Is this ok for £299? Acer Swift 1

EveryWhere

Allow me to bring some balance to the thread, lest the Chromebook fiends kidnap your senses.
Unless battery life is the most important thing for you, I'd give a Chromebook a miss.
Most in your price range utilise an SD card for storage. Yes, you read correctly, an SD card. The type you used to put into your camera for storage.
A low amount of memory on-board, a low specification processor, low resolution screen for viewing your photos(none of your photos will be as low resolution as 1366 x 768 pixels, so your pics will be only be view-able in low quality on the laptop screen). Metal casing? Whoop dee doo. Not really important with such a low specification device. Your phone is possibly better specified.

One of the things that slowed Windows devices down in the past was the old style storage. But now the trend is for solid state storage, which is much faster. Chromebooks often use cheap SD card storage. As little as 32GB. The Windows laptop below utilises a proper solid state drive of 120 GB.

https://mcscom.co.uk/product/dell-inspiron-15-5570-pentium-4415u-2-30ghz-8gb-120gb-ssd-15-6-fhd-win-10-1yr-rtb-wty-mln493/

Fast with a Full HD screen.

Chromebooks are a bit of a gimmick. An attempt by Google to compete against Apple to make their devices compatible with each other. Don't be a Guinea Pig paying over the odds for cheap hardware.
Buy a laptop that can do everything you need and more, rather than compromising with a Chromebook.

benson1980

I'd suggest for a bit of balance have a look at chromebook reviews on Amazon where people have swapped from windows and see what people who are actually using them think. Obviously you have a couple of us here who own both windows and chromebooks so I'd suggest we can probably bring a more informed opinion

I doubt theres anything you wont be able to do on a chromebook but if you have any more queries just post back for advice. Everywhere hates chromebooks, which is fair enough- he's entitled to his opinion. They're not for everybody. To say they're a gimmick is wide of the mark. They just suit a lot of people better and are a well designed product.

You've obviously done your reading up and there are some good articles about chromebooks, so I'm sure you'll make your own mind up.

EveryWhere

benson1980 wrote: »

I'd suggest for a bit of balance have a look at chromebook reviews on Amazon where people have swapped from windows and see what people who are actually using them think. Obviously you have a couple of us here who own both windows and chromebooks so I'd suggest we can probably bring a more informed opinion

I doubt theres anything you wont be able to do on a chromebook but if you have any more queries just post back for advice. Everywhere hates chromebooks, which is fair enough- he's entitled to his opinion. They're not for everybody. To say they're a gimmick is wide of the mark. They just suit a lot of people better and are a well designed product.

You've obviously done your reading up and there are some good articles about chromebooks, so I'm sure you'll make your own mind up.

You've lost your argument as soon as write silly things such as I've bolded from your statement.
I write from a purely technical point of view.
Everything I have written is accurate, which is why instead of refuting what I have written, you attempt to attack me personally.
Many Chromebook purchasers may have purchased cheap and nasty Windows machines with under powered CPU and old style HDD in the past and had a bad experience. So a relatively simple Chromebook may seem like a relief.

Chromebooks are often equally cheap and nasty, but because the OS has to do a lot less and they use solid state storage(albeit a cheap and nasty SD relatively slow SD card instead of a dedicated solid state drive.), they will be snappier than the old style Windows laptops.

But obtain a decent spec Windows laptop fitted with SSD and the advantages of Chromebooks begin to disappear and their shortcomings become more apparent.
The laptop to which I have linked covers this and is no more expensive than a Chromebook, but is just a lot better.

Perhaps you can recommend a specific Chromebook to the OP and then we can do a comparison. Something with a Full HD screen and decent storage, as indicated by the OP.

No need to use scaremongering about viruses to cajole people towards Chromebooks. The OP could just as well use an Android phone instead of a Chromebook. £100 ok. £300 and you've got to be joking.

stevenhp1987

EveryWhere wrote: »

You've lost your argument as soon as write silly things such as I've bolded from your statement.
I write from a purely technical point of view.
Everything I have written is accurate, which is why instead of refuting what I have written, you attempt to attack me personally.
Many Chromebook purchasers may have purchased cheap and nasty Windows machines with under powered CPU and old style HDD in the past and had a bad experience. So a relatively simple Chromebook may seem like a relief.

