Chromebook—Eight Months Later

 So I've been using my HP Chromebook 14a for about eight months now and on some levels I've learned to love it but on others, I'm still not exactly feeling it. While the added availability of Linux, and to a lesser extent Android, apps is a welcome addition, which markedly enhances the machine's capabilities, its browser-in-a-box roots are still hard to ignore. After all, the original Chromebook concept was to leverage Google's various Web-based offerings, such as Gmail and Google Docs, since most users do the vast majority of their computing via a Web browser anyway.

I find that my needs regularly push beyond the limited, albeit improving, scope of the Web-based apps that are still at the core of Google's vision for Chrome OS. Locally installed Android apps at best seem to offer a workaround for some of the platform's shortcomings but few of them are well suited for a laptop with traditional keyboard and mouse inputs, as they're optimized for smaller touch screen devices—smart phones and tablets.

On the other hand, the ability to install and run Debian Linux applications is a huge step forward in productivity for me as I can run desktop applications like LibreOffice and the Thunderbird email client, and even the Firefox Web browser, to more closely match my accustomed workflow on Mac OS or Windows since I use multiple email addresses and Web-based productivity apps like Office365 and those bundled with Google Drive, are too feature limited for my needs. The biggest issue I've run into with Linux apps on Chrome OS is the need to repeatedly enlarge the drive space allotment for them.

While the Chromebook is well suited for certain specific functions like Zoom meetings, I still find its inherent limitations and persistent need for workarounds make it less than well suited for 'daily driver' duties and thus I continue to stick with Mac OS or Windows for most 'production level' work. That said, the few times I've pressed the Chromebook into service for daily work activities, it has performed adequately.

Even though I am nowhere near the point of being a complete Chromebook convert, I do see it as a viable alternative, especially for users whose computing activities are primarily Web-based. There is a lot of as yet unrealized potential here and I will be interested to see how Chrome OS and the hardware on which it runs evolves over the next few years. 

UPDATE--After trying for a couple of years to force the Chromebook to be something it was never fully capable of being, I threw in the proverbial towel and got a business grade laptop with Linux Mint installed, and instantly realized that it was what I had been looking for all along. My Dell Latitude 7490 is now my primary 'daily driver' computer, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I have truly become a Linux convert.