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Anyone use a Chrome box?

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,852
9,557
AK
I built a chromium box, but the lack of OS support made it impossible to keep going after a few months. Is the Chrome OS available aftermarket yet? It would be tits if you could make your own.
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,852
9,557
AK
Chromium is similar to Chrome, but not the same thing.
 

JustMtnB44

Monkey
Sep 13, 2006
840
113
Pittsburgh, PA
I wanted to build a new tiny HTPC but I couldn't commit to ChromeOS so I went with an Intel NUC instead. It takes a bit more DIY up front, but I installed Win10 on it and it runs everything I need it to with zero issues. I went with the i3 processor but for mostly web browsing you could probably get away with less.
 

canadmos

Cake Tease
May 29, 2011
20,190
19,156
Canaderp
I have two Asus Chrome boxes sitting at work on a shelf, doing nothing.

Originally purchased them to be a display type thing, but that project got canned. Can't really use them for much else...

If you literally only use a browser, it might be okay. Personally I'd buy a used computer from some business liquidation and find a copy of Win 7, 8 or 10 and go down that road. It probably won't be much more expensive and you'll have a lot more flexibility. My friend's dad found a tower with a Xeon processor and 12gb of ram for what I paid for one Chrome box.
 

canadmos

Cake Tease
May 29, 2011
20,190
19,156
Canaderp
Why an SSD? Don't need the performance, and don't need the PITA attendant to installation.

Disable sleep? Maybe...
Because an SSD will "refresh" the computer and give it new life. Booting it will be down to a handful of seconds, therefor eliminating the need to put it