So, whether you’re an individual or a business, there are significant savings to be made by using Chromebooks.
CHROMEBOOK VS MAC MUSIC PRODUCTION SOFTWARE
My mid-range Windows laptop cost four times as much as this without - when it comes to using Chrome and cloud-based software at least - being four times as good. I’m typing this on a machine that cost me just $175 that was in a sale, but you can definitely pick a perfectly usable Chromebook up for less than $300 (as the screenshot above highlights). The pros of using Chromebooks Chromebooks can lower your hardware and IT costsĬhromebooks have the potential to lower your IT (information technology) costs in quite a few ways.įirst, and for the reasons discussed above, they are much cheaper to buy than ‘normal’ computers.
This means that Chromebooks don’t usually come with much storage, and don’t require a particularly fast processor - which in turn makes them quite cheap compared to ‘normal’ computers.Ĭhromebooks run Chrome OS, a stripped-back, Linux-based operating system which is centered around the Chrome browser. Nearly everything - word processing, spreadsheet-editing, note-taking and so on - is done on the web via Google’s Chrome browser, and pretty much everything you work on is saved ‘in the cloud.’ An AMD-based Chromebook Let’s start with a look at what a Chromebook actually is.Ī Chromebook is a laptop that you use primarily when you are online, and one that you don’t, generally speaking, save many files onto. This observation, coupled with some adverts featuring shiny computers popping up on Facebook, got me wondering about Chromebooks - and whether I should buy one.Īnd this, of course, led to me buying a cheap Chromebook and writing a blog post about the whole thing! Hopefully it will help you decide whether a Chromebook is right for you.
Increasingly, I seem to be neglecting installed productivity apps like Microsoft Word, Outlook and Excel in favour of online, cloud-based equivalents (mostly Google products) that run in Chrome.Īnd the ecommerce and web design apps that I use for my business - like Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix and Squarespace - all run very happily in a browser too. This Chromebook review explores the pros and cons of using Chromebooks and other Chrome OS-based computers, helps you answer that question and highlights a few Chromebooks that you might want to consider using.īecause of the nature of the work I do, and the times we live in, I seem to have ended up using a LOT of different devices.ĭepending on where I’m working, I switch between an iMac, a Windows laptop, an iPhone and an iPad - but one thing I’ve noticed about all these devices is that much of what I’m doing on them is now being done in the Chrome browser. “Should I buy a Chromebook?” is a question that is asked with increasing frequency by individuals, businesses, parents and students looking to reduce their computing costs or work more collaboratively in the cloud.