a top of the line laptop.
@@lennonmclean Yeah dude Acer paid me 500 to shill for then there haha. Nah but seriously I have nothing but good things to say about chromebooks. Windows laptops in the same price range tend to be awful.
I used a Lenovo Duet as a secondary device before switching to a 2020 iPad Air, and for the price, it’s really a neat little device. I’m still impressed by the build quality, and as far as Chromebooks go, it would be the one I would recommend to anyone in the market for one, IF ONLY it didn’t have an ARM chip. Theoretically that would make it better for Android app compatibility, but in my testing it didn’t hold a candle to x86 Chromebooks in the same price point
@@leonidas14775 When I was looking for a cheap upgrade from my *very* dated laptop that I revived with Linux for a while, I nabbed a Flip C434 for super cheap because the corner of the bezel (not even part of the visible display) had a minor crack in it that was even hidden when the screen was open. Has served me well as a lightweight Linux machine. I don't exactly grasp why people shit on Chromebooks so heavily, but I guess my use case was pretty niche among the ocean of users.
@@leonidas14775 The Duet has Cadmium, which is an actively developed version of Linux for ARM Chromebooks on bare metal. At the moment, everything is supported except external displays, video decoding, and cameras. However, it only runs Wayland based environments (and the dev doesn't even want to implement Xorg support), and the performance is good since hardware acceleration is supported, but it can be relatively sluggish in a lot of scenarios.
@@bbbbbbb51 That's good you got a good deal on a chromebook and made it do what you want. The problem with ARM is that while x86 systems and linux are mostly interchangeable, each ARM device is at the mercy of a developer specifically supporting that device. That can be a problem for example if you own an old or uncommon android phone. And its not as simple as swapping a DTB file usually. Most ARM devices are not SystemReady, which aims to increase OS compatibility
In some schools they don't take their Chrome books home, so they have to put them in this big box that has slots for every chrome book to sit in and charge
I wanted something 11inches for writing/word processor. Found a chromebook with touchscreen, 8 gb ram 128 gb storage and a 2ghz processor for $180. Cheaper than most Tablet+rubber keyboard combos and better sized than any 14 inch laptop, which arent available at the price anyway. I have a 14inch ultrabook, a 15.6inch workstation with a quadro, will see which gets more use.
Besides the mainboard of a 150$ device decides to stop working good luck getting any data Form the emmc as still a lot of people dont write down their damn account data. Also hardware repairs for 150$ devices are just not worth it in the Most cases.
Also contrary to the consoomer article referenced in this fad video they’ve always been Linux capable since the beginning. I did it in 2011, you can even do it on most of the ARM architecture chrombooks as well.
As someone who currently works at my high school tech department, I can somewhat agree. The only issue is the screw holders breaking every now and then because of how they're built.
I've been using a Chromebook for terminal-based dev work through crouton since 2015 (and the past 2 years through crostini). Low-end Chromebooks fill a nice and somewhat overlooked niche in computing. They trade compute power for absurd battery life (my previous 2015 Acer Chormebook was still getting 6+ hours after around 5 years of use). The $150 - $200 price tag makes me far less worried about taking it out and about where it could be damaged/broken/stolen. And at this point most all casual/productivity/school/work computing tasks are just done through a browser, so what used to be a restriction for Chromebooks really isn't much of one anymore.
@@tihomirrasperic agreed on this! Once my Chromebook was end of life (no more software updates) I deleted Chrome and installed Gallium OS as my daily driver on that machine. It works great and it's something like a decade old machine now. I write C programs, Python scripts, run a BurpSuite proxy, and do relatively straightforward hacking CTFs and war games on it. You're not gonna be brute forcing stuff with huge wordlists on the ancient CPU with like no ram, but it works for my use cases. Can stream video and do whatever word processing, programming, and compiling that I need.
I remember Chromebook Pixel. They were very well-designed, had good quality (and were pretty expensive as a Chromebook). I knew several friends who bought it and flashed it with Ubuntu.
It was genuinely a really close call between a Chromebook Pixel and a Lenovo or Dell Ultrabook when I was shopping for a dev machine in 2014. In the end it came down to which one I found on offer first
@@JamesScholesUK Why not just buy a decent fucking laptop and flashing Linux on it? Hell, you can even flash CloudReady OS on it if you want to limit yourself with ChromeOS.
I'd be dammed. Would it not make sense if the very school that is requiring a chrome book also provide them? (Presuming Linus's child goes to public school) How is that even remotely fair for impoverished children?
Here in Sweden when i went to school we were provided chromebooks for free that we than had to return to the school. If it was damaged you had to pay for the damage to get it fixed or replaced and if it was returned damaged.
Here in Ontario (at least for YRDSB), the way it works for students is you by default use your own device (NOT limited to Chromebooks, you can use any tablet/laptop as long as it can access the web), but you can request for the board to provide you with a device if you don't have/can afford a suitable device. It's not a bad system, since most students do already have a decent computer, and those who don't can get the assistance they need (prevents a lot of waste if the school board needed to buy devices for everyone).
9:05 you could also run it in a kernel-based virtual machine (kvm) to pass the graphic performance directly into the vm. then you won't have worse performance. the downside of that would be that it is quite hard to setup correctly
with the added overhead of the VM on the very weak CPU, it may still hurt performance. With most of the chromebooks having celerons (many of which are slower than core 2 duos)
@@yotoprules9361 Yep. I got a HP stream 14 with the Celeron n4020 for school work and general shenanigans. Identical specs to my school issued Lenovo 100e. I knew buying it that it wouldn't be a gaming machine, but I still wanted to try just out of curiosity. The only playable games I have found to be were Half Life, and Enclave. Anything else would just peg the N4020 and UHD 600 graphics at 100% while getting about 10fps. Honestly though, 10fps is playable for me if it wasn't for the horrible frame times.
@@yotoprules9361 yes that is true. you will get a little worse performance than if you were running a windows machine. but since the graphics output will directly be passed on to the vm, it won't even nearly be as bad as if it was just a regular vm.
I had the privilege of beta-testing the Cr-48 before Chromebooks were sold to the public and I still own one which I bought a couple of years ago. For the right use case (browsing, email, office, video conferencing) it's pretty solid. Coming from an info-sec perspective, having an OS on it which can be managed completely remotely and needing to literally be pried open to get a different OS on it is an enterprise IT guy's dream. It won't ever replace my gaming laptop but I feel much safer taking it out in public.
That's the thing. Chromebooks are not meant for most people watching LTT. Schools like them because they typically do not have enough IT support to implement something better and they are easy to lock down. They are really good for people that do not have a lot of experience with computers. A number of members of my family do not like technology so it was a pain for me to keep their 10 year old Windows laptops running but they almost never have issues with their Chromebooks.
You don't need a chromebook for that anymore. Dell laptops have an autopilot feature that lets you completely manage Windows 10 remotely and lock the bios so it can't be tampered with. Better than using Chrome OS, at least
Yea I tested it as well, back then it was next to useless but it has a place like schools (but I know even 5years ago most 18-20year olds only owned a phone and had no idea how a PC really works - I foresee a tech gap developing, but with college programs and folk moving to the US likely won't be a problem - most IT jobs at around 50% are folk who moved to the US for college then work visa). However I want kids to experience a full OS and not a locked down ChromeBook - it might push them to stay away from real PCs due to it being limited environment (but getting better recently) and the crappy hardware/screens. Of course Linus' kids have real PCs but for poorer families it might be the only computer. We seen winners for PC builds often just find what they can, old hardware because people place limited value on them and think phones are what you need (and often most don't get/find an old PC) I'll end my rant there.
tbh I might take one to defcon and other hacking conferences as I'll just be doing basic web browsing and not say gaming. Because I'll be to busy to game due to all the talks I'll be going to.
I don't understand the responses to your comment: managed remotely, lock down, and easy of use. As if someone that only want a device to do school work and is allergic to tech would go out of its way to mess up things with the OS.
Honestly, at first I was really resistant to the idea of Chromebooks being used in schools but once I saw the price point it all makes sense. Not every family can afford laptops more than a couple hundred dollars, if they can afford that. With ChromeOS, it seems a lot like it's effectively the "it just works" of Mac in a much cheaper price point so that you know, even if you can't afford a great laptop, kids shouldn't be held back by their parents financial situation
Imagine just having a room full of computers at school. Crazy idea, isn't it. Too expensive, you think? Old office Pcs are sold €25 each, or even thrown away for free
@@redtails Yeah but some families arent willing to buy used products. And a lot of families also buy chromebooks not just because its cheap, but also as its simple for their children. They just want something that can do school work, and that lasts while.
@@parthcosic a computer room at a school is all well and good but what happens in times when kids are having to do homework/assignments or as has happened a lot recently have to learn from home? Chromebooks are a cheap and easy way to solve these problems compared to forking out double the price or more for a computer that can run windows
As a best buy employee, I was happy to see this and help me learn more about the Chromebooks, even though I generally avoid selling those unless the customer directly asks for it specifically
No joke but when I worked in retail and normal people were looking for a notebooks, I always did not recommend to buy Chromebooks. First they saw the price, it was lower than normal notebooks so they were interested. I did know these people had no idea it does not have Windows OS in it. To avoid the dissapointment and confusion.
@@pepsicherry6389 yeah i get the same thing, first thing i say is that it is a very limited computer without the Windows OS, but some people specifically need Chrome OS or just want it to browse the web
Funny... I am a product developer in the Windows world. I love Chromebook, it's great for 85% of the population. Only if Microsoft can pull off a lightweight OS that can handle day to day task well. Unless your work require you use tools and software that are only available on Windows, you can get a great experience on Chromebook. ChromeOS is just more efficient in every way - that's me probing power rails between ChromeOS and Windows doing the same tasks.
@@_w_w_ idk if its 80 percent more like about 60 programs that require a lot of power are verry popular like blender and that sort of stuff and if your a gamer a chromebook isnt gonna cut it
when i was looking for a laptop my girlfriend was so confused. I tried out the keyboards, trackpad. checked out the screens resolution, connectivity, specs to price. and then i bought nothing. made a list of the ones that intrigued me and researched on their internals, (is the ram soldered? what sort of drives do they use) and this was what got me into computer hardware. that week is were i learned what anything computer related meant. she was confused, cuz about 4 months prior she needed a laptop, had seen an add for a microsoft surface on instagram so she took her dad to best buy and the guy talked about how they could lower the price. she ended up paying $100 less than me. but its like, an i3 or a pentium. with 2 gb of ram and she hates the keyboard since she cant type on her lap and in the end, she didn't even use the touch screen. I ended up with a lenovo flex 5 like the one here but with 8th i5, 8gb of ram. and 256gb m.2.
I swapped ram for someone once after best buy had quoted him a $200 something price. Only I borrowed their screwdriver and did it right there at their counter for free. Did it in under a minute and I swear he shot that guy a dirty look I still think about.
Yes, the Lenovo Flex 5. Imo, it is by far the best bang for the buck. The Webcam was my only gripe. The speakers aren't great either, but most laptop speakers suck. Other than that, it is the most versatile for the money. The USI pen compatibility is a huge plus too!
"I need a chromebook..."- Linus's son "NO, don't carry a Chromebook. Instead, carry this threadripper with triple 3090 PC in your backpack, also with 360hz 4k monitor"- Linus
When I was in somewhere middle or elementary school Google offered free chromebooks for the whole school, but only if they agreed that they could track student cookies… needless to say, it wasn’t allowed
@Michael Rostom they are literally known for selling data and analytics from users lmao, that’s how Google makes their billions. Even fucking apple doesn’t do it as much as they do.
