Gadgetory

as satisfying as it might be to piece together a high-end computer capable of doing everything from running games at 4k to trying to find the grand unified theory often times you probably find yourself just needing something to check your email or post a video selfie about how much you hate people who take selfies and even though you can do these things with a tablet or with a smartphone there's no denying the convenience of being able to use our good old-fashioned physical keyboard well Google jumped on this idea a few years back by rolling out the Chromebook a line of lightweight laptops tightly integrated with Google online services and pushed as an alternative to windows-based laptops but how exactly are they different than from the traditional notebook PC and are they actually a compelling buy for people who don't need the you know peasant destroyer over 9,000 gaming laptop well Chromebooks differ from regular laptops in two main ways one they ship with Google's own operating system the Linux based Chrome OS instead of Windows this OS relies heavily on web applications such as Google Drive and is essentially built around the Chrome web browser - because they are so tied to the Internet and specifically to cloud storage they tend not to come with a whole lot of on device storage capacity most Chromebooks only pack 16 to 32 gigabytes of internal storage though at least they are SSDs so while you won't get a whole lot of space your read and write speed should still be quite a bit faster than a traditional laptop with a mechanical hard drive well Linus that actually sounds pretty dumb why would I want a laptop with a tiny drive that basically needs to be connected to the Internet all the time great question although Chromebooks aren't as feature-rich as Windows laptops there are some distinct advantages the most prominent of which being caused Chromebooks are generally cheaper than traditional laptops and while prices do depend on the hardware inside you can get them new for as low as a hundred and fifty bucks although 250 is a more common price point Chromebooks also try to blur the line between laptop and mobile device with long battery life most Chromebooks can get between 8 and 13 hours on a single charge not to mention that they're lightweight usually in the 2 to 3 pound range unsurprisingly though the focus on web-based applications and ultra portability comes with some compromises Windows applications won't run on Chrome OS meaning you'll have to find alternatives for things like Skype and iTunes it may come with a hundred gigabytes of cloud storage for two years but after that you'll have to start forking your cash over to Google negating some of those cost benefits that you've got for yourself by spending less than your laptop and because most Chromebooks have Celeron or even arm-based processors you won't be able to do a lot of that computationally intensive stuff that we alluded to at the beginning of the video unless you purchase one of the few higher-end models that support an Intel Core i3 or better processor but even with these limitations developers are coming up with tricks to make the Chromebook a more capable machine for instance adobe has come out with a version of photoshop for Chromebooks that actually offloads the processing to Adobe's servers so you can still edit photos even on a low-power CPU cool right and Google does include functionality for things like creating memos and Google Docs without an internet connection from a less is also capable of running most Android apps natively and can even connect to an Android smartphone and even though the OS is designed to be a secured walled garden of sorts including storing boot code in a ROM chip to ensure the system can't be modified by an attacker Chromebooks do include a developer mode that enables you to install a different operating system on them altogether if you'd like so even though power users probably won't be conquering cyberspace with the Chromebook anytime soon it's certainly an interesting alternative if your digital life is mostly centered around sending out tweets pretending to send important emails and of course watching tech quickie while you're on the go speaking of being on the go so many people are on the go these days and they probably need access your website too so why don't you create your website with Squarespace they've got simple powerful and beautiful tools to create a simple powerful and beautiful website it's funny how those words work for so many things about Squarespace they offer 24/7 tech support and many gorgeous templates that you can use to create a website that will look great on a computer whether it's a Chromebook or a desktop or whatever else or even on a mobile device the service starts at $8 a month and you get a free domain if you by Squarespace for the year they've got templates for all kinds of stuff like whether you want to make a blog or a portfolio or a company web page or like your your restaurant or whatever and commerce is included so that's a free online store with every website so you can start your trial today with no credit card required by heading over to Squarespace calm and use offer code Lynas to save 10% off your first purchase so thanks for watching this episode of fast as possible if you like the video do that thing if you didn't do the other thing leave a comment if you have suggestions for future fast as possible John's usually trolling through there he's our main writer these days and I guess I'd pretty much wraps it up thanks again for watching don't forget to subscribe and following all that good stuff for more videos just like this one