I noticed a You tube video yesterday explaining how to convert an Amazon Fire tablet to plain Android. Didn't watch it, but it does prove that it can be done for those that realise how restricted the Amazon device is.
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Windows or Chromebook?
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and most of the time if you can download the .apk files and the fire is set to alloow apps from another location thenthat is a workaround. My auntie and grandma had a few of them and I now have her HD10, though I only really use it for the Flow 8 and X-AIR mixer control apps and the IKEA smart app.
Of course the reason fir the locking down and ads is the fact that te device is subsidised by Amazon so you gets what you oay for.
dakta
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That's what I did - queue the same thoughts 'this device can do far more than it ever will'. It's a bit of a waste as whilst you get simplicity what you've bought can do more but without the (without hacking) capability of enabling said capability. Good luck explaining the workarounds to the non-IT savvy.
Which brings us to the next problem - the sister in my case obviously bought it in good faith under her own illusion it was quite easy to use and would do the common basic things my parent would use without having to turn them into proficient computer users. The idea was good and don't take any of the above as any kind of intention to insult but she didn't herself understand things well enough to know the limitations otherwise we'd have all agreed on a budget full fat laptop.
It very much is horses for courses but a chromebook really has such a limited scope it really for me and most i seem to know anyway will just be a browsing tool with a bit of scope for other things but not much at all and thats just a fraction of what computing can do so it's a convenient sidearm but not a computer replacement
Which brings us to the next problem - the sister in my case obviously bought it in good faith under her own illusion it was quite easy to use and would do the common basic things my parent would use without having to turn them into proficient computer users. The idea was good and don't take any of the above as any kind of intention to insult but she didn't herself understand things well enough to know the limitations otherwise we'd have all agreed on a budget full fat laptop.
It very much is horses for courses but a chromebook really has such a limited scope it really for me and most i seem to know anyway will just be a browsing tool with a bit of scope for other things but not much at all and thats just a fraction of what computing can do so it's a convenient sidearm but not a computer replacement
I'd leave out the running-your-own-business bit, for the simple reason that I've run and been involved in a number of businesses, and I've never used any software other than a browser to manage them. I'd probably also leave out casual coders having perfectly happily coded up stuff in vscode on a Chromebook.Well we pick on firmware but that's just my sidegig and personal potion.
We could go a bit further:
- ##There's whole communities of people writing music with their mobile gear with a lot of hardware produced exclusively for the mobile side (i.e compact keyboards and controllers)
- on the same note, photo editing, film editing, desktop publishing (Lots of people edit movies and quite professionally too for youtube etc)
- 3d printers/cam and homebrew devices are gettingy common, just a couple of hundred pounds now and whilst not as common as an epson yet its getting to the point where a lot of people know someone whos got one.
- development - not everyone's a coder but there's loads of people dabble with it at home, many are not iT Professionals and just do it for the love of things and create downloadable content where they're not doing original software
- automotive diagnostics - interesting one with the elm usb devices you can now do homebrew vehicle diagnostics with a variety of downloadable software. ill admit apps are starting to appear that are compatible but wasnt always the case
- anyone who runs their own business that uses any kind of proprietary business software or have any specific needs and works from their own device
- most non-browser based games - forget battlefield
- and a random one, if you just want to design a railway layout or link your controller to your pc
Now that list could go on, it really could, and not all the examples are great as new apps are coming out for things - but we don't need to focus on it that much more the issue that actually there's a lot of ordinary home users for which a chromebook or windows choice isn't really going to work, or at least be a suitable first choice.
Of course that's assuming from opening post that the context is having a chromebook instead of a windows machine. i'd happily have one alongside
'especially if they arn't very tech savvy and will rely on someone else to maintain it for themselves.'
My sister fell into this trap (Not with a chromebook though) it was an amazon fire iirc bought for my mum as she hates computers. It was far too closed off (Even more so than android) ad ridden and didn't have apps for what she wanted to use it for. Queue some awkward frustration as she was grateful for it but genuinely couldn't find a purpose - I managed to mod it to improve things a bit but on the quiet we got a laptop. in all fairness she dislikes that too but less.