It's not the low-end hardware that kills it for me, but the locked-down BIOS requiring enabling developer mode and other hackery things. Installing literally ANY other OS becomes a hassle such that using it for anything other than ChromeOS after it's support has ended is a BAD experience
they are definitely being subsidies by Google so it's in their best interest that it's harder to run anything else. All in hopes of the future work force stick to their browsers or android ecosystems.
@@tanmaypanadi1414no they are not subsidized by Google, Chrome OS is free, Windows costs money. They could be subsidized for some students though, schools/municipalities often give subsidies for them, but the ones from best buy and stuff aren't.
@@Masterrunescapeer You do realize "Chrome OS is free, Windows costs money." is basically the definition of subsidized by Google? They don't create an OS for fun. They have a clear business case for it and that involves branding and lots and lots of data extraction. Yes, even from kids laptops.
I think it's really limiting for a school to require any specific operating system. Especially if the parents have to buy it, because that also excludes the inexpensive Amazon finds, like my ThinkPad T410 I paid $135 for that's capable of running Windows 10. It does need some upgrading, but even after it's said and done, it will keep up with a more modern computer to an extent, and for a fraction of the price. Right now, I'm running Linux Mint on it because it's much smoother, but with the upgrades I could get away with W11 if I wanted.
It allows them to deploy just one set of tech support training for teachers (what little they can do) and ensures that the machines should all be able to access the same resources with the same ease.
You won't be able to teach the kids anything if all your doing is tech support for four different major OSes and the one cheeky snot running a BSD flavour.
@@milesfarber An "obscure" and "unstable" OS that hosts nearly every website you've ever visited? Being an LTT viewer doesn't mean you can't be clueless about tech.
Also interesting to point out that Chome OS is 32 bit not 64 bit even though it runs on 64 bit hardware. They intentionally use 32 bit to keep the memory footprint small. So ChromeOS really was made for inexpensive, low power devices from the very start.
@@lllleeeeiiii Is complicated. ChromeOS can be 32 or 64 bit but comonly is 32 bit running on 64 bit hardware. Contrary to popular belief 32 bit is NOT limited to 4GB of ram. What is limited is 4GB of contigous ram at any one time. It means a 32 bit could swap in and out areas of memory kinda how page swapping on hard drive does.
@@lllleeeeiiii Linux kernel (what ChromeOS and Android uses) is able to recognize and use more than 4GB of RAM with 32 bit builds. You install PAE (Physical Address Extension )in 32 bit kernel and it works. The limitation you speak of I think is unique to 32 bit Windows version because Microsoft decided not to include physical address extensions.
@@FireFoxDestroyer You gotta check what the OS is. In Chrome on your Chromebook you can check if you're 32 or 64 bits. The 32 bit might in fact still be 64 bit hardware just 32 bit OS.
@@wizardscrollstudio I checked my Chromebook's Samsung Exynos 5 Dual, and it says it's a 32-bit ARM processor. And also, my school Chromebook has the AMD A4-9120C, which is a CPU based on the Stoney Ridge architecture, which is 64-bit.
I really like these kind of LTT Videos. Yeah, I love the insane expensive tech, but Linus having the experience of trying to help his kid buy a chromebook for school makes for a really interesting video. It's a lot more of a realistic view of tech.
i had the same reaction when my sister was *forced* to buy a chrome book for her two sons. i told her that if money was an issue i could find her a pair of refurbished technicians laptops or something like that but as it turns out the purchase was done not out of practicality but because the school didn't want kids flexing on people who could only afford a Chromebook, which you realistically couldn't stop anyways unless you shook down students for anything that costs over a fiver.
It bugs me too when schools force that kind of stuff, especially when you have to pay for it. If the school issues some equipment that you have to use, that's fine I guess. A big annoying if you have a better version at home, but not the worst thing in the world. However, when they begin demanding that you buy this and that, that's why I wonder why they don't just let the tech-savvy people get what makes them be more productive, while the rest can get the cheapo things that work well enough for them.
@@canadajones9635 This was my thought. I'm really glad I don't have kids (in general, but in particular in school :P ) right now because this sort of "have to buy X chromebook" nonsense would drive me up the wall. Kids are going to flex on anything; the only way to prevent it is to completely standardize. But if it's a public school, that's a _huge_ ask of many parents' financial means, so I'm really only OK with that standardizing if it's school issued and managed, at no direct cost to parents.
Honestly. I like the concept of Chrome OS. It ensures the existence of budget systems that people can access, and the idea that old Windows systems can have a Chrome OS thus ensuring longevity is a baller idea.
I bought the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5 for my mom for Christmas -- it's the new 13.3" version of the tablet + detachable keyboard you looked at, but with an OLED display. She loves it for normal everyday use. My main concern with the 10" model was also the keyboard size, way too cramped.
I have that Samsung Galaxybook 2020 with the 4k panel and, man I've ended up using it for 90% of my computing needs (I also got it off Woot for half off). It's a really, really nice laptop to relax with and the screen is gorgeous. It's big Achilles heel that everyone reports is the battery, unlike every other chromebook this thing does NOT sip, it gorges itself on power and having such a super slim form factor doesn't give it much. If the computer stays at home this isn't an issue, and when I'm out I just plug it into my external battery I usually have on me anyway. BUT it's a huge deal breaker for most people.
@@ea8455 For sure the price tag was a huge hit and if it wasn't for Woot having a special I likely would not be pulling the trigger. But I also came from a Pixel Chromebook 2 LS so "overkill" was something I was used to and something unique to that subgenre of Chromebooks is that they never felt sluggish even in age, my 2 LS actually felt FASTER several years after I got out by virtue of how it operates and the reason I replaced it was due to a creeping screen rot issue, prior to finding the Samsung Galaxybook there wasn't that much that made me want to switch (though I almost went for the Pixelbook and Pixelbook Go). It's funny how spoiled one can get in such a niche field. That said would I recommend these upper end Chromebooks for most people? Probably not? Though I think most people honestly don't need anything more than one these days as the majority of computer use is down to browsing and content consumption. I can certainly say they're for me personally, but outside my gaming rig I don't have a need anymore for x86 applications
i have one also, actually I searched for comments with the word galaxy in it to find this one. He glossed over it WAY too quickly, and on sale these things can be bought for around $600 or less! I bought mine for $400 brand new, and the screen is the most beautiful screen i've ever used on a laptop. It's 4k oled with a core i5, for $400 it's a steal really.
In Finland we get Cromebooks for free in Middle school and in high school we get Hp Probooks. The cromebooks are really limited in functions but the windows laptops have free time mode where you can download anything and do whatever. (altho we do need to return them after the year)
A repairable Framework laptop for schools might be interesting. They’re bound to break at some point and if schools can easily repair things like the screen or laptop casing, then it would likely reduce some waste.
Most enterprise Chromebooks have the Display assembly and keyboard as easy to replace, which are the two things kids break most. I've repaired Lenovo, HP, and Dell Chromebooks, and for School SKUs, they aren't hard to fix at all.
Chromebooks are very easy to repair. Easier than virtually any other device. I repair them all the time. In fact, almost all brands and models use the same 11.6" lcd panel...so one panel in stock works for the many different brands we have to fix.
I use my Chromebook as a thin client to my desktop or SSH to my server for software development work. I love it, and I have no idea why Linus loves virtualization but doesn't see this use case. My lap is always cool and quiet no matter what I'm doing with a lightweight machine, a good screen, and a Wacom touch screen for taking notes. I honestly never want to go back to a laptop/macbook
Not worth it comparted to just buying a regular Framework laptop for a similiar price, you can install Windows, Linux, or if you really want Chrome os you could install FydeOS but the Framework chromebook is stuck on Chrome os
Linus bought the exact Chromebook I did in the end. It's quite good, and I also got it running Manjaro instead of ChromeOS with some relatively involved messing-around, with only some audio issues. I still use it basically for Chromebook purposes, but having a more flexible OS feels a lot better. I mostly got it because I found Lenovo to be pretty reputable in general and the price point was good, not so much from an involved shopping process, but it turned out to be a good choice..
For what it's worth, I have a Acer chromebook that I bought back in 2017-2018 that still gets updates every week, the 14" touch screeen still works, and the battery life is still close to 10 hours of real life use (VNC Viewer and RUclips primarily). I paid less than $200 for the thing on sale, and I've never once treated it kindly. I've honestly been pretty impressed with it, and it's the price bracket where I'm willing to lock it and step away from it at a coffee shop, while my gaming laptop is something I would never do that with. Also...my 2018 Chromebook definitely has a Linux developer mode. Not sure why they've said it's only 2020+ models.
@@bgolledge502 I didn't either I had one for 2 years then I went to windows and holy shit- I mean the chromebook was okay but windows pc is a ton better
What I’ve like the most using a Chromebook is the zero maintenance and the included protection against virus. It’s ending up being in my hands more often than I have expected. It’s so incredible what you can do inside a web browser these days. If it becomes your daily driver, expensive Chromebook could be justified for a better experience.
No man, I run one as my daily driver, with a flimsy Celeron chip, and it's more than enough for webapps, android apps, and Linux basic apps (office and gimp). There is absolutely no reason to buy an expensive Chromebook besides just spending more money because you feel like it. I love Chromebooks, I've had one for four years now, and I totally agree with Linus, if you go over 500, just get a windows laptop. There are very specific use case scenarios that require a powerful Chromebook (programming android apps I think). Battery, speed, and touchscreen at a low-cost are the biggest, if not the only, selling points of these things for me
they last longer than you think too. I've had this chromebook I bought for like 150 USD in 2016 and it just received it's last update so I'm looking to buy another 200~ USD one. Never had an issue with it.
I remember having chromebooks (and tiny windows laptops) in high school, and the only things I did with it were Google (search, docs, and slides) and watching way too much RUclips. So I can't imagine what a grade schooler could need it for.
With a son with one I can answer this. Teachers can assign coursework directly to their individual accounts, through Google Classroom, so the work can be done remotely or just for homework. The schools provided them though and can remotely monitor what is done on them as well.
@@CamCitizenTV but would you need a chrome book for that? Can't you do that on a windows laptop in the chrome browser? (of course with school issued laptops that's a whole other situation)
@@Jehty_ that's exactly what's happening. The school is supplying these things. They're cheap and don't need third party software to monitor. Less likely to break because no moving parts. Harder to run malware as well. It just makes the most logistical sense for schools. Cheap and easy.
my school started giving us chromebooks a year back. unfortunately, they took the lockdown of features to seriously. to the point where it is essentially unusable. i wish i could list examples but they disabled any way to view cpu usage or anything similar. they have keyloggers, software that can see every kid's screens, rumored to even have camera spyware. teachers can also connect to the computers and like take control of ur mouse or keyboard. they also have a custom play store that only has the microsoft products like office 365. they also go so crazy blocking websites that some of my teacher's stuff has been blocked. i do not touch mine lmao
I was extremely hesitant at first since Chromebooks just seemed like a glorified browser experience. But I managed to find a 2nd hand Acer Chromebook 715 with an i3 for around $200 in very good condition. And honestly, I love it. Thanks to Linux Apps I can do development with it, using VSCode. Installing Linux as an actual OS was fairly easy but IMO not worth the hassle. The built-in support is easy to work with and works very well for my needs since I'm not a hardcore Linux user. It boots in a second, it feels fast and snappy. It has backlit keyboard, touch screen and a very nice keyboard for being a laptop. Honestly, don't regret my purchase at all. A normal Windows 10 laptop being able to conveniently develop would cost AT LEAST twice that, let alone if I'd want a backlit keyboard and touchscreen it would be a hell of a lot more expensive.
