I don't understand why people encourage the use of restricted technology. If consumers say that restricted technology is okay (by buying it and recommending it), eventually we won't have a choice any more.
Even when you get a purpose built box, like the xps, they end up having wifi driver issues for years or whatever.
Claiming you don't own a chromebook is strange to me. If you put crouton on it, you root it as your first step. I root mine anyways as part of setup since they have a bash shell. The code is open and you have root on the box so what is it that you don't own?
It's great if you can pay 2k for a laptop and own the whole thing, but there are a lot of people who might want a box that is 300 and they can own the whole thing and I think a chromebook gives them that option.
One of the few things I like with Chromebooks is that you don't pay a license for software that's bundled with it.
You do pay for Chromebook software with your data.
I moved to a Lenovo 13 Chromebook with 8GB ram and an i5 and 64 gb SSD, and the 1080 p screen. That's my primary laptop now.
I also have a acer r11 which is pretty solid. I'd love to use that but it has a small screen. That gets used around the house by the rest of the family for various tasks and is in a stock state.
I may look to move to acers next 11 in. They have been really solid but I need 1080 and usb C charging for anything else I buy. Not buying more chargers.
I love it, it's clean, lite, updated all the time. It's the reverse of my old workflow which was a browser on linux. Now I run linux on a browswer (same thing really) and google handles drivers, battery life, copy/paste, font rendering, graphics card management/ x11 configuration. . . . All the things that suck or take real work about using a linux laptop.
Super fast setup too. I can wipe it when I'm going somewhere and have it up and fully ready to use in 10-15 minutes. (mostly I don't, but there are times when that seems like the best option.)