Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The Case Against The Chromebook


Google has a very interesting idea in the Chromebook. For some niche groups of computer users, the Chromebook may be a great product. But for the average user, who uses their computer for things besides the internet, it may not be a good choice.

1. Not all people like the idea of having a computer with the Chrome OS. To quote a comment at Engadget,

"Call me old fashioned, but I like having a computer when I buy a computer. Not a screen and a keyboard hooked up to some megacorp's evil empire."

2. Not all people have access to the internet all of the time. If you are on trip and don't have access to the internet, your Chromebook will basically be useless. You can't watch movies, write a letter home, or play games.

3. People may want to run real programs instead of "apps." Google has some apps (such as Google Docs), but what about programs like Photoshop that don't have an app equivalent yet?

4. Despite the fact that Google heralds the Chromebook as safe from viruses, there is another area of vulnerability- that is Google's servers. I'm not saying Google isn't trying hard enough to protect its data. Even with all the precautionary steps large companies take to protect their user's data, unforeseen events do happen. Hackers will always be hacking, and businesses will always be trying to protect their data. Do people really want to trust Google with their very personal data, when so much data has been stolen as of late?

5.  Even though Google was the first to implement the idea of a web-only, cloud- based computer, Apple is about to one-up it with its new Mac OS X Lion. Apple is supposedly coming out with Safari- only boot mode. It's not certain yet, but a screenshot has surfaced that appears to be internet only boot. If it is true, it might eat up Google's market share. Why only be tied to booting to the cloud when you can have the best of both worlds?

4 comments:

  1. 1. how chrome os is more evil empire than windows or apple?
    2. Not true, there are many offline app for text editing, playing. You can totally watch movies offline if you have the file. All this will get even better when google release google drive.
    3. Photoshop has webapp equivalent such as pixlr or Sumo paint.
    4. There is no reason to believe that you are better than google as backing up your data. You can also use other companies such as dropbox. If you use google docs, it is very easy to download a copy of your data for extra back up. Finally you can use many different companies (or not) to store your passwords.
    5. Because the point of the chromebooks is simplicity. Also you forget to mention virtualization which allow you to run any windows app throw chrome os.

    Best!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Benjamin,

      Yes, you have some good points here. When I wrote this last June, a lot of this information was not available.

      Delete
  2. About your point 2 - If you are traveilling with a Macbook or PC and you do not have an internet connection, how do you go about "writing letter home" ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Dinu,

      I was not talking of "writing a letter home" via e-mail. I was talking of writing on a word processor. But that is not the main point.

      Delete

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