<p>Hi everyone, was curious about some opinions on the chromebook and my plan. Well, i originally was limited to $750 spending for a laptop, i do play occasional games, good amount of photo editing, but i have a problem with a laptop that does of all of this because you can not upgrade them in the future. so my plan is to get a chromebook for using on campus and when i am off campus i can use a beefed up desktop, i have the chance to buy a samsung chromebook brand new right now for 160, i am curious would i be better off with a laptop running windows for school or the chromebook would be enough as long as i had a full suite desktop at my apartment. the chromebooks job would be internet/word documents, i would install linux too with libre office. </p>
<p>if i went with the samsung/desktop route, i would spend llike 700 total, have a really powerful desktop and basically ok netbook</p>
<p>or laptop (lenovo y410p)</p>
<p>average multimedia laptop, not as powerful as desktop and can't upgrade</p>
<p>Don’t chromebooks only have like 20gb of disk space? I would go with a real laptop, whether you can upgrade or not doesn’t really matter since you won’t need to upgrade during the 4 years you will be using it.</p>
<p>You also don’t have to spend $700 on a laptop, you can buy a cheaper one.</p>
<p>If you have a desktop, there’s nothing wrong with getting a less powerful computer just to take notes on and such when you’re out and about. My only concern with getting a chromebook is that they’re really designed to be online all of the time, so if you’re in a situation where the you don’t have internet access or the wireless is down or something, you may find yourself without things that you need. If you don’t think that will be an issue, the chromebook/desktop route should work fine. If you think compatibility or wireless access will be an issue, then just get a Windows based netbook or something similar. That should serve the same purpose.</p>
<p>Like baktrak and barrk123 said, get a regular laptop. If I rememeber correctly, the chromebook only works when there’s internet. What if you lose internet connection? Then you can’t do work on your chromebook. Get a cheap $200 laptop from amazon or craigslist. It’ll be worth it in the long run. You don’t really need a $700 laptop right now since you’ll probably only be using it for word processing, browsing the web and streaming/downloading music. That’s what most people use laptops for now anyway, right? ;)</p>
<p>I started college using a 9" netbook for all of my note-taking needs (which I got in HS), then shortly added a beefier laptop for my room (desktop was not a good option for the distance I lived from home). With a simple linux install it served all of my needs. This essentially sounds like what you’re looking to do, since you specifically said you’d put on a linux partition. If that’s the case, I think that eliminates constant connectivity concerns. The main issue then would be storage on the laptop, but if you only need it for currently relevant things (i.e., for the current semester), then I don’t suspect it would be a huge problem. I’ve always managed to contain a semester’s worth of information to my Dropbox folder. For $160, it’s hard to beat. The only other concern is if you want to do some sort of more intense stuff or use some specific program that’s only on your desktop when you’re on campus. I guess this depends on your major and your study habits, though.</p>
<p>If you are looking to install Linux, then there is no need to buy a new computer for that operating system. My 4-year old computer runs a dual-boot operating system combo of Windows 7/Ubuntu and even though I only devoted 18GB of my hard drive to my Linux distribution, it runs better than my Windows OS!</p>
<p>You can get a low-end laptop new or a middle quality used for $200-300 and have it run great with Linux. The Samsung chromebook is a GREAT for general use, but it’s designed to do everything in the cloud so unless you want to get in bed with Google, go with Linux and a cheap laptop.</p>
<p>Agreed, if you want a basic laptop, go with a real laptop. I feel like a laptop is a pretty big investment and going for a Chromebook, while simple and convenient, has the potential of causing “well, I wish I could run x on my Chromebook, but I can’t because it’s not a regular laptop”.</p>