1. Incredibly nice screen
2. Gets security updates (ChromeOS devices are great for this compared to the dumpster fire that is Android security)
3. Haven't had any issues with Android support (I use mainly apps like RBDigital, Instapaper, Wikipedia)
4. Works well for movies (I watch in laptop mode using stock media player)
5. No bloatware
6. Really good battery life.
It also has a stylus which works well, but I've returned to paper exercise books for note taking.
I can't recommend the device enough.
My biggest gripe is I need to carry a USBC->USBA adapter to be able to charge my phone, or connect USB drives. They're cheap, but it's a bit annoying.
So, I'm very curious about this. Were you taking written notes on electronic devices? What apps and devices have you tried?
I ask because a couple years ago I tried using a surface for taking notes when I got into a coding bootcamp and it was a mind blowing experience for me - finally, infinite paper space. Swapping between whatever color pen/highlighter I needed. Throwing pics into notes. I thought time and time again, "if I had this thing in college I'd have had a 4.0" (I had, like, a 3.2 lol)
For me it made taking notes so easy that I learned better. Now it's two generations old and I'm looking to upgrade, but I can't justify 2k on the new model or the surface book, so I'm wondering if you explored other options, or what your experience was with the Chromebook plus.
I've also considered switching to pen and paper but that means carrying around a fuckload of pens and highlighters, which would annoy me.
You lose out on having a full desktop OS when you need it, and not having an eraser on the back of the stylus is an adjustment, but it’s a fantastic device for writing and drawing. More recently they’ve brought the stylus support down to the entry level iPad, so if you have an Apple Store nearby I’d definitely recommend stopping by to try it out.
The built-in Notes app from Apple has also gotten more capable in iOS 11, and there are other options that I hear good things about but haven’t tried.
https://www.imore.com/best-notetaking-handwriting-apps-apple...
Procreate and Autodesk Sketchbook are both great for more powerful digital painting / drawing, I’m personally in the Procreate camp.
I haven't played around with any other devices' styluses.
I switched back to pen and paper because I usually want to continue to use my device with full-screen content while taking notes.
Enjoy that while it lasts. I have a chromebook that recently notified me it won't get any more updates, after four and a half years. That beats a phone, but it's pretty terrible by laptop standards. You can expect a laptop or desktop with any other OS to be good for a decade or more.
Not to excuse Google - but there's little incentive for a company to maintain devices past a certain point when there's no financial or regulatory requirement to do so.
I'm not sure Windows 7 being supported for a decade was intentional, but we'll see what pans out with Windows 10's incremental model.
> I'm not sure Windows 7 being supported for a decade was intentional, but we'll see what pans out with Windows 10's incremental model.
It definitely was. XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10LTSB all start[ed] with 10 years of support, and you can install a newer version on your same hardware to reset that counter.
Something's gone wrong with the core architecture if Google needs to actively "maintain devices" instead of just making generic security patches and shipping them out, with a little bit of testing.
Damn it, MS balked at offering Windows on power efficient Atoms. This because Intel had stripped PCI from the SoC to save transistors and thus power.
I suspect that if you were to poke at the ARM chips found in the Windows RT devices, they would be special variants with PCI grafted on.
ARM SOCs are a bit like firing up an old DOS PC and fiddling with IRQ and DMA setting, only that you can't pull the cover off to see what cards are inserted and what the DIPs are set to.
For instance the acer 11” cloudbooks run linux well.
You can disable secure boot. However, if you want chromebook style security without google or the centralized PKI, you can purge the ms keys and enroll the bootloader of your choice without special signing from the distro.
You can also manually enroll the distribution’s keys, I think, but I don’t see any practical reason to do that.
While I think it has the perfect form-factor for a laptop (thin, light and great battery life), it's not the perfect general-use laptop as it can't run arbitrary x86 applications natively, nor has high specs. (I hope Project Crostini will make it a suitable for some light dev work though). Its touchpad is great, and so is the Chromebook-style keyboard (small tweak I'd make would be a double-width backspace key, but I for sure prefer no Super key and no F1 to F12 row).
It may not the perfect tablet because as you say, iPad is lighter, and the ergonomics of a hinged hybrid will always be slightly worse with a keyboard on the back. But it does a really good job.
While arguably imperfect in isolation, together as a single unibody aluminum device, it is the best device I have ever used. For what it is, it's very very cheap, you're right it may be slightly more expensive than an iPad (and the price hasn't really fell since it came out a while ago).
presumably because of (lack of) keyboard.
If you want a 12 inch screen with keyboard and pen this starts at $850. Suprise, double the price gives you something marginally nicer.
But then you have use an iOS walled garden.
I have a Samsung Chromebook Plus, and I absolutely despise it as a tablet. Compared to my Nexus 9 (which is still kicking), it's a far inferior device. My primary uses for my tablet are watching video and reading comics. It manages to fail at both of those two things.
1. No system-wide support for red-tint (aka "night mode", Flux, Twilight, etc.)[0]
2. Buggy rotation lock - this works very inconsistently across apps.
3. Heavy (compared to keyboard-less tablets)
4. Buggy soft keyboard (sometimes the soft keyboard just straight-up doesn't work in certain apps, so I have to unfold the device from tablet mode just to use the hardware keyboard to type).
I still use my Nexus 9 over the Chromebook Plus every time I can. When my Nexus 9 dies, I'll probably end up getting a Surface to replace it.
[0] There is finally support for it on a per-user basis, but it took years for them to introduce this. And even now, if you close your tablet and have to unlock it again, you'll be blinded by the unlock screen.
I've definitely had the soft keyboard issues on a lot of Android devices in the past a lot however.
Perhaps it's slightly less rigid than it seems, but I've seen several Chromebooks and they all seem exactly the same. There's not even a manufacturer logo on boot.
I do actually know someone that loves Samsung software, but it's rare. I think they'd get really far if they would make it light and easy to remove. I really don't see any disadvantages to that approach, unless they're being paid to include things (which is entirely possible).
Speaking of this, this is another thing Google seriously screwed up lately. Used to be you could install Google Now launcher on any device and avoid OEM crap launchers. Now there is "pixel launcher" which is tied to the device. You can get the APK but this is non supported.
It is so weird to me that they would create a platform where you can swap out launchers and not leave a reasonable first party default in place. Bad for the Android brand and bad for users.
I can't stand the plain bland stock Android UI.
To see where I came from, Enlightenment was one of my favourite window managers on my Linux days.
It's not as big, but you can carry it everywhere. And it's only $200.
https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size#/phones/size/Xiaomi-M...
The article is correct that tablet replacement rates are low. But that's not zero. And there is a lack of modern replacements.
I've been looking around but I expected there to be a "this years model" with a new-ish processor, high-res screen, USB-C and a recent build of Android.
pros: no crapware (nearly stock android), weekly updates
cons: needs unlocked bootloader, not the newest and greatest (manufacturers take their sweet time to release kernel sources), weekly rolling release
Lenovo Motorola, Huawei and others have plenty of spyware on them. Years ago there was Superfish, later Adups Technology spyware and Allwinner's root backdoor.
Not the kinds of devices you want to be doing your banking on.
Anyone know of a current table that avoids the adware, crapware, and 3d contact managers where each card flies around in 3D? I just want android with the current security updates and 7-9" display.