The use-cases you list who would actually have a problem are maybe 10% of users. Possibly 25% including casual gamers, but generally they are casual gamers because the game is right there on their existing phone. The people listed may be everybody you know, but they aren't a wide chunk of society. Most people want to do a bit of browsing, a bit of media consumption, and anything which involves a keyboard and is a bit of a chore on their phone.
All my sympathies with the Fire Tablet. My dad made the same mistake, and they are absolute garbage. Chromebooks aren't in the same ballpark though.
WelshBluebird
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For people like me and you maybe (I'm a software developer and PC gamer so yeah they really are too closed off for me), but for 90% of people they are absolutely fine as all most people need is a web browser!
The thing is, the vast majority of people don't do anything you listed. They just use Facebook, Google, email and once in a while need to use a spreadsheet or a word processor (which can be done easily in a browser these days).
dakta
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Might have to agree to disagree because conversely I've done it also and had to use quite a bit of proprietary software, in my case (but not limited to) cad software like draftsight, software that accesses serial ports for debuggers in other cases and so forth - that's extreme but it only takes someone to want to use something not common, so for example a self employed freelance book-keeper with their none-cloud sage (not everyones gone SaaS yet)
gamers, funny one because whilst you can get games onto chromebook there's a lot you won't - think battlefield, call of duty, quakes etc - these are very popular, the only games distribution platforms have users in their millions and I would think only a fraction of it would be android friendly?
But anyway, 10% (and I think that's conservative given the number of steam accounts that exist) - more likely 25% (and I think thats conservative too) is still a massive market share. For many people a chromebook might be enough, but for many people it wouldn't be. On that basis I could only really recommend a chromebook (not that I wouldn't) where the use case is strictly web browser + email and very little else with little to no chance of that scope changing
Personally, and this is not so much in the spirit of the thread but more of a personal thing, I am impressed with how much processing power you can get these days for a given price, from 99p microprocessors that can do millions of operations a second with tonnes of embedded peripherals through to your high end intel, amd and arm offerings so I find it weird we'd then close the lid on it somewhat and containerise things so much (yes you can develop for chromebook to add things you find its lacking but its not actually that easy to get into IME) I am not a windows fanboy but what it does give is options - I referred to a machine as a swiss army knife earlier and thats how I see it its a tool. Now I'm definitely in the minority on this point but on another almost certainly minority viewpoint of mine we shouldn't limit ourselves so enthusiastically. Ultimately it is horses for courses.
edit: tried to find some data and whilst I couldn't really find what I was looking for did stumble across this - https://www.geekwire.com/2021/chromebooks-outsold-macs-worldwide-2020-cutting-windows-market-share/ it's old but for me seems about right, it acknowledges the chromebook and the google offerings but the numbers sit right to me and I can't see chromebook really being a windows alternative or threat for some time even if it is doing what most people want
gamers, funny one because whilst you can get games onto chromebook there's a lot you won't - think battlefield, call of duty, quakes etc - these are very popular, the only games distribution platforms have users in their millions and I would think only a fraction of it would be android friendly?
But anyway, 10% (and I think that's conservative given the number of steam accounts that exist) - more likely 25% (and I think thats conservative too) is still a massive market share. For many people a chromebook might be enough, but for many people it wouldn't be. On that basis I could only really recommend a chromebook (not that I wouldn't) where the use case is strictly web browser + email and very little else with little to no chance of that scope changing
Personally, and this is not so much in the spirit of the thread but more of a personal thing, I am impressed with how much processing power you can get these days for a given price, from 99p microprocessors that can do millions of operations a second with tonnes of embedded peripherals through to your high end intel, amd and arm offerings so I find it weird we'd then close the lid on it somewhat and containerise things so much (yes you can develop for chromebook to add things you find its lacking but its not actually that easy to get into IME) I am not a windows fanboy but what it does give is options - I referred to a machine as a swiss army knife earlier and thats how I see it its a tool. Now I'm definitely in the minority on this point but on another almost certainly minority viewpoint of mine we shouldn't limit ourselves so enthusiastically. Ultimately it is horses for courses.
edit: tried to find some data and whilst I couldn't really find what I was looking for did stumble across this - https://www.geekwire.com/2021/chromebooks-outsold-macs-worldwide-2020-cutting-windows-market-share/ it's old but for me seems about right, it acknowledges the chromebook and the google offerings but the numbers sit right to me and I can't see chromebook really being a windows alternative or threat for some time even if it is doing what most people want
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My mum uses her Chromebook for Chrome - browsing WWW sites, gmail, writing short documents with Google Docs and watching BBC iPlayer. Usually it is on an occasional table next to a sofa. Sometimes she uses it on her lap in bed.
