Gadgetory

hey everyone welcome to another review by Jim's review room now receives several messages of people asking me about these Chromebooks from Google and asking what are they so I'll do a general overview of Chromebooks as a whole and hopefully with this video they can help you see what Chromebooks are all about and see if it fits your needs or at least watch this video to basically feed your curiosity so without further ado we'll get started now first and foremost how are Chromebooks doing now as the year 2013 has gone its way we're starting to receive interesting data indicating on what consumers are really buying now as some of you may know Windows and Apple laptops for 2013 saw a decrease in sales and it's confirmed by reputable market research company and PD group but the one product that grew over 4,000 percent when comparing 2012 to 2013 and basically accounted for nearly 21% of laptops sold in the latter year is the Chromebook by Google so what is the allure of these Chromebooks that basically sold almost nothing in 2012 - the fastest growing laptop product by the end of 2013 and one of the big reasons is pricing Chromebooks are no question considered as the budget laptop of today the cheapest Chromebook that I've encountered so far as of this video today is the Acer c720 and that's priced at $199 us now from what I can gather the average price sits around 250 with the bigger options topping 300 now for a laptop those prices are not bad at all now what you get that's very different is the operating software and this is where some people might be turned on or turned off by what Google Offers now Chromebooks do not run on Windows but it runs on their own developed software called Google OS everything is performed in a browser actually and over the cloud there's no programs specifically Exe file extensions that you can install as well everything is initiated through apps that you download through the Google store and then actions are performed through Google Chrome now Google intern basically puts every Google service into their Chromebooks so if you're already using Gmail or know of some other applications like Google Hangouts Google Voice Google Maps the list goes on of course you shouldn't have a tough transitioning at all and of course your existing account right now can be basically used to log into your new Chromebook and because of that one account that one username and its data can be pulled up anywhere that you sign in now all of your documents are saved into the cloud again under that one account and for example here if I'm using my computer at work or at school and save something onto Google Calendar later in the week and whether at home or on my smartphone I can pull up that calendar again and find the work I entered previously now that information is available even though I'm not on the original computer and used initially and just putting it out there and just trying to keep Jim's review honest integrity here one of the biggest downfalls though if you happen to need a program that only runs on Windows or iOS then you can't use it now in college and at work if your school or employer required you to install a certain type of software and again it requires Windows you're basically Sol again a lot of the programs that are able to be installed again are tailored more towards Windows 7 Windows 8 I think any kind of Apple products as well so in my opinion a Chromebook has the versatility of a laptop with his connections and keyboard but it works off of apps like a tablet or smartphone so if you're okay with that the limitation per se shouldn't be much of an issue for you and just real quick here before I move on to the physical aspects one very important note to make Google Docs is free and pre-installed so if you can't of course install Microsoft Word docs just works just like Microsoft Word for typing up your papers and there's also a very good Excel app called Google sheets if you need that and those programs you can save them as a Word or Excel document respectively so Microsoft can read your save files down the road now the second feature of Chromebook is being light now these things weigh anywhere from 2.3 pounds to the HP 14 inch model that basically weighs in a little over four pounds now either/or they're very lightweight and very thin making these things ultra portable but being light weight alone isn't what Chromebooks are known for but their light in design and functionality and from my experience they're usually just enough ports to satisfy the average user all Chromebooks have at least two USB with an SD card slot HDMI and also audio ports are built in now wireless internet is of course available with Wi-Fi signals for a B G and n connections and Lesley is Bluetooth connectivity for your Bluetooth devices now in regards to performance this really depends on your usage now with the focus of being quote unquote light the processor consumes very low electricity and they do very light workloads now typically with Chromebook they're good for day-to-day activities like browsing the internet Facebook Twitter - watching high-definition videos on Netflix Hulu and YouTube and of course it is also tailored more towards students as well who just basically need this laptop to type up papers now what you won't see is gaming on a high level like I said earlier apps run in the internet browser so when you're gaming it opens a new browser window in the game's website is then open their games are now played basically through that open window now another issue our games that shows available in the Google store after downloading the app revealed it's not playable either because Chromebook again doesn't run on Windows or the Chromebook doesn't support Java and then for games that are able to be found and able to run they're not real heavy hitting blockbuster titles but they're more of these 2d based kind of games now getting off the topic of games in general because of the processor is not working so hard and everything is basically ran through the web browser the battery life on these latest models claims up to eight and a half to even nine and a half hours of use which is really good for a laptop so overall as you can see Chromebooks in general has a purpose and does fulfill this certain demographic in my opinion if you're on a budget and need a computer just for the basics this really fulfills that need without breaking the bank but it just be aware if you are intending and installing programs on your computer then Chromebook isn't for you so I hope I helped you in understanding what Chromebooks are and how they actually function again this isn't a in-depth review of course but this can give you some consideration if Chromebook is right for you now the videos playing are basically reviews I've done previously on the latest Chromebooks and definitely feel free to watch them if you haven't done so please subscribe to my channel and find me on Facebook or Google Play and this is Jimmy from Jim's review room take everyone by