Saturday, December 24, 2022

Getting the new Lenovo Chromebook

I was on the lookout for a good high value laptop to help me in my daily chores. All my work is on Google cloud using Google apps like blogger, google doc, google sheet etc. So naturally I was looking for a good machine that had zero local processing capabilities and more cloud computing facilities.

The new Lenovo Chromebook laptop I purchased from Amazon at a rate of INR 13,500 exchanging my 10 year old HP 430 was no doubt a fantastic purchase. It was a clear bargain buy one can get the day before Christmas. 

Since all my work is on the Internet accessing the different tech and development websites, besides Economist, HBR, Forbes and other sites and working on the Google cloud, this was definitely a great buy considering the fact all investment on local hardware would be a sheer waste. I wanted only minimal local hardware investment. These days there is nothing one can't get off the net.

It was just two years back that I spent a fortune buying the latest Lenovo for my daughter who needed it for carrying out her PG studies and research at IIPR Bangalore doing her PG in pyschology and counseling from Bangalore university. 

The only difference with that machine is it had besides good online access, good local hardware and gaming capabilities, working on Intel 7i chipset. This is a simple Celeron N4020 chipset single core at app 2 GHz speed. 

In the wildest of dreams I never expected Amazon to offer me about INR 6500 on exchanging my 10 year old HP laptop HP360 with Intel 3i chipset. This is why I say Amazon continues to marvel and surprise me with offers and rates that are excellent for the customer, with extreme cuxtomer focus that makes it a pleasure and gainful, doing ecommerce with Amazon.

The only drawback I found after working on it for almost 4 hours it has a limited functionality keyboard with missing page up and page down, end of line and beginning of line buttons. With all the regular data intensive apps, for me mostly word processing and AI, moving to the cloud, what is the purpose of having local heavy duty processors for just doing text processing work ? I do not waste time on gaming and is not a fan at all. Using the Chrome book, it becomes very easy to work in the Google Metaverse, and porting between Google apps becomes so easy. Weighing just 1.1 kg, just about 1.9 cm thick, it is a real good value. 

Once I start downloading Android apps from Google Playstore onto this laptop and start working on it, clearly removing the demarcation line between the mobile phone and laptop, I can do serious Internet app work on the laptop instead of the palmsized mobile phones. With a great 10 hour battery life, charging through 230 V AC, the new battery has long life and along with easy wifi connectivity, going online is no problem at all. This is also an added asset for the laptop.

The 4 GB RAM and 64 GB internal memory, moderatly strong processor at 2.4 GHz, not so good gaming capabilities, with capability to add another 256 GB external memory, this machine is definitely a bargain buy,

While I am still unable to find how I can work on the latest Ubuntu Unity 22.1 Linux OS using USB in this Chrome OS laptop, I could work on the native Debain 10 Buster distribution. I do not see the initial BIOS screen while booting to change the booting sequence. Figuring it out. Help will be appreciated.

George

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