My 7 year old Dell Linux Laptop is beginning to see its better days. It's chugging along, slow, straining with anything to do with video. It's even missing chunks of plastic! It has served me well, and as attached as I am to it, sooner or later the inevitable will arise and it will either be put out to pasture or simply die of old age. For this reason I've been shopping around looking for something to replace it.

I was looking at mostly Macs & Dells. Debating whether I wanted new or refurbished. Chances are I would format the drive as soon as it arrived and install Linux on it anyway, so why pay for the OS. Not to mention the savings on buying a used or refurbished computer. I put my search on hold after reading about the Meltdown & Spectre bugs affecting most of the new processors. My thinking was the new processors will be patched, and one less security issue I have to concern myself with if I wait till next year. Still, knowing my computer was on its last life I kept looking around just in case I need to find something quick. Most everything I do, both work & play, is done online. If I don't have a working a computer, I'm not making money.

I came across an interesting article on Crouton. It's a Linux installer for Chromebooks. I hadn't really considered a Chromebook, and the thought of having a small, lightweight laptop with a really long battery life fit right in with my summer plans. I plan on doing some traveling over the summer, and stuffing a huge 17" Dell laptop into a backpack doesn't seem like a lot of fun, a small Chromebook however is the perfect solution! So the other day as I surfed the net I came across an ad to one of the area big box stores. A small 11.6" Samsung Chromebook, only $159 4GB memory, 16GB storage. Liked the price, loved the brand name, woke up the next morning, hopped on the motorcycle and went to take a look.

Arriving at the store, I discovered they only had the floor model, or display model left. The guy said he could sell it to me and I had 14 days to return it if I didn't like it. I puttered around with it a little, liked what I seen, and pulled out my credit card and made the purchase.

So I stuffed the tiny laptop into my backpack, hop on my bike and head home. The first thing I notice is that it will be a real pleasure carrying this thing around. Took up very little room in my backpack, and it was so light it was barely noticeable! Just what I wanted!

As soon as I got home I pulled it out of my backpack and held my NuVision Tablet in one hand and the Chromebook in the other. The Chromebook is considerably lighter than my tablet and hell of a lot lighter than my Dell 17" laptop.

It was a display model and it booted up into Guest mode. I exited Guest mode and discovered another users credentials. Could of been a return, or someone could of been stupid enough to sign into the store laptop with there credentials. Regardless, I did the right thing, looked up doing a factory reset on the system, and rebooted the system, entered "Powerwash" mode and the Chromebook deleted everything, resetting it to factory original.

Now this was my first time using a Chromebook and it was pretty cool for the most part. You enter your Google credentials and that's pretty much your username and password for the computer. You can check your Gmail for email. It only has a 16GB hard drive so all your files are stored in your google drive. It pretty much plugs the entire Google experience into an operating system. Google photos, drive, gmail, keep, docs. Kind of cool, also kind of creepy if you're not a Google fan boy, and The Dood really isn't. A lot of this can be remedied however with a decent sized USB drive. (more on that later)

The Chromebook OS is pretty intuitive for the most part. I found getting around really easy. Anything I didn't really understand I looked up on Google and found plenty of documentation to explain anything I couldn't figure out on my own.

After getting a feel for the tiny computer I started looking into apps. According to the salesman at the store not all Chromebooks are capable of installing Android apps. This was something I didn't know. He said this is a new feature Google recently started working on, and this particular model or OS did accept Android apps. For me, it would have to. Without the apps, the user experience would be just plain MEH!

I install the Termux app for a Linux terminal emulator. With this I can do basic Python coding, and have access to programs like HTOP, and NANO. The other three apps I install are Telegram for my Telegram groups, Snapseed for photo editing, and Google Play Music, because The Dood loves his music.

Anything else I needed was pretty much already included out of the box. The Chromebook comes with all the Google products preconfigured; drive, photos, docs, keep, etc. There is also a basic text editor ( no spellcheck with text editor) For the most part I found either an app or online solution for anything I needed.

I have to admit, there was a lot I didn't really like about this. I'll start with that. Most of the dislikes are small petty issues that I'll probably learn to deal with over time. The way the tiny laptop deals with it's limited space should also be something we have to consider. For the most part the tiny computer offers a lot in tiny package.

Dislikes

So I absolutely hate the tiny 16GB hard drive. After ChromeOS this leaves us with a little over 9GB to fill, and that could be filled quickly. Again, a small USB drive can fix this issue, but I'm sure this will be an issue down the road as I load more and more apps. Not crazy about the hard drive space at all. On top of that, I'm not super comfortable storing my Steemit keys in the cloud, or any of my online cyptocurrency wallet keys . Again this is remedied with a USB drive. Still not super secure, but better than the cloud IMHO

Doing research I discovered that hardware can not really be upgraded. Both the hard drive and memory are soldered directly to the motherboard. This design helps keep the Chromebook thin and tiny but really sucks for a guy like me who likes to take things apart and do my own upgrades.