Great to hear! I'm in web development myself, and have also found it really nice to have a lightweight OS on the go, yet with Terminal support too. Did you see Chrome Unboxed's video about the Spin 513 releasing in June? I was wondering if I should wait for that one to come out, or get the current 713? The new 513 has an ARM chip and is fanless, so that could be really nice.
@@offroaders123 Honestly I have very little experience with ARM. I went with this because it has an i3 and I'm familiar with Intel and know that their i3 and above chips deliver respectable performance. The spin feature could be nice if you're just gonna chill in the sofa. Personally I valued a good CPU, minimum 8GB RAM and backlit keyboard the most. So this 715 was a perfect fit. 🙂
'But mine crashes if I have a two-page document on Google Docs." a bunch of dishonest, computer snobs that comment on RUclips. I bet you these people all have $2,000 gaming PCs and just want to feel better about themselves.
@@michaelcorcoran8768 I mean, I am a computer snob with an expensive gaming PC. But I won't deny that Chromebooks are definitely useful and good value for what they offer. Sure, if you cough up some extra money you could get a Windows laptop which will probably do everything faster and better - but cheapest Windows laptop I could find with backlit keyboard and a touch screen was like 5 times as expensive. Big fat no for me when all I wanna do with it is browse the webs, do some development every now and then.
I used a chromebook back in hs (even though the school laptops were running windows) and I actually liked it, it was/felt cheap but it was enough for what I actually needed for school and the battery life meant that I didnt need to bring a charger. Horrible screen though.
I agree that they're pretty good for simply doing core k-12 school assignments. No frills, they get the job done, and are cheaper than a windows machine. And they have a simple clean aesthetic, which is rather fitting.
my school gives out chromebooks but they're so stupidly locked down that I bought my own old ass 2014 refurbished one for $100 and all it does is google chrome but that's all I need it to do. Plus I can still use discord and other websites on it unlike on the school issued ones. So if you just need something portable and capable of writing a google doc that's not your phone it's a great cheap option. Also honestly it's lack of being able to to do anything keeps me focused. If I try to do work on my pc I just end up playing games or something.
@@jjbarajas5341 I mean you can get refurb windows machine at much better value for money. A sub 200 dollar ultrabook would have i5 gen 4 256 gb ssd and 8 gigs of ram
6:20 I found that out the hard way. I bought a Chromebook for my parents years ago as they only need it to pay bills and browse the web. They got a notification telling them that it would no longer be getting updates and that they should buy a newer device for future support. Needless to say, when the time comes for an upgrade I’m not getting them a Chromebook.
Why not? The amount of "tech support" I need to give my family because they're running overpowered-Windows on their $1k laptops (when all they really need is email + youtube) could be reduced significantly. "Why isn't my wifi connecting?" "Oh, it's because the drivers weren't updated... ChromeOS is great for people who don't know nor care about computers, and for me, who doesn't like giving tech support.
Did it do it job for years, while staying super simple for your parents and saving everything to the cloud so if they lost or destroyed it they didn't really lose anything? Almost all tech phases out of upgrades, doesn't mean that it wont work, just that it wont get updates.
I will never forget the day. I accidentally brought home a Chromebook for my wife and I couldn’t believe how cheap it was well now I figured out why it was so cheap because it was a Chromebook. We both were very frustrated. I know nothing about Chromo is unless something changes I don’t think I will ever have a Chromebook again. I took that back and got hers a acre 2 in 1
This makes me miss my netbook. Lightweight windows 7, I think it had like an 11 inch screen, but man, I took that sucker everywhere. It did everything a glorified word processor appliance needed to do, and all for a quarter the price of the dead laptop it replaced.
>lock down the system so kids can't play games on it That's a great way to turn a system that the kids will handle carefully (so they can use their breaks for gaming); into a burden that the kid is much more likely to "forget" or mishandle, since its only purpose is to help the kid learn or listen to the teacher being boring
You might think that, but you'd be wrong. If they view the device as an entertainment thing, that is all they want to do with it. Maybe it could be argued they take better care of them if they can play games on it, but most of the kids treat a chromebook as a learning device.
i work in my school's tech department and laughed at the dissing of the bezels (my friend has snapped many) and the almost-snapping of the acer (which students have done. . . several times. especially with their hinges). of the devices we currently use (mostly HP G6, Dell 3100s, 3120s, and 3180s, and Lenovos) my personal favorites are the G6es. I've been using it since I was a freshman, so about three years, and they're the easiest/my favorites to open up. The only big problems we've had are with trackpad ribbons being too long, and motherboards getting fried but that's mostly been due to bad chargers.
My highschool this year gave us really nice HP chromebooks, (I am a freshman) and i was really suprised when they gave us these chromebooks. (Granted, the highschool is the biggest in our area and arguably really well funded.)
Thank you to Wealthfront for sponsoring this video! Use our link invest.wealthfront.com/linus to open a Wealthfront investment account and get $5K managed for free.
Why didn't Anthony "recycle" an old laptop with CloudReady?
How come this isn't up on Floatplane?
linus you do know that you can get a good laptop and put chrome os on it man
misery
yes
As a retail employee, it's good to know that the security alarms on Lenovo Duets are equally touchy in every store. -.-
It's pretty good at mine
Oh, I thought that was a store alarm, not an alarm from the Lenovo.
@@doggo_woo Nah, it's likely the sensor on the stand of the Duet because the texture makes it hard for the adhesive to stay stuck. Fortunately, this doesn't compromise the security of the actual device, but it is annoying.
So true
I used to just walk over their with the key to have it stop beeping if I saw someone start walking over there lmao. I swear you just look at it and it started going off
This video could very easily just be called “Linus figures out how to make his kid’s school laptop tax-deductible”
Glad the two clickbait bots agree too. They must have a great sense of humour
@@deniahmetaj I love how we can see how many people blatantly ignored their comment😂😂
Lol, smart big brain dad XD
I would say this but then again I’m not sure how different taxes in Canada work
To be fair, some places have tax discounts on items used for school. If you live in the US, most of the things you use for college are tax deductible. Linus might have shot himself in the foot, as he used the device to make video content for sponsors (work use) for a device to be used by his child for school.
"Why can't they just be good?"
A great question, Linus. Truly great question.
If only
Because why would anything be convenient?
They can be good Like the Samsung One 🌝 But mimimi its SOOOO expensive
It's actually not, it's about the price ;)
Because they have to be cheap and disposable.
I worked for a learning management software company, a HUGE portion of the issues we received were from chromebook users. It was very difficult to tell people they essentially "bought the wrong laptop".
What were the issues? Did they expect to get windows or what?
@@virtual2288 People purchased them because of their low cost. If i recall, I believe the issue was the chromebooks being more like a tablet, which would allow certain softwares to run properly, if at all.
@@chazmichaelmichaels88 The issue will be buying the low cost chromebook. same issue with buying that Celeron Windows laptop.
@Allen Chester a celeron can still run a bunch of programs (specifically the ones the company had), albeit slowly. Whereas chromebooks couldn't run a lot of those softwares.
@@chazmichaelmichaels88 you and Allen both have valid points. My mid range chromebook runs fast. $600. Yes it doesn't run all the apps. Wait 2 years and buy of ebay for half price (remember support last 5 to 7 years). I paid retail for mine 😭😭😭. It does 90 percent of what I want. I also have a laptop 🤣🤣🤣. I think people should get both a laptop and a chromebook. You should spend most of the time on the chromebook. Chromebook has better battery, clean reinstall in 5 or 10 minutes, don't need to turn off (like a smart phone), no virus but if have, just reset it, extremely hard to hack. Light weight and no fan noise. Laptop windows will last longer because you won't be using it much. I do agree laptop is better if you can only have one device. If you can have two and both have good specs, chromebook will be the one, you be using all the time
imagine being a fan of Valve games, waiting 18 years since the release of HL2, and then finally seeing mention of the word Borealis in an official Valve project… and it’s just Chromebook compatibility
*pain*
yeah lol
@@crapture-official ***pain***
POV: After you finished HL2, you conceived new life, raised it and got it into College before actually getting the sequel.
Valve is just trolling us at this point.
Wait, when did they not troll us?
Linus: "knowing that he's my son, he will probably forget his charger"
Me: knowing he's your son, he will probably drop it after a segue to ridge wallet.
Nobody: Asked
@@lemau8458 Did your parents ask for you? No. No they didn't.
@@covidstinks2770 Man his username just reeks lmao
@@covidstinks2770 rekt
@@lemau8458 Im not usually one to speak of grammar in a post, but that colon is kind of hurting my brain.
Knowing Linus, his son will need something drop-proof.
Let's hope he got the hand-eye coordination from his mother :D
Its possible he did not get those genes, his son is half Yvonne. So it is likely that he can hold things like an average human being
My kid's school uses the Education version of that and has a tough case on it by default. It's not Linus-proof. Trust me. I had replace the screen on it over break so I didn't have to pay the school for it. (It's a good machine though for a Chromebook in a very sweet spot in the market)
Any kid would need something drop-proof. That's why you don't buy your kid a €1000+ laptop.
In fairness, I believe the school should've provided these laptops. It makes no sense to me, to make the parents spend hundreds, just for the kids to be able to participate at all. They used to use physical books, that were also provided by the school.
@@thany3 Definitely agree with that. I used to build laptops for a correspondence school and some got dropped and broken badly to the point where the display was held on by the cables. These included really strong devices like the Lenovo T420 too.
bought mine for under $100, I have a gaming pc I just get distracted so its nice to have something portable I can get school work done on. I actually do understand the criticisms, but for under $100 this shit goes hard. It fits a specific niche of users, dont buy it if you're looking to do everything a pc can
I installed Pop on mine
Honestly I sprung a little for a nicer one (I also have a big desktop PC) and I'm finding it more enjoyable to use than my old Windows laptop.
Yeah I bought my 4 and 6 year old one for £99. I have a MacBook but I think it's pretty good for £99
I never looked at it that way. Great explanation.
@ALI How does that work
Is this us dollars as mine was 200usd new and the cheapest one i could buy in my country. (Not the US)
Imagine being the BestBuy employee watching Linus mess with every chromebook and then do his little freak out when the security alarm went off.
best buy employee: Linus, y r u in the chromebook section lol
takes pic*
this gonna be a meme
I took my Mom to get a Chromebook for her a few weeks ago. She set off all the alarms.
Best Buy employee should be happy there is any customer at all these days!
You hear over the intercom we have an L alert 5 we have an L alert 5
As someone who is an IT support for 10 primary schools, at least half of my week is spent repairing, maintaining, and setting up Chromebooks for students. It's so painful.
Hey stupid question but why do so many schools have chromebooks? Or do the schools instruct the students to get chromebooks?
@@chrisn5956 It’s because it’s one of the cheapest options so it’s easy to supply for an entire school
@@catharinrin sounds line Chromebooks are easier to lock down? Which would be pretty important for young children, most parents aren't as tech savvy as Linus
@@chrisn5956 It is locked down, easier to setup remote management, easier to operate loan program, cheap and google subsidize chromebook in some countries.