She also has a full fat budget laptop. She uses that for Word and for digital photos which are on the hard disk. She could use it instead of the Chromebook, but its bigger and too heavy to use on her lap. The extra functionality gets in the way. This one is faster and doesn't grind to a halt like her previous Windows laptop, but it still has frequent, sometimes obtrusive updates. She bought that laptop from one of her friends who used a desktop computer and only ever used the laptop to configure the settings on her router. I didn't ask any more.
Peter Norton once said
nlogax
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A Chromebook is perfectly adequate for browsing, doc editing and photo viewing. Meanwhile my four year old MacBook Pro needs a repair which I'm told will set me back in the region of four to eight hundred quid. I've just bought a new iPad Pro which looks like it'll be able to do everything the MBP did for a quarter of its original price. My days of buying top of the range laptops are done.. it's pointless.
birchesgreen
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You can also do photo editing on a Chromebook, there is an amazing website which replicates photoshop to a rather amazing degree. https://www.photopea.com
I haven't used that for years. It's come a long way...
RochdalePioneers
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Typing this on a Chromebook. When I set up my consultancy business I needed to buy my own kit and a high-end Chromebook was hugely preferable to a similarly priced Windows laptop. All those compatibility issues you get with Windows? Drivers that need updating or rolling back or has decided to stop working for ****s and giggles? None of that on a Chromebook - it works or it doesn't. Same with the OS which is updated on a very regular basis (an extra 10 seconds when you shut down) - if hey get something wrong and it goes glitchy don't worry as the next update in a few days will fix it.
Having grown utterly tired of both the bloat and crawl of Windows and the pointless faff of Office I'm almost entirely Google. I use Drive and Apps to replace Office 365 and One Drive. Faster, better. Can still save down Sheets as Excel if needed for clients. Unless you need to use specific software then most things are cloud and browser based these days, fully functional and quick.
I've basically got a half-price Ultrabook, with an OS that's seriously rapid, driving an Ultrawide monitor all day with multiple windows open and a dozen tabs and it doesn't slow down. And a battery that runs all day when not connected to everything via a single USB-C connection.
Having grown utterly tired of both the bloat and crawl of Windows and the pointless faff of Office I'm almost entirely Google. I use Drive and Apps to replace Office 365 and One Drive. Faster, better. Can still save down Sheets as Excel if needed for clients. Unless you need to use specific software then most things are cloud and browser based these days, fully functional and quick.
I've basically got a half-price Ultrabook, with an OS that's seriously rapid, driving an Ultrawide monitor all day with multiple windows open and a dozen tabs and it doesn't slow down. And a battery that runs all day when not connected to everything via a single USB-C connection.
IMO Windows became bloatware after XP. The 32-bit platform and maximum useable 3GB RAM was becoming a limitation for some though. I have never looked at XP 64 bit but was that closer to the 32 bit version or Vista ? If the former the puzzle has to be why MS did not just work with this instead of developing Vista.
I can recall new low end CPU systems pre-loaded with Vista that really struggled but would have been fine with XP.
Moving on I just see Windows 7, 8 & 10 as refinements of Vista and likewise bloatware.
I have this laptop as dual boot Linux and Windows 10. The Linux OS partition is 40GB and the Windows 10 100GB. The balance is a data partition formatted NTFS so accessible by both OS. I have never actually needed Windows 10 but just run it occasionally to update.
I have never seriously considered a Chromebook against a physically well built and supportable laptop. This one is a 10 year old Dell Latitude E6530 that cost ~£100 and I have another almost identical one so can clone the HDD across. The only gain I see would be weight which would be more important if I travelled and wanted to use it on a train etc.