The tiny computer seems almost like a kids toy. It's small and light which sort of adds to its charm, but also feels a little cheap and toyish. I'll be interested to see how this thing holds up over the next couple years. Although it appears to be well made with a durable case, its light weight almost makes if feel delicate or fragile. I did get a two year service plan, that covers any damage for an additional $35.00 USD Considering this is my backpack computer and will be going with me on vacations, camping, and just about everywhere else I go, probably money well spent. This thing will be getting yanked in and out of my backpack ten times a day at least. (Yeah, The Dood's that guy. I almost always have a tablet, phone or laptop in my hands.)

The power cord is short. A little longer power chord would definitely be nice.

The OS seems a little sparse. I'll touch on this a little more towards the end, but I think ease of use, and for lack of a better term, "Making the computer idiot proof" seems to take away from the operating systems true potential.

My final gripe is no delete key. You have to use a key combination of "alt + backspace" to act as a delete key. Not a super big deal, I'm already used to it, but it does seem strange and takes a little getting used to at first.

On a final note about dislikes, the USB ports seem weird. Sort of stiff, but still loose. My USB stick would mount and unmount as it wiggled around on my lap. Not sure if it's a flaw or how it was made. With the two year warranty I purchased, I'm not super concerned about it right now. They seemed to work satisfactorily for now.

What I Loved

For the most part my gripes are small and petty. There was a lot I really liked about this little laptop. The more I use it the more I'm really starting to love it.

I love the size, and weight. This is going to be perfect for traveling. I'm actually blown away by how light this thing is. The keyboard is the perfect size. My fat fingers get around the keyboard just fine. With the exception of the missing delete key, I'm growing really comfortable with it really quick.

The battery life on these things is crazy, lasting up to 9 hours. That's really awesome, especially while camping, or in places where access to electricity is limitied.

I've found a work around for just about any need that has arisen. Termux for my terminal, linux, irc, and python needs. Snapseed for photo editing, telegram for chat.

One of the first things I did when I started using it was log into a crypto exchange and make a few trades, and the tiny laptop was more than capable of handling that. For me, everything else is secondary. If I can't trade with it, it's crap. It handled the exchange windows and a few quick trades easily.

I was also delighted to discover, Google gave me 100 GB on Google drive. I guess this comes with most Chromebook purchases. I get the space for two years, then I believe there is a charge. Chances are I'm not going to have this for much longer than two year, but I guess we'll see.

Final Thoughts

Honestly I think this is the perfect second laptop for my needs. It's lightweight, easy to carrry, and can do just about anything I'll need of it while on the road. I wouldn't be happy with this thing as my main computer, but for a second machine, this thing is absolutely awesome. Really happy with my decision.

I was a little disappointed to discover that Crouton is the only solution currently for installing Linux. After reading about it, the computer would always have to run in developer-mode in order to run Crouton. Not really secure, you're basically giving a successful intruder SupeUser status if the machine was ever compromised. I wasn't comfortable with that, but may look into this in the future. As far as I know you just can't download a live Ubuntu or OpenSuse USB stick and run it or install it from USB. I'm still really surprised by that. I imagine somebody will come up with a distro that deals specifically with this.

I think it's odd that ChromeOS is a Linux based OS yet they seem to really tone it down. I'd love to see a larger hard drive and the inclusion of some opensource software like Gimp & Kdenlive for video and image editing. A terminal program would be a nice addition too. Honestly, if ChromeOS offered a working terminal and some of my favorite opensource programs I would probably become a devout Chromebook user. Might even become my full time machine.

In Conclusion

For the price, I'm really happy with the decision to try a Chromebook Although this probably wont be my full time laptop, I plan on using this for a week straight. I'd like to see what it will be like using only a Chromebook. Especially considering this will basically be my vacation laptop so I better make sure I know what I'm getting myself into. Nothing worse than getting out on the road, and discovering your gear sucks. Better to find out now than later. The only time I'll be booting up my other computer is when I need to copy some files or coding that I'm working on to transfer to either google drive or the Chromebook via USB. For the most part, I'm really looking forward to the experience. I think with the exception of Gimp & Kdenlive I'll get along just fine without my laptop. I'll make sure to write a post next Tuesday, detailing the experience.

If you own or owned a Chromebook I'd love to hear your experience. Love it? Hate it? Any suggestions? If anyone knows of a secure way to install a LInux distro on here, I'd especially love to hear your thoughts.

If you've read this far I hope you found the post interesting and insightful. Thanks for reading and Steem on brothers and sisters. Steem on!