@@catharinrin it not cheap end up costng more to repair
i like to imagine his son was horrified having to tell linus he needs a chrome book.
I would be
If i was linus I would just get him a real laptop and tell his school he ain't getting a spybook.
@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks surpise, windows also spies on you.
unless you're getting a thinkpad class laptop with linux pre-installed, you are buying a spybook.
@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks Data is still being gathered unless all telemetry is killed along with keeping applications limited due to said telemetry issues. Using a schools network to a degree also allows a portion of web traffic to be monitored requiring the use of a VPN or own mobile internet service. If you really was worried about spying then you wouldn't have a google account and participating in Googles ecosystem.
@@dwirandypradhika6752 Yeah but I think it's easier to disable telemetry and stuff like that on Windows than it would be on a Chromebook. I do not know, but if Android is anything to go by I think disabling stuff like that on ChromeOS would be far more cumbersome than it would be on Windows. Which is ironic considering the "heritage"...
0:20 the best emotional change i have ever seen on a persons face he looked like he was on the verge of crying
Son: "Dad, I need a Chromebook for school."
Linus: "Our family has been dishonored. Shameful display! I mean, seriously, look at that picture quality, and those bezels. Eugh."
*proceeds to flex a modded Zephyrus Duo 16 at elementary school obliterating even the school main server*
Shamefur Dispray*
his son had to be equally horrified at that thought as well
@@AURON2401 shame fur, dis-pray?
Correction: Shameful DISPRAY!
Imagine walking up and seeing Linus setting off a Chromebook alarm.
That's not Linus shopping, it's a voiceover
I'd immediately be concerned he dropped something
I think Linus would have felt ashamed to be caught with a Chromebook xD
Bruh
this timeline fucking sucks
The issue with school issued or required chrome books and iPads that a lot of people who grew up with the one computer in the back corner of the library or who got a laptop for accessibility don’t clock is the ridiculous oppressive restrictions and surveillance placed on “education” software. Time locks and software restrictions on something you’re forced to buy that remain restricted and may even remain attached to their network long after you should leave it.
If the Chromebook is now owned by the school you can power wash it at anytime, removing the school software
*not
Those restrictions are often required by the School Board or Government in those areas. In America, it's required by law to have some form of Internet Filtering for school children, so if there's a mandatory device, it often will have mandatory bloat to meet regulatory spec
@@barrettburns9979 Yes, as long as it's not part of the schools domain membership. If it is, then powerwashing will not even work.
Yes, I’m in high school and am so lucky that we have macs. Our districts it director tried so hard to get us the freedoms to not have those shitty chrome books. It was difficult because google practically pays districts to go chrome. To do who knows with your data
"knowing that he's my son he'll probably forget his charger". that's not a problem with chromebook. one of the beauties of chromebook is that they all charge via USBC - the same cable that charges all phones and all chromebooks. wherever he goes, as long as there are other people around, he's bound to have access to a USBC cable.
Linus' son is one of the few where parents know exactly what they need to buy whereas other parents will most likely get one that only has 6 months of OS support left or have some ridiculously overpriced Samsung
My mom bought me a 2016 laptop in 2018 for a price of a newer laptop that basically does better .__.
or have a ridiculously overpriced Samsung that has 6 months of OS support left🤩🤩
3 sponsored ads in 13 mins 😐 duude. Bit overkill
and that's exactly the reason why I did my own research when looking for a laptop. My parents had found one with a 17 inch screen which was the same price as the laptop that I eventually got (15 inch), but it had a worse processor (can't remember which one it was) and speakers (this one has ridiculously good speakers, but I barely use them since I'm usually using my earbuds). It was also more expensive, so I definitely don't trust my parents when it comes to look for stuff like computers
@@yaralaterveer I am looking for a 15 inch too, which one did you pick?
I know you guys like to talk about repairability on this channel. I work in the tech department at a high school and once warranty runs out on these things, being able to buy a screen or battery for $30 and swap it out is huge. Those are the two things I see broken most and they are the easiest to fix. Some windows laptops aren’t even that easy.
its also nice for schools that deploy all the same brand and model of chromebook to be able to have those spares on hand and be able to make 10 min repairs on campus, my high school bought the chrombooks for the students as part of the school fees for that reason.
I work in a school district's IT department. A whole bunch of the Chromebooks we're buying this year are still using the same screen models as the Chromebooks we're currently retiring because they're no longer supported. This basically makes screens kinda "free" for us because we can harvest them from the units we're ecycling. Kids break A LOT of screens so that's good.
Thankfully I went to high school just before the rollout of Chromebooks, but during the time where schools were rolling out tech to their students. My school had decent enough Windows machines and few restrictions on what could be installed on them. My bread and butter for games on that thing was Minecraft, Portal 2, and Kerbal Space Program.
@@Alexander-jr8nw I got a E15 gen2 with a Ryzen 7 5700x for about $900au with the Black Friday sale and it’s the best laptop for the price, I love it.
Also the way I see it... in school things are broken or stolen so there is little point in getting a premium chromebook broken/stolen in school if the mid-tier sensible one is also available... and Linus's reasons are also valid.
I love my HP Chromebook! My company replaced my laptop with one. I hated it at first but I love how quick it is. I'm an accountant and it does Excel calculations SO MUCH FASTER than my windows one. I'm talking genuinely 5 minutes faster for the most laborious tasks (30 minute calculations take 25!). This is apples to apples with i7 processors and SSDs.
yeah a CB with an i7 is good but a CB with a Celeron (like what my old school assigned) isn't
Linus' son is lucky to have a tech savvy father who knows exactly what to look for in these things, makes using a Chromebook a lot smoother that way. But I feel old when a kid is taking a laptop to school, not a laptop in sight in my schools until my final two years lol
@@-opus shush
@@requice8926 no
@@-opus oh okay
Linus should've just gotten him a crazy gaming laptop. When teachers ask him about why he doesn't have a Chromebook, he can just tell them that Chromebooks are for peasants.
@@-opus look who's talking lmao
Been working the Chromebook for the last 2 yrs in a school environment. The main issue is not the OS, it is the manufacturing side. Cheap build materials, where screws fall out/ left hinge screw mountings breaks after the amount of usage these CB going through in an average school day and/or @home. Plus the general kids handling/ carrying in school bag...ect just being kids. Also be very warry about repair costs, especially replacing the glass. Some cheaper models, its cheaper just to buy a new 1.
My school-issued chromebook lost a hinge. Not broken, LOST. It completely snapped off without any heavy wear and tear. I had to be without a computer at school for 3 weeks before it was fixed. So glad I'm out of high school and still against the chromebook.
I went to a rural highschool and they had Chromebook carts in most classes. Some of them had mobile processors from galaxy 3 smart phones. they had trouble running flash games
I handle the IT for a school district that deals exclusively in special needs students, middle/high school age. They’re basically as disposable as pencils at this point.
@@iZehta exactly
Capitalist utopia.
More E-waste
"Why can't they just be good?" is pretty much the whole point of this video.
There ya go! First intellegent comment!! ;)
Problem is, they are, if you look at 200$ laptops ofc they will max out watching youtube
My mom had a samsung one that was on sell for under $100.
Yes.
I was quite skeptical about getting a Chromebook, because no one spoke well of them, and especially here in Italy . They call them "junk" here . , however I wanted to try to get one . I have to be honest I feel very good with it for my use . Video lectures , documents , some movies , update and maintenance of some online websites , everything I need I have it .
Yes they are good! Everyone lies about them and they never used one.
I'm happy that Linus understands the B.S. with "premium" Chromebooks.
That's like "premium" french fries
I do actually know someone (former ChromeOS Dev @ Google albeit) uses a Pixelbook as his main laptop. Obviously can't just live with ChromeOS, so as a Linux user he has Crouton with Wayland and Sway and some magic that gets that to actually work (no idea). I think the main reasoning is that the Pixelbook is a really nice laptop and that cros is a nice OS.
@Prince Cooper I beg to differ: premium TP is way more useful and makes way more sense than a premium chromebook :D
Indeed my ass loves premium toilet paper, but can't really say the same about any chromebook 😆
@@ehhthing indeed, Im also a high end chromebook user and i love it. the reason i went for chromebook is the linux integration and the fact that i find windows an absolute pain to work with. Chromeos is nice and elegant. And its also super easy to deploy some containers, code some stuff and dont forget it has amazing battery life. For quite some time i debated to buy a macbook but I like to stay in the google ecosystem because i have a house full of google home products and a pixel phone (and soon a pixelwatch). I think a premium chromebook as main driver is something that is done by people that would choose to use linux as their default OS but also likes to have the convenience of being able to run default apps without the hassle.
@@JohanAntonissen I wonder how many users bought one JUST for the great battery life. As I understand it, high-end Windows laptops are improving-slightly-but-still-poor in this regard, compared to Macbooks and Chromebooks.
Chromebooks actually do make sense for schools. Cheap 'individual unit' prices mean even cheaper bulk purchase prices, and with ChromeOS's deplopyment options, it means that these machines are pretty easy to set up and manage from an IT technician's view.
They make sense for schools.
but they suck really really hard for the user, a shame some schools force chromebooks
The kids at my little sisters school still manage to "break" them and watch p*** somehow
except that not a single piece of software used at our school was compatible with them, so when the macbook people had to get a different laptop because they couldnt run the software, they still couldnt, because our school only had chrome books... facepalm moment..
It wouldn't be possible for us to maintain a 1:1 program if we had to use conventional laptops. The cost of the device would be too high and the logistical challenge of maintenance and support would be too high.
@@Monsuco Precisely my point. With these cheap but somewhat durable machines, and easy software management, 1:1 is so much easier!
Course, you could also go green and recycle old machines.
I knew watching an LTT video there would be some sort of gaming on a Chromebook
These bots must like your name or something lol
@@Sarj_ent yeah lol 😂
@@Sarj_ent smh, never had this happen before
Until they hack an Xbox to run PC games then ehhh
I should've seen that coming.
Got a $400 Chromebook for $100 as an openbox and it's honestly quite nice. Feels good and responsive. Lenovo and the battery life is awesome. Even sitting around for over a month when it was off I came back to a full battery. I actually think it's the Lenovo you were looking at.
They're actually really useful for system admins. Mass software depolyments and simple enough that the kids can't mess them up as easily. But you're right, they've gotten better with android support and Linux beta. As someone who's set these up in schools, I understand why they did it.
I geniuenly dont understand why my school opted for cheap windows laptops that you cant download anything on as opposed to chromebooks. Without us having the ability to use downloads it is just a glorified web browsing device that costs twice the price of a chromebook and causes tons of management headache with figuring out updates whenever I'm doing IT assistant as one of my classes.
@@echonuim Cheap Window laptops that are just a walking security risk. From computers, to the potential of kids infecting the network to everything.
ChromeOS isolates it before it even gets out, allows for cheap, and if you're careful. You're paying the 100 dollars less for a more secure device, easier managed, easy to repair (You can run a computer class and the kid doesn't need to know any complex computers). Why spend more for computers that will inevitably cost more to run, cost more to maintain, leads them to cyber attacks, can be misused and requires more time to program?
Like seriously. Why would you go for windows laptops?
@@philipwrighton easier to resell?
Easier to control and block stuff on
yes i also love censuring children from a young age
to be fair the chrome books are REALLY good at what they’re built for. like if you’re basically just writing papers and researching and that sort of thing then it’s all you really need. i’m in college and i’ve been using one and it work perfect
Yeah though i would argue it also depends on what you study. It lends itself way better to text etc, but doing something like programming is probably going to suck or using something like ltspice for electronics simulation, in which case you would have to jump through the hoop of doing crouton install anyway. In which case like linus said, it would be better to just get a machine that runs windows/linux, since you would probably also wont some hardware to for stuff like that i would assume.
But there is a point where the chromebooks they buy in bulk for the kids are so bad they literally cannot handle scrolling through a 2 page google doc. I can say from personal experience.
@@Jazzboy_Jh docs is so bloated now you damn near need a 2.5ghz multicore setup, 2c2t may or may not cut it
Raspberry pi is cheaper and you will learn more putting it together then they are gonna teach you in most schools.
Nah it's a POS, 100%. I'd rather be working with a pen and paper than withstanding that hunk of junk which resets and slows down all the time even though it has a Core i7 8tg gen on it.
Two notes: 1. Crouton is officially deprecated and 2. While running steam on Linux on crostini is great, Google still blocks exec from SD cards mounted by Linux preventing you from installing games on external storage. With most chromebooks made prior to 2021 (and even now) only including 32GB internal storage, gaming is not the greatest experience yet.
Not sure why the "yet," it's a no-brainer that Chromebooks would never be great in gaming for almost every case scenario.
But it's sad to see Crouton getting discontinued, it was honestly fun just messing around with an desktop environment that looks really odd for it to be a Chromebook (which also feels 100% more usable IMO). With the bonus of being able to play games, amid the driver issues. While GalliumOS 3.1 is already two years old with last update being June 2021, it's almost a dead project as well at this point.
It's pretty awful to see these things essentially turning into e-waste once the OS is no longer officially supported while they would still be perfectly usable if they just didn't artificially lock them down
@@adsensiv you can keep using them for years, the laptop doesn't stop working all out of a sudden.
@@MPereira75013 I assume stopped support means no more security updates which is a pretty big deal for a device which is primarily intended for tasks such as browsing the web...
@@adsensiv end of support for android devices commonly means you cant update your apps much longer, and i expect these to be the same (although i haven't tried a chromebook)
so unless you have things you could run the old version of without too much issues they pretty much become unusable
Yo, I had a chance to play with a Framework Laptop. Holy crap! No wonder Linus is invested, it's gotta be the best idea since the ssd. A fully upgradable laptop. The drawback seems to be that you have to wait a little while for parts to become available, but it seems like a seriously solid idea if you wanna game on the go
I remember revisiting my highschool years later to find they'd swapped out all the Windows laptops with Chromebooks, I felt so bad for the students. The laptops were nothing special, but BYOD was allowed. We'd play Halo CE in the library and snatch up all the ethernet ports. Played a long cat and mouse game of finding websites the school had yet to ban, especially web games and anime streaming. Can't do any of that now, school internet and devices are super locked down (can't even open task manager or settings on Windows).
That's fucked, can't even open task manager? How are you supposed to close unresponsive programs?
@@Daschickenify at my school you just don't
@@Daschickenify with the power button (:
@@Daschickenify I guess you just use the phsical on/off button from the housing
hold delete while turning on the laptop next time :)
Linus: An expensive chrome book is still a chrome book.
Also Linus: Gold Plated Xbox Controller.
Gold plated? They cast it out of solid gold.
@@vava995 Ur right i said the wrong thing, but you still get the point of what is being said.
To be fair, they either sold or are trying to sell the controller to recoup most of the cost of getting it made. It's not like he is daily driving it.
@@TheRavenCoder lol ik, but Linus seemed dead set on keeping that thing, without Yvonne's input i think we would have been seeing it in every home video of his.
@@darryljack6612 nah, I think that was mostly show. He said on a WAN Show that he approved the project because he expected it would be easy to sell (it wasn't) and worst case scenario it can just be melted down.
Linus son: dad, I got something to tell you.
Linus: don't worry son, I'm not mad. Did you get a bad grade?
Son: no, it's worse than that.
Linus: you started smoking?
Son: worse.
Linus: you got in a fight?
...
Son: worse.
...
Linus: I was FORCED to buy a Chromebook….
You have brought dishonour to the Family son .
Getting in a fight is worse than smoking?
🤣
@@vibaj16 came here to comment this lol
The kid should be glad it didn't have to be a macbook then. If my kid's school would require that, it would mean an immediate transfer. Luckily, they don't because I'm not a parent. But if I was, I'd be furious.
our school district recently gave every single student (besides the elementary, cheeto dust crusty 1st graders /j) new laptops.
this is great and all, but since they are all chromebooks (which run on chrome OS) they are very limiting, and annoying. want to change your desktop? you cant. want to add people shortcuts for when you boot up the device? cant. want to use the stylus? pay $30 please. (lenovo did that, still annoying how the school advertises that.)
what really ticks me off about those computers is that they all have this really thick case (very difficult to remove.) it's uncomfortable to type while the case is on, and the top lid is much harder to open with it on. it adds like a pound to the original lightweight computer, personally very annoying considering we all walk around with 15 pound backpacks already..
the computers themselves have pretty good specs. (for what they are-) touchscreen and 360 hinge design with 4gb of ram, but i think that since it's on chrome OS the computer is being limited to what it could really do.
note: my classmates and i have been speculating if our school district is spying on us with our computers, even if we aren't on our administration managed account. can the administration access our other accounts if we are on a school-managed chromebook?
Requiring a chromebook makes close to 0 sense for me.
If the school really wants to control what the device is used for, they should be supplying the devices and setting custom permissions.
Imagine buying something and then having someone else tell you what you are allowed and aren't allowed to do with it.
It's not too dissimilar from college textbooks
EXACTLY
This for real! My oldest daughter was issued a chrome book by the school. And at her moms house she uses it. And it has the school restrictions on it. At my house she sits at her desk, uses her full sized desktop and carries on doing her work, and browses whatever else she wants on the side.
they want to have their cake and eat it too.
Most school's IT departments don't have the time or knowledge to lock down 100s of laptops in a secure way. Chromebooks also pushes to buck to parents to buy the hardware rather than the school.
I feel like this Chromebook requirement might lead to Linus having some opinions to share at the PTA meeting
Linus understands that chromebooks are cheaper to acquire for kids to use in school.
@@ZNotFound sure, but either way the school should be providing them themselves. Why should I have to pay for something that they will claim software ownership over and lockdown beyond my control?
@@jody5661 Maybe there was an option to buy your own Chromebook and Linus opted for that.
In that case, not only would Linus have gotten his son a better chromebook he also had an opportunity to make a RUclips video.
@@ZNotFound This. It has more to do with parents wanting their kid's to have their own individual chromebooks and not ones that may have been shared with other kids/touched. It's a covid precaution type situation.
@rhamlet5290 Only reason against that is, don't saddle little kids with the user unfriendly horror story that is Linux, but otherwise good point on proprietary ecosystems.
My geometry teacher who is a 60 year old grandmother-type lady used to think chromebooks weren't actual computers, just terminals connected to a larger computer, because of how low-power they were and how they were mostly used for connecting to the internet. I mean, she sorta has a point.
I bought a chromebook in 2015. It was a 15 inch acer with 16 GB HD and 4 GB of ram for $250. I don't have a lot to spend on computers and I don't game. This was easily the best computer purchase I've made in the past 10 years. The key points being battery life, portability, ease of use and surprisingly, a linux conversion to GalliumOS with a 256 GB HD upgrade later in life (in which it excels as a work laptop). There are loads of options and they are not easy to sift through, but when you find the right one for your use case they are amazingly capable machines for productivity on the go.
I guess if you must have a new laptop sure, but you can find some pretty nice used mid-tier laptops and desktops for ~$250, heck if you don't need an entire laptop just something to use, you can get broken ones / the motherboard alone for as little as $30 and plug it into a monitor with the disclaimer that not all laptops will work like this or be easy to setup.
I picked up a thinkpad T440 motherboard for $20 and it has similar specs to your chromebook, an i5-4300U, 4GB on-board ram and I separately bought a 16GB msata ssd for $7, I've been using it as my homelab PC for the last 3 years, running pi-hole, nextcloud and a handful of other things, but it's also a perfectly fine web browsing PC, it's worked great so far.
I remember seeing Chromebooks with Core i7 processors in them. Kind of overkill, like, very very overkill, unless you plan on hacking it and installing a different operating system on it. 🙂
That's basically what I did lol put it in dev mode and installed popOs as a daily driver
the original pixelbook with a i7 maxed out with ram was a beast!
Yep, i7 and i9 are great for Windows as long as you 16 GB ram and 522 GB eMMC.
As an owner of the i5 Pixelbook, I love the overhead. Yes, it is "overkill", but at the same time I never have to worry about running low on RAM or processing power. I can hook up my laptop to a 4k display (which I did all the time in college) and it doesn't lose a beat. I used to have videos and lectures playing on the monitor while I took notes on the laptop display. Most $300 Chromebooks (or Windows laptops for that matter) can't output that many pixels with videos and web apps running. It either crashes or overheats in my experience.
Yeah, although you can make the argument that a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is overkilled too.
Honestly, I got an Acer R11 chromebook years ago and it was fantastic for my use case at college. I used it to complete basic reports using Word, or take notes and they were fantastic. 10+ hours battery life is amazing, plus it only weighs 1.1kg. It was perfect to just throw in my backpack for daily use, and I didn't have to worry about being super delicate with it. I had my PC for AutoCAD and whatnot, and my chromebook for the more basic tasks on campus. And I only paid €220 for it. Highly recommend a chromebook for those on a budget who need to do basic computing tasks. It's still working fine to this day, although the battery life has gone down from around 10/11 hours to around 6 or so, which is still more than enough.
Yup.. find me a device in the same price range (I paid $120 for my an Acer Chromebook back in the day) that has 10 hours of battery life. I used it in college as well before I could buy a better laptop. Even then, the battery life doesn't compare unless you had a top of the line laptop.
hello PR dude from acer
@@lennonmclean Yeah dude Acer paid me 500 to shill for then there haha. Nah but seriously I have nothing but good things to say about chromebooks. Windows laptops in the same price range tend to be awful.
Computers with outright only 4y update support ?
That shouldn't even be legal.
Only Linus would measure the CPU temp of a chrome book while it’s playing a RUclips video while in Best Buy.
It's funny because he is doing that not as a youtuber but as a parent 😂
@@joel3399 yeah😂
tried that on a bunch of windows laptops myself lmao
i used to download game demos and burn them on cds at best buy LOL cause my internet was shit
I used a Lenovo Duet as a secondary device before switching to a 2020 iPad Air, and for the price, it’s really a neat little device. I’m still impressed by the build quality, and as far as Chromebooks go, it would be the one I would recommend to anyone in the market for one, IF ONLY it didn’t have an ARM chip. Theoretically that would make it better for Android app compatibility, but in my testing it didn’t hold a candle to x86 Chromebooks in the same price point
ARM is great for battery life. Unfortunately many arm devices don't have UEFI which means your options are limited if you want to install linux on it.