Chromebooks are often equally cheap and nasty, but because the OS has to do a lot less and they use solid state storage(albeit a cheap and nasty SD relatively slow SD card instead of a dedicated solid state drive.), they will be snappier than the old style Windows laptops.

SD storage is completely different from SSD storage. For £299 you can get a top of the range Chromebook. My Chromebook doesn't even have SD storage options; I use a decent Chromebook with an SSD.

But obtain a decent spec Windows laptop fitted with SSD and the advantages of Chromebooks begin to disappear and their shortcomings become more apparent.
The laptop to which I have linked covers this and is no more expensive than a Chromebook, but is just a lot better.

A Windows laptop fitted with an SSD will at least be double the cost. There's more to a laptop than the SSD because Windows hogs more resources than Chrome OS.

Perhaps you can recommend a specific Chromebook to the OP and then we can do a comparison. Something with a Full HD screen and decent storage, as indicated by the OP.

Please do a general price comparison on my Acer Chromebook 14 (32gb SSD, 4GB RAM option). It is far faster than my wife's Acer Swift 3. It boots up faster, it loads pages faster. If you want to browse the interest, Chromebooks can be much faster, especially within this price range.

No need to use scaremongering about viruses to cajole people towards Chromebooks. The OP could just as well use an Android phone instead of a Chromebook. £100 ok. £300 and you've got to be joking.

Huh, a phone is not a laptop. Completely irrelevant sentence.

Please see in red. I take it you've never used a Chromebook before? I primarily use Windows machines, albeit I use Ubunutu (CLI) for work. Chrome OS is great. It is lightning fast, the ability to run Android apps is great and sideloading Ubunutu means I can play Indie games on Steam no problem.

Also, my laptop is Full 1080p; It even does 2400x1350. It is full metal, people have mistaken it for a Macbook.

For £300 you can get a top of the range Chromebook - They're not all "cheaply made" as you seem to suggest.

EveryWhere

stevenhp1987 wrote: »

Please see in red. I take it you've never used a Chromebook before? I primarily use Windows machines, albeit I use Ubunutu (CLI) for work. Chrome OS is great. It is lightning fast, the ability to run Android apps is great and sideloading Ubunutu means I can play Indie games on Steam no problem.

Also, my laptop is Full 1080p; It even does 2400x1350. It is full metal, people have mistaken it for a Macbook.

For £300 you can get a top of the range Chromebook - They're not all "cheaply made" as you seem to suggest.

Please link to the top-of-the-range Chromebook for £300 with a proper solid state drive and a full HD screen and also link to yours, out of interest.
I've already linked to a Windows laptop with SSD for under £300.

My Windows laptop with SSD boots in seconds, loads programs promptly, and shuts down in five seconds.
That's fast enough for me. I don't need to get involved in a contest to see how far we can pee. If a Chromebook can do it a second faster, so what?
If they are the same price, then why bother to go for a Chromebook? They are supposed to be a cheaper alternative, since they do less.
So unless battery life is paramount to the OP, I wouldn't bother to buy a cut down laptop.
I didn't state "cheaply made". They mostly use cheaper low end components.

Playing Android games was not criteria stated by the OP, so totally irrelevant.

benson1980

You've posted a link to a refurbished dell? And comparing with a brand new chromebook. You can also get refurbed chromebooks- 4gb chromebook 14 more specifically for under £200.

There are clearly some extremely knowledgeable people on this forum, of the pc-self build ilk who provide a lot of relevant input. But for the love of god just stop harping on about how everything other than a windows pc with ssd would be a bad purchase. Whether it be overpriced macs, chromebooks, whatever. The chromebook will be far superior for the OPs needs compared with what they were going to buy.

EveryWhere

benson1980 wrote: »

You've posted a link to a refurbished dell? And comparing with a brand new chromebook. You can also get refurbed chromebooks- 4gb chromebook 14 more specifically for under £200.

There are clearly some extremely knowledgeable people on this forum, of the pc-self build ilk who provide a lot of relevant input. But for the love of god just stop harping on about how everything other than a windows pc with ssd would be a bad purchase. Whether it be overpriced macs, chromebooks, whatever. The chromebook will be far superior for the OPs needs compared with what they were going to buy.