I can see though that for many who are sucked into a Windows laptop a Chromebook would do all that the need and less hassle for whoever has to provide support.
I can recall new low end CPU systems pre-loaded with Vista that really struggled but would have been fine with XP.
Moving on I just see Windows 7, 8 & 10 as refinements of Vista and likewise bloatware.
I have this laptop as dual boot Linux and Windows 10. The Linux OS partition is 40GB and the Windows 10 100GB. The balance is a data partition formatted NTFS so accessible by both OS. I have never actually needed Windows 10 but just run it occasionally to update.
I have never seriously considered a Chromebook against a physically well built and supportable laptop. This one is a 10 year old Dell Latitude E6530 that cost ~£100 and I have another almost identical one so can clone the HDD across. The only gain I see would be weight which would be more important if I travelled and wanted to use it on a train etc.
I can see though that for many who are sucked into a Windows laptop a Chromebook would do all that the need and less hassle for whoever has to provide support.
Doctor Fegg
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Count me as the second.
Apple's business model is selling you shiny hardware.
Microsoft's business model is selling Windows licences.
Google's business model is building up a detailed personal profile of you and using that to sell personalised advertising.
I think it's pretty clear which is the least trustworthy. I have no great love for Microsoft, but there is absolutely no way I would use an OS that regularly phones home to Google.
py_megapixel
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Back in the Windows 7 days, I might have agreed with you. The thing is, I'm not convinced that's true any more.
Windows 10 constantly wants you to log in with an online account, enable data collection to apparently improve the experience (big tech companies have a rather odd definition of improving an experience), switch to using Edge and Bing [Bing does lots of targeted advertising]. It might not be quite on the scale of Google, but they are certainly not innocent, and Windows certainly phones home.
I don't think any of them are particularly trustworthy, and really the big US tech companies are the next big threat the world will have to deal with. Certainly I don't trust Microsoft less than Google, and at least Microsoft gives the impression of being a tech company, rather than an unwholesome advertising outfit with a troublingly-effective government lobbying arm.
Doctor Fegg
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Yeah, I'd agree with that.
I try to avoid pretty much anything by Microsoft or Google, but unfortunately I haven't managed to wean myself off Google Search yet. kagi.com looks like it could be a promising alternative.
But when they have finishedtheir beta phase, they will be charging users. A few might be attracted but the great unwashed who probably don't realise how much the others harvest will stay where they are.
I don't trust either of them.
I have email with Google and in particular do not like how the process links. Best I can say is reliable as in messages are received not blocked or lost for some reason unlike Yahoo, Hotmail, Live .....
I've often pondered non-ISP linked alternatives.
So far I have managed without a Microsoft account for Windows and Office.
It is another reason I use Linux and Firefox as the browser. For most sites a private window too.
While I do not trust any of the free VPN extensions overall for tracking and security they do stop your ISP and hence potentially due to Theresa May's ' snoopers charter ' the UK government knowing every website you visit.
Try Startpage.com. Essentially a front end for Google.
Doctor Fegg
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Yep. I'm happy to pay for good-quality search given how much I use it. I'm not really fussed about what other people do.
I wasn't saying that I (or anybody else here) would be averse to paying for a search, but unless there is a sufficient volume of those that do, it won't survive for long, - it's not a charity.
Doctor Fegg
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Premium products for power users are a well-established business model on the internet - not everything has to scale to Google size. I'm not sure what Kagi's costs are but I wouldn't rule it out succeeding.
If it looks like a threat to Google, they will use their scale to nullify that problem.
Not really. Most workarounds are when the machine has not been setup properly, Windows will not let you install applications, access folders etc. without permissions. I've seen it before where instead of restricting access to a folder the IT admin has just set a background application to close a window with that name, this wouldn't be possible if they set permissions on that folder instead.
Worm
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There are always workarounds. Some more creative than others, but if there weren't workarounds then there wouldn't be malware.
Well, there would. The vast majority of malware gets access to machines because people give it permission.
If the user can give malware permission to install then they have the necessary permission to install software themselves.
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