@@leonidas14775 When I was looking for a cheap upgrade from my *very* dated laptop that I revived with Linux for a while, I nabbed a Flip C434 for super cheap because the corner of the bezel (not even part of the visible display) had a minor crack in it that was even hidden when the screen was open. Has served me well as a lightweight Linux machine. I don't exactly grasp why people shit on Chromebooks so heavily, but I guess my use case was pretty niche among the ocean of users.
@@leonidas14775 The Duet has Cadmium, which is an actively developed version of Linux for ARM Chromebooks on bare metal. At the moment, everything is supported except external displays, video decoding, and cameras. However, it only runs Wayland based environments (and the dev doesn't even want to implement Xorg support), and the performance is good since hardware acceleration is supported, but it can be relatively sluggish in a lot of scenarios.
@@bbbbbbb51 That's good you got a good deal on a chromebook and made it do what you want.
The problem with ARM is that while x86 systems and linux are mostly interchangeable, each ARM device is at the mercy of a developer specifically supporting that device.
That can be a problem for example if you own an old or uncommon android phone. And its not as simple as swapping a DTB file usually. Most ARM devices are not SystemReady, which aims to increase OS compatibility
Linus is the type of person to put the classroom chromebook back in the wrong slot
Apparently I am too old to understand this comment
In some schools they don't take their Chrome books home, so they have to put them in this big box that has slots for every chrome book to sit in and charge
he feels like the guy that had his chromebook break so they had to get him one of the even more crappy ones
On purpose*
@@GremlinPuke It's not usually a big box at some schools sometimes it's a massive drawer that can be moved around on wheels.
I wanted something 11inches for writing/word processor. Found a chromebook with touchscreen, 8 gb ram 128 gb storage and a 2ghz processor for $180.
Cheaper than most Tablet+rubber keyboard combos and better sized than any 14 inch laptop, which arent available at the price anyway.
I have a 14inch ultrabook, a 15.6inch workstation with a quadro, will see which gets more use.
In college, I worked for the tech department at my old high school, and the fixes for Chromebooks were SO easy compared to Apple and Window devices.
Framework
Besides the mainboard of a 150$ device decides to stop working good luck getting any data Form the emmc as still a lot of people dont write down their damn account data. Also hardware repairs for 150$ devices are just not worth it in the Most cases.
Dell Windows laptops are still golden for hardware fixes. But swapping the entire Chromebook is probably easiest for the tech department.
Also contrary to the consoomer article referenced in this fad video they’ve always been Linux capable since the beginning. I did it in 2011, you can even do it on most of the ARM architecture chrombooks as well.
As someone who currently works at my high school tech department, I can somewhat agree. The only issue is the screw holders breaking every now and then because of how they're built.
I've been using a Chromebook for terminal-based dev work through crouton since 2015 (and the past 2 years through crostini). Low-end Chromebooks fill a nice and somewhat overlooked niche in computing. They trade compute power for absurd battery life (my previous 2015 Acer Chormebook was still getting 6+ hours after around 5 years of use). The $150 - $200 price tag makes me far less worried about taking it out and about where it could be damaged/broken/stolen. And at this point most all casual/productivity/school/work computing tasks are just done through a browser, so what used to be a restriction for Chromebooks really isn't much of one anymore.
do you still get security updates.. the fact that their an expiry on updates is the main reason discouraging me on getting a chromebook
@@KisameSempai They generally push security updates for around 5 years, pretty good for a sub $200 device.
@@KisameSempai replace the chromeos with some popular linux distro and the matter is solved
"Terminal-based dev work" could you elaborate more on what that entails? I'm very curious.
@@tihomirrasperic agreed on this! Once my Chromebook was end of life (no more software updates) I deleted Chrome and installed Gallium OS as my daily driver on that machine. It works great and it's something like a decade old machine now. I write C programs, Python scripts, run a BurpSuite proxy, and do relatively straightforward hacking CTFs and war games on it. You're not gonna be brute forcing stuff with huge wordlists on the ancient CPU with like no ram, but it works for my use cases. Can stream video and do whatever word processing, programming, and compiling that I need.
I remember Chromebook Pixel. They were very well-designed, had good quality (and were pretty expensive as a Chromebook). I knew several friends who bought it and flashed it with Ubuntu.
It was genuinely a really close call between a Chromebook Pixel and a Lenovo or Dell Ultrabook when I was shopping for a dev machine in 2014. In the end it came down to which one I found on offer first
@@JamesScholesUK I mean yall savages just gon flash it with linux anyways so the OS dont even matter lmao, if only we all have that power
@@JamesScholesUK Why not just buy a decent fucking laptop and flashing Linux on it? Hell, you can even flash CloudReady OS on it if you want to limit yourself with ChromeOS.
Chromebooks are, well... fine. It's probably the school's imposed configuration that makes them not even usable.
Chrome book lenovo 100e is very good and very affordable. This video is gross to say it bad and want people to spend $1000. Gross!!!
I'd be dammed. Would it not make sense if the very school that is requiring a chrome book also provide them? (Presuming Linus's child goes to public school) How is that even remotely fair for impoverished children?
His kids don't go to a public school, that's why.
I think Canada has less of an issue with impoverished children when compared to the US. Not to say they don't exist though.
Here in Sweden when i went to school we were provided chromebooks for free that we than had to return to the school. If it was damaged you had to pay for the damage to get it fixed or replaced and if it was returned damaged.
Here in Ontario (at least for YRDSB), the way it works for students is you by default use your own device (NOT limited to Chromebooks, you can use any tablet/laptop as long as it can access the web), but you can request for the board to provide you with a device if you don't have/can afford a suitable device. It's not a bad system, since most students do already have a decent computer, and those who don't can get the assistance they need (prevents a lot of waste if the school board needed to buy devices for everyone).
in switzerland kids are provided with either a hp probook windows laptop, microsoft surface or an ipad air / pro. depends on the school
9:05 you could also run it in a kernel-based virtual machine (kvm) to pass the graphic performance directly into the vm. then you won't have worse performance. the downside of that would be that it is quite hard to setup correctly
with the added overhead of the VM on the very weak CPU, it may still hurt performance. With most of the chromebooks having celerons (many of which are slower than core 2 duos)
@@yotoprules9361 Yep. I got a HP stream 14 with the Celeron n4020 for school work and general shenanigans. Identical specs to my school issued Lenovo 100e. I knew buying it that it wouldn't be a gaming machine, but I still wanted to try just out of curiosity. The only playable games I have found to be were Half Life, and Enclave. Anything else would just peg the N4020 and UHD 600 graphics at 100% while getting about 10fps. Honestly though, 10fps is playable for me if it wasn't for the horrible frame times.
@@yotoprules9361 yes that is true. you will get a little worse performance than if you were running a windows machine. but since the graphics output will directly be passed on to the vm, it won't even nearly be as bad as if it was just a regular vm.
@@yotoprules9361 My old laptop has 32-bit core 2 duo celeron. I am not sure what model, but it shows that some celerons are core 2 duos.
@Litfa Tua 4 - Do you do gay dogs, or pigeons, who collect lush & old x86 CPU's? I'm deep into that kink... If not, then p155 0ff! 😐😑😐😑😐
I had the privilege of beta-testing the Cr-48 before Chromebooks were sold to the public and I still own one which I bought a couple of years ago. For the right use case (browsing, email, office, video conferencing) it's pretty solid. Coming from an info-sec perspective, having an OS on it which can be managed completely remotely and needing to literally be pried open to get a different OS on it is an enterprise IT guy's dream. It won't ever replace my gaming laptop but I feel much safer taking it out in public.
That's the thing. Chromebooks are not meant for most people watching LTT. Schools like them because they typically do not have enough IT support to implement something better and they are easy to lock down. They are really good for people that do not have a lot of experience with computers. A number of members of my family do not like technology so it was a pain for me to keep their 10 year old Windows laptops running but they almost never have issues with their Chromebooks.
You don't need a chromebook for that anymore. Dell laptops have an autopilot feature that lets you completely manage Windows 10 remotely and lock the bios so it can't be tampered with. Better than using Chrome OS, at least
Yea I tested it as well, back then it was next to useless but it has a place like schools (but I know even 5years ago most 18-20year olds only owned a phone and had no idea how a PC really works - I foresee a tech gap developing, but with college programs and folk moving to the US likely won't be a problem - most IT jobs at around 50% are folk who moved to the US for college then work visa). However I want kids to experience a full OS and not a locked down ChromeBook - it might push them to stay away from real PCs due to it being limited environment (but getting better recently) and the crappy hardware/screens. Of course Linus' kids have real PCs but for poorer families it might be the only computer. We seen winners for PC builds often just find what they can, old hardware because people place limited value on them and think phones are what you need (and often most don't get/find an old PC) I'll end my rant there.
tbh I might take one to defcon and other hacking conferences as I'll just be doing basic web browsing and not say gaming. Because I'll be to busy to game due to all the talks I'll be going to.
I don't understand the responses to your comment: managed remotely, lock down, and easy of use. As if someone that only want a device to do school work and is allergic to tech would go out of its way to mess up things with the OS.
2:50 Everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked - FW has its first Chromebook now
Honestly, at first I was really resistant to the idea of Chromebooks being used in schools but once I saw the price point it all makes sense. Not every family can afford laptops more than a couple hundred dollars, if they can afford that. With ChromeOS, it seems a lot like it's effectively the "it just works" of Mac in a much cheaper price point so that you know, even if you can't afford a great laptop, kids shouldn't be held back by their parents financial situation
Imagine just having a room full of computers at school. Crazy idea, isn't it. Too expensive, you think? Old office Pcs are sold €25 each, or even thrown away for free
@@redtails Yeah but some families arent willing to buy used products. And a lot of families also buy chromebooks not just because its cheap, but also as its simple for their children. They just want something that can do school work, and that lasts while.
@@tinglemask2629 don't think you got the point he meant like a computer room at school
@@parthcosic a computer room at a school is all well and good but what happens in times when kids are having to do homework/assignments or as has happened a lot recently have to learn from home? Chromebooks are a cheap and easy way to solve these problems compared to forking out double the price or more for a computer that can run windows
in Arizona the school give you a chromebook in freshman year and you return it after graduating
As a best buy employee, I was happy to see this and help me learn more about the Chromebooks, even though I generally avoid selling those unless the customer directly asks for it specifically
No joke but when I worked in retail and normal people were looking for a notebooks, I always did not recommend to buy Chromebooks. First they saw the price, it was lower than normal notebooks so they were interested. I did know these people had no idea it does not have Windows OS in it. To avoid the dissapointment and
confusion.
@@pepsicherry6389 yeah i get the same thing, first thing i say is that it is a very limited computer without the Windows OS, but some people specifically need Chrome OS or just want it to browse the web
nice. chromebooks really arent good
Funny... I am a product developer in the Windows world. I love Chromebook, it's great for 85% of the population. Only if Microsoft can pull off a lightweight OS that can handle day to day task well. Unless your work require you use tools and software that are only available on Windows, you can get a great experience on Chromebook. ChromeOS is just more efficient in every way - that's me probing power rails between ChromeOS and Windows doing the same tasks.
@@_w_w_ idk if its 80 percent more like about 60 programs that require a lot of power are verry popular like blender and that sort of stuff and if your a gamer a chromebook isnt gonna cut it
I like that the man basically started benchmarking “laptops” in the store. I do this as well and I’m not even shopping for any 😂😂
when i was looking for a laptop my girlfriend was so confused. I tried out the keyboards, trackpad. checked out the screens resolution, connectivity, specs to price. and then i bought nothing. made a list of the ones that intrigued me and researched on their internals, (is the ram soldered? what sort of drives do they use) and this was what got me into computer hardware. that week is were i learned what anything computer related meant.
she was confused, cuz about 4 months prior she needed a laptop, had seen an add for a microsoft surface on instagram so she took her dad to best buy and the guy talked about how they could lower the price.
she ended up paying $100 less than me. but its like, an i3 or a pentium. with 2 gb of ram and she hates the keyboard since she cant type on her lap and in the end, she didn't even use the touch screen.
I ended up with a lenovo flex 5 like the one here but with 8th i5, 8gb of ram. and 256gb m.2.
@@andresacosta5318 good for you!
I swapped ram for someone once after best buy had quoted him a $200 something price. Only I borrowed their screwdriver and did it right there at their counter for free.
Did it in under a minute and I swear he shot that guy a dirty look I still think about.
Yes, the Lenovo Flex 5. Imo, it is by far the best bang for the buck. The Webcam was my only gripe. The speakers aren't great either, but most laptop speakers suck. Other than that, it is the most versatile for the money. The USI pen compatibility is a huge plus too!
Actually a Chromebook is "The thing students fear when they need a laptop and ask one to their parents".
YES!!
I bought my mom a chromebook that can be folded into a tablet and runs pretty great for $150
here before this is famous
yeah i have the Acer Chromebook spin 311and it works good in tablet mode and desktop mode. very good for the price.
honestly 150 isnt bad for a folding one like that, and your mom probably doesnt need anything powerful, so it seems like a good deal tbh
realy is it a lenovo chromebook???
@@tasmaniandebiru Here to tell you it's 2022!
"I need a chromebook..."- Linus's son
"NO, don't carry a Chromebook. Instead, carry this threadripper with triple 3090 PC in your backpack, also with 360hz 4k monitor"- Linus
hmst.
nah, he gonna give that super computer server which he removed because he upgraded to a new one.
Here I am watching this while I asked for a windows computer for Christmas. 😅
When I was in somewhere middle or elementary school Google offered free chromebooks for the whole school, but only if they agreed that they could track student cookies… needless to say, it wasn’t allowed
It is sad that that was needed to be said.
If it was my school they would've allowed it
@Michael Rostom lol its an anecdote to begin with, what kind of proof do you expect
@Michael Rostom they are literally known for selling data and analytics from users lmao, that’s how Google makes their billions. Even fucking apple doesn’t do it as much as they do.
@Michael Rostom das the same damn thing lmao
It's not the low-end hardware that kills it for me, but the locked-down BIOS requiring enabling developer mode and other hackery things. Installing literally ANY other OS becomes a hassle such that using it for anything other than ChromeOS after it's support has ended is a BAD experience
they are definitely being subsidies by Google so it's in their best interest that it's harder to run anything else. All in hopes of the future work force stick to their browsers or android ecosystems.
@@tanmaypanadi1414no they are not subsidized by Google, Chrome OS is free, Windows costs money.
They could be subsidized for some students though, schools/municipalities often give subsidies for them, but the ones from best buy and stuff aren't.
@@Masterrunescapeer You do realize "Chrome OS is free, Windows costs money." is basically the definition of subsidized by Google?
They don't create an OS for fun. They have a clear business case for it and that involves branding and lots and lots of data extraction. Yes, even from kids laptops.
@@turun_ambartanen free for now
@@turun_ambartanen they really didn't create Android or Chrome OS, it's just a fork of Linux.
I think it's really limiting for a school to require any specific operating system. Especially if the parents have to buy it, because that also excludes the inexpensive Amazon finds, like my ThinkPad T410 I paid $135 for that's capable of running Windows 10. It does need some upgrading, but even after it's said and done, it will keep up with a more modern computer to an extent, and for a fraction of the price. Right now, I'm running Linux Mint on it because it's much smoother, but with the upgrades I could get away with W11 if I wanted.
My school allows any OS after 6th grade (they provide horrid little Chromebooks to the sixth graders.) Anyways, I got a MacBook.
It allows them to deploy just one set of tech support training for teachers (what little they can do) and ensures that the machines should all be able to access the same resources with the same ease.
You won't be able to teach the kids anything if all your doing is tech support for four different major OSes and the one cheeky snot running a BSD flavour.
@@eagle_rb_mmoomin_418 I use arch btw
@@milesfarber An "obscure" and "unstable" OS that hosts nearly every website you've ever visited? Being an LTT viewer doesn't mean you can't be clueless about tech.
Son: Dad I need a laptop for school
Linus: here's a gaming pc with a rtx 4090 and a intel i9
Also interesting to point out that Chome OS is 32 bit not 64 bit even though it runs on 64 bit hardware. They intentionally use 32 bit to keep the memory footprint small. So ChromeOS really was made for inexpensive, low power devices from the very start.
How is it possible for any Chromebook to have more than 4GB of memory if it's 32bit?
@@lllleeeeiiii Is complicated. ChromeOS can be 32 or 64 bit but comonly is 32 bit running on 64 bit hardware. Contrary to popular belief 32 bit is NOT limited to 4GB of ram. What is limited is 4GB of contigous ram at any one time. It means a 32 bit could swap in and out areas of memory kinda how page swapping on hard drive does.
@@lllleeeeiiii Linux kernel (what ChromeOS and Android uses) is able to recognize and use more than 4GB of RAM with 32 bit builds. You install PAE (Physical Address Extension )in 32 bit kernel and it works. The limitation you speak of I think is unique to 32 bit Windows version because Microsoft decided not to include physical address extensions.
@@FireFoxDestroyer You gotta check what the OS is. In Chrome on your Chromebook you can check if you're 32 or 64 bits. The 32 bit might in fact still be 64 bit hardware just 32 bit OS.
@@wizardscrollstudio I checked my Chromebook's Samsung Exynos 5 Dual, and it says it's a 32-bit ARM processor.
And also, my school Chromebook has the AMD A4-9120C, which is a CPU based on the Stoney Ridge architecture, which is 64-bit.
I really like these kind of LTT Videos. Yeah, I love the insane expensive tech, but Linus having the experience of trying to help his kid buy a chromebook for school makes for a really interesting video. It's a lot more of a realistic view of tech.
i had the same reaction when my sister was *forced* to buy a chrome book for her two sons. i told her that if money was an issue i could find her a pair of refurbished technicians laptops or something like that but as it turns out the purchase was done not out of practicality but because the school didn't want kids flexing on people who could only afford a Chromebook, which you realistically couldn't stop anyways unless you shook down students for anything that costs over a fiver.
It bugs me too when schools force that kind of stuff, especially when you have to pay for it. If the school issues some equipment that you have to use, that's fine I guess. A big annoying if you have a better version at home, but not the worst thing in the world. However, when they begin demanding that you buy this and that, that's why I wonder why they don't just let the tech-savvy people get what makes them be more productive, while the rest can get the cheapo things that work well enough for them.
So...What your'e saying they're making Chromebooks mandatory like textbooks. They won't let you bring a PC laptop?
@@faithblack3851 yep
@@Blazberry_Yaint At least a Chromebook can easily be turned into a Windows/Linux computer if you have the correct model.
@@canadajones9635 This was my thought. I'm really glad I don't have kids (in general, but in particular in school :P ) right now because this sort of "have to buy X chromebook" nonsense would drive me up the wall. Kids are going to flex on anything; the only way to prevent it is to completely standardize. But if it's a public school, that's a _huge_ ask of many parents' financial means, so I'm really only OK with that standardizing if it's school issued and managed, at no direct cost to parents.
Honestly. I like the concept of Chrome OS. It ensures the existence of budget systems that people can access, and the idea that old Windows systems can have a Chrome OS thus ensuring longevity is a baller idea.
"Is this CPU running at 100% on a 720p video?" - words my parents will never utter, let alone fathom
As someone in tech I like to call that job security 😂😂😂
I bought the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5 for my mom for Christmas -- it's the new 13.3" version of the tablet + detachable keyboard you looked at, but with an OLED display. She loves it for normal everyday use. My main concern with the 10" model was also the keyboard size, way too cramped.
The older Chromebook Duet had 16:10 screen instead of smaller 16:9 screen of the newer variant which I consider a big downgrade.
I have that Samsung Galaxybook 2020 with the 4k panel and, man I've ended up using it for 90% of my computing needs (I also got it off Woot for half off). It's a really, really nice laptop to relax with and the screen is gorgeous. It's big Achilles heel that everyone reports is the battery, unlike every other chromebook this thing does NOT sip, it gorges itself on power and having such a super slim form factor doesn't give it much. If the computer stays at home this isn't an issue, and when I'm out I just plug it into my external battery I usually have on me anyway. BUT it's a huge deal breaker for most people.
@@ea8455 For sure the price tag was a huge hit and if it wasn't for Woot having a special I likely would not be pulling the trigger. But I also came from a Pixel Chromebook 2 LS so "overkill" was something I was used to and something unique to that subgenre of Chromebooks is that they never felt sluggish even in age, my 2 LS actually felt FASTER several years after I got out by virtue of how it operates and the reason I replaced it was due to a creeping screen rot issue, prior to finding the Samsung Galaxybook there wasn't that much that made me want to switch (though I almost went for the Pixelbook and Pixelbook Go). It's funny how spoiled one can get in such a niche field.
That said would I recommend these upper end Chromebooks for most people? Probably not? Though I think most people honestly don't need anything more than one these days as the majority of computer use is down to browsing and content consumption. I can certainly say they're for me personally, but outside my gaming rig I don't have a need anymore for x86 applications
i have one also, actually I searched for comments with the word galaxy in it to find this one. He glossed over it WAY too quickly, and on sale these things can be bought for around $600 or less! I bought mine for $400 brand new, and the screen is the most beautiful screen i've ever used on a laptop. It's 4k oled with a core i5, for $400 it's a steal really.
In Finland we get Cromebooks for free in Middle school and in high school we get Hp Probooks. The cromebooks are really limited in functions but the windows laptops have free time mode where you can download anything and do whatever. (altho we do need to return them after the year)
A repairable Framework laptop for schools might be interesting. They’re bound to break at some point and if schools can easily repair things like the screen or laptop casing, then it would likely reduce some waste.
And work that into teaching a usable skill.
Schools can't spend $1K per laptop. The entire reason chromebooks took off is because schools can get them for less than $200 per machine.
Most enterprise Chromebooks have the Display assembly and keyboard as easy to replace, which are the two things kids break most. I've repaired Lenovo, HP, and Dell Chromebooks, and for School SKUs, they aren't hard to fix at all.
@@isaackvasager9957 Exactly, I ordered a Framework but for schools you can get 5 Chromebooks for the cost of one Framework.
Chromebooks are very easy to repair. Easier than virtually any other device. I repair them all the time. In fact, almost all brands and models use the same 11.6" lcd panel...so one panel in stock works for the many different brands we have to fix.
I use my Chromebook as a thin client to my desktop or SSH to my server for software development work. I love it, and I have no idea why Linus loves virtualization but doesn't see this use case. My lap is always cool and quiet no matter what I'm doing with a lightweight machine, a good screen, and a Wacom touch screen for taking notes. I honestly never want to go back to a laptop/macbook
You need good internet though. Youre practically streaming a 1080p or higher video constantly
"Let's Go Shopping" - Something I never though I would have heard from Linus
actually, old Linus didn't know about Framework Chromebook...