Yes, I posted a link to an 'as new' customer return with a full warranty.

So far neither yourself nor stevenhp1987, cheerleaders for Chromebooks, have posted an actual link to a Chromebook for the purpose of a comparison.
stevenhp1987 doesn't even know the difference between an SD card and a dedicated SSD, hence his statement;

Please do a general price comparison on my Acer Chromebook 14 (32gb SSD, 4GB RAM option). It is far faster than my wife's Acer Swift 3. It boots up faster, it loads pages faster. If you want to browse the interest, Chromebooks can be much faster, especially within this price range.

He thinks that his Chromebook has a 32 GB SSD, when of course it is a 32 GB SD card(eMMC).
So he certainly should not be giving technical advice.

All this nonsense about 'faster'. Who cares if it boots up a second or two faster or if it's loads a page a quarter of a second faster?

It just has to be fast enough, not the fastest machine in the world. There are other considerations.
If the OP will be storing and viewing pics, a Full High Definition screen will be far more useful than a machine booting a second faster.
Ample SSD storage(120 GB in this case) will be far more useful than a 32 GB SD card.
More powerful CPU will be far more useful than the weedy CPU supplied with Chromebooks. More RAM(8 GB in the case of the Windows laptop to which I've linked) will be far more useful in having multiple tabs and programs open, than a typical Chromebook.
Then there is compatibility.
In addition;

Web Browsing
Chromebooks support Google Chrome browser which is a good browser and more than enough for average web browsing needs. However, you need to be aware that with Chromebooks you are limited to Google Chrome browser. You won't be able to download other browsers to your computer.

In comparison, Windows based computers allow you to download and install almost any browser that you want to. You can go with the default Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari or even Google's Chrome browser.

If you have an objection, to me posting an 'as new' laptop for under £300, you are welcome to do the same for the purpose of comparison.

Post a link to your recommended Chromebook at a similar price point that has a Full HD screen and genuine SSD storage, not just a cheap SD card.

Even if you could, what would be the point? Surely the Chromebook would need to be considerably better than the Windows laptop and not the same, since you are sacrificing compatibility and storage with the Chromebook.

https://www.techbout.com/disadvantages-of-chromebooks-69/

benson1980

I actually agree with a lot of what you say.

It's just that you get quite aggressive in tone when trying to make a point, or thats how you and a couple of other forum members come across, and cannot accept others opinions and real-world experiences with different platforms.

I have made a suggestion which would be the acer chromebook 14- again I agree that refurb makes a lot of sense, and these can be had for just under £200. I also agree with stevenhp that 4gb would be much more suitable and I'd be surprised if the user suffered any slowdown. A lot of people care about speed of browsing and booting up, I would suggest. Just comparing spec sheets for the average non-techie casual laptop user is only part of the picture.

ballyblack

reasons to buy a chromebook over a cheap laptop


https://www.androidcentral.com/just-buy-chromebook

EveryWhere

benson1980 wrote: »

I actually agree with a lot of what you say.

It's just that you get quite aggressive in tone when trying to make a point, or thats how you and a couple of other forum members come across, and cannot accept others opinions and real-world experiences with different platforms.

I have made a suggestion which would be the acer chromebook 14- again I agree that refurb makes a lot of sense, and these can be had for just under £200. I also agree with stevenhp that 4gb would be much more suitable and I'd be surprised if the user suffered any slowdown. A lot of people care about speed of browsing and booting up, I would suggest. Just comparing spec sheets for the average non-techie casual laptop user is only part of the picture.

Any aggression is just a manifestation of your mind.
Speed of browsing and booting up can be speedy with a Windows laptop with SSD. To suggest otherwise is simply misleading.
If a Chromebook is even faster, it's really not that important. It's only important if the Windows laptop is slow. But it is not.
So we need to look at the other considerations. Of which there are many.

Whilst you are here, perhaps you can link to the ACER Chromebook with the low end Celeron processor and 32GB of SD card storage for under £200 that you state is available. Of course only with a full warranty and 'as new' would be acceptable.