Not worth it comparted to just buying a regular Framework laptop for a similiar price, you can install Windows, Linux, or if you really want Chrome os you could install FydeOS but the Framework chromebook is stuck on Chrome os
“If I wanted to spend MacBook money, I’d buy a MacBook.” I felt that.😆😆😆
Also the "A THOUSAND DOLLARS?!?!"
@@michaelmjdfan5357people will spend $1k on a tablet that is far less capable
@@jimmymac2292there's a android tablet that's for 300 dollars and it's very fast and capable it can run PC games using emulation like skyrim
Linus bought the exact Chromebook I did in the end. It's quite good, and I also got it running Manjaro instead of ChromeOS with some relatively involved messing-around, with only some audio issues. I still use it basically for Chromebook purposes, but having a more flexible OS feels a lot better. I mostly got it because I found Lenovo to be pretty reputable in general and the price point was good, not so much from an involved shopping process, but it turned out to be a good choice..
I feel old knowing the fact that Linus' son needs a Chromebook for school.
Right? I rememeber when he was born
For what it's worth, I have a Acer chromebook that I bought back in 2017-2018 that still gets updates every week, the 14" touch screeen still works, and the battery life is still close to 10 hours of real life use (VNC Viewer and RUclips primarily). I paid less than $200 for the thing on sale, and I've never once treated it kindly. I've honestly been pretty impressed with it, and it's the price bracket where I'm willing to lock it and step away from it at a coffee shop, while my gaming laptop is something I would never do that with.
Also...my 2018 Chromebook definitely has a Linux developer mode. Not sure why they've said it's only 2020+ models.
11:32 he just has a really nice gaming chair, it plays the game without even touching the keyboard or mouse
GAMING
"The thing every parents fears the most, the chromebook" - Linus
I use one daily there actually not that bad I honestly don't see why people hate them it gets the job done
@@bgolledge502 I didn't either I had one for 2 years then I went to windows and holy shit- I mean the chromebook was okay but windows pc is a ton better
@@troysimonds1314 like I do have a desktop for gaming but the Chromebook gets the other stuff done
*spooky organ music plays*
@@bgolledge502 every other pc laptop and mac can get the other stuff done at better value for money and less compromises.
What I’ve like the most using a Chromebook is the zero maintenance and the included protection against virus. It’s ending up being in my hands more often than I have expected. It’s so incredible what you can do inside a web browser these days. If it becomes your daily driver, expensive Chromebook could be justified for a better experience.
What app you need? You run Logic Pro on it?
Daily driver? emails only? Google?
No man, I run one as my daily driver, with a flimsy Celeron chip, and it's more than enough for webapps, android apps, and Linux basic apps (office and gimp). There is absolutely no reason to buy an expensive Chromebook besides just spending more money because you feel like it. I love Chromebooks, I've had one for four years now, and I totally agree with Linus, if you go over 500, just get a windows laptop. There are very specific use case scenarios that require a powerful Chromebook (programming android apps I think). Battery, speed, and touchscreen at a low-cost are the biggest, if not the only, selling points of these things for me
they last longer than you think too. I've had this chromebook I bought for like 150 USD in 2016 and it just received it's last update so I'm looking to buy another 200~ USD one. Never had an issue with it.
@@lucasrem1870 Why on earth would someone be running logic pro on a chromebook lol
In my German school we are supposed to use Windows laptops or iPads with Touchscreens
I remember having chromebooks (and tiny windows laptops) in high school, and the only things I did with it were Google (search, docs, and slides) and watching way too much RUclips. So I can't imagine what a grade schooler could need it for.
With a son with one I can answer this. Teachers can assign coursework directly to their individual accounts, through Google Classroom, so the work can be done remotely or just for homework. The schools provided them though and can remotely monitor what is done on them as well.
People use the internet, write docs, and make PowerPoints in grade school too
@@CamCitizenTV but would you need a chrome book for that?
Can't you do that on a windows laptop in the chrome browser?
(of course with school issued laptops that's a whole other situation)
@@Jehty_ Cheaper
@@Jehty_ that's exactly what's happening. The school is supplying these things. They're cheap and don't need third party software to monitor. Less likely to break because no moving parts. Harder to run malware as well. It just makes the most logistical sense for schools. Cheap and easy.
my school started giving us chromebooks a year back. unfortunately, they took the lockdown of features to seriously. to the point where it is essentially unusable. i wish i could list examples but they disabled any way to view cpu usage or anything similar. they have keyloggers, software that can see every kid's screens, rumored to even have camera spyware. teachers can also connect to the computers and like take control of ur mouse or keyboard. they also have a custom play store that only has the microsoft products like office 365. they also go so crazy blocking websites that some of my teacher's stuff has been blocked. i do not touch mine lmao
What sort of Orwellian drugs are your teachers snorting to justify being that restrictive?
Dang they use go guardian I’m guessing
Dang they use go guardian I’m guessing
yours are like mine except the camera. we kinda have to use ours tho also they left the location on forcefully which is bad if you go to a bad website
You can literally block every website with our school's software, one person coildn't even access Google to research the topic
I was extremely hesitant at first since Chromebooks just seemed like a glorified browser experience. But I managed to find a 2nd hand Acer Chromebook 715 with an i3 for around $200 in very good condition. And honestly, I love it.
Thanks to Linux Apps I can do development with it, using VSCode. Installing Linux as an actual OS was fairly easy but IMO not worth the hassle. The built-in support is easy to work with and works very well for my needs since I'm not a hardcore Linux user.
It boots in a second, it feels fast and snappy. It has backlit keyboard, touch screen and a very nice keyboard for being a laptop.
Honestly, don't regret my purchase at all. A normal Windows 10 laptop being able to conveniently develop would cost AT LEAST twice that, let alone if I'd want a backlit keyboard and touchscreen it would be a hell of a lot more expensive.
Great to hear! I'm in web development myself, and have also found it really nice to have a lightweight OS on the go, yet with Terminal support too. Did you see Chrome Unboxed's video about the Spin 513 releasing in June? I was wondering if I should wait for that one to come out, or get the current 713? The new 513 has an ARM chip and is fanless, so that could be really nice.
@@offroaders123 Honestly I have very little experience with ARM. I went with this because it has an i3 and I'm familiar with Intel and know that their i3 and above chips deliver respectable performance.
The spin feature could be nice if you're just gonna chill in the sofa. Personally I valued a good CPU, minimum 8GB RAM and backlit keyboard the most.
So this 715 was a perfect fit. 🙂
I liked my chromebook but a year and a half later it became unusable speed wise
'But mine crashes if I have a two-page document on Google Docs." a bunch of dishonest, computer snobs that comment on RUclips. I bet you these people all have $2,000 gaming PCs and just want to feel better about themselves.
@@michaelcorcoran8768 I mean, I am a computer snob with an expensive gaming PC. But I won't deny that Chromebooks are definitely useful and good value for what they offer.
Sure, if you cough up some extra money you could get a Windows laptop which will probably do everything faster and better - but cheapest Windows laptop I could find with backlit keyboard and a touch screen was like 5 times as expensive.
Big fat no for me when all I wanna do with it is browse the webs, do some development every now and then.
It's kinda funny that Framework makes Chromebooks now
I used a chromebook back in hs (even though the school laptops were running windows) and I actually liked it, it was/felt cheap but it was enough for what I actually needed for school and the battery life meant that I didnt need to bring a charger. Horrible screen though.
I agree that they're pretty good for simply doing core k-12 school assignments. No frills, they get the job done, and are cheaper than a windows machine. And they have a simple clean aesthetic, which is rather fitting.
im lucky enough to be able to use my macbook for school, but i did experience using a chromebook for a couple months
I went the HD screen and yes agree they are actually good lol,
my school gives out chromebooks but they're so stupidly locked down that I bought my own old ass 2014 refurbished one for $100 and all it does is google chrome but that's all I need it to do. Plus I can still use discord and other websites on it unlike on the school issued ones. So if you just need something portable and capable of writing a google doc that's not your phone it's a great cheap option. Also honestly it's lack of being able to to do anything keeps me focused. If I try to do work on my pc I just end up playing games or something.
@@jjbarajas5341 I mean you can get refurb windows machine at much better value for money. A sub 200 dollar ultrabook would have i5 gen 4 256 gb ssd and 8 gigs of ram
6:20 I found that out the hard way. I bought a Chromebook for my parents years ago as they only need it to pay bills and browse the web. They got a notification telling them that it would no longer be getting updates and that they should buy a newer device for future support. Needless to say, when the time comes for an upgrade I’m not getting them a Chromebook.
Why not? The amount of "tech support" I need to give my family because they're running overpowered-Windows on their $1k laptops (when all they really need is email + youtube) could be reduced significantly. "Why isn't my wifi connecting?" "Oh, it's because the drivers weren't updated... ChromeOS is great for people who don't know nor care about computers, and for me, who doesn't like giving tech support.
Wait, really? Some Chromebooks have 7-8 years of support, maybe it's not like that on cheaper models?
Did it do it job for years, while staying super simple for your parents and saving everything to the cloud so if they lost or destroyed it they didn't really lose anything? Almost all tech phases out of upgrades, doesn't mean that it wont work, just that it wont get updates.
@@ecnivo no os should stop supporting hardware unless its at least ten years old bare minimum
@@Arobsite bruh linux
10:51 Borealis? They can't keep getting away with it! Stop teasing us Valve!
I will never forget the day. I accidentally brought home a Chromebook for my wife and I couldn’t believe how cheap it was well now I figured out why it was so cheap because it was a Chromebook. We both were very frustrated. I know nothing about Chromo is unless something changes I don’t think I will ever have a Chromebook again. I took that back and got hers a acre 2 in 1
IMHO you made an excellent choice!
This makes me miss my netbook. Lightweight windows 7, I think it had like an 11 inch screen, but man, I took that sucker everywhere. It did everything a glorified word processor appliance needed to do, and all for a quarter the price of the dead laptop it replaced.
both acer and asus still makes great small netbooks running windows. They are absolutely amazing and quiet, and only sips power like a smartphone
@Robot-Justice:
I'm thinking-about getting a "Thinkpad x130e"-netbook for this very reason.
I miss the netbook craze of 2008. I wish they were still as prevalent. I’d prefer a windows based netbook over a Chromebook any day.
>lock down the system so kids can't play games on it
That's a great way to turn a system that the kids will handle carefully (so they can use their breaks for gaming); into a burden that the kid is much more likely to "forget" or mishandle, since its only purpose is to help the kid learn or listen to the teacher being boring
You might think that, but you'd be wrong. If they view the device as an entertainment thing, that is all they want to do with it. Maybe it could be argued they take better care of them if they can play games on it, but most of the kids treat a chromebook as a learning device.
i work in my school's tech department and laughed at the dissing of the bezels (my friend has snapped many) and the almost-snapping of the acer (which students have done. . . several times. especially with their hinges). of the devices we currently use (mostly HP G6, Dell 3100s, 3120s, and 3180s, and Lenovos) my personal favorites are the G6es. I've been using it since I was a freshman, so about three years, and they're the easiest/my favorites to open up. The only big problems we've had are with trackpad ribbons being too long, and motherboards getting fried but that's mostly been due to bad chargers.
My highschool this year gave us really nice HP chromebooks, (I am a freshman) and i was really suprised when they gave us these chromebooks. (Granted, the highschool is the biggest in our area and arguably really well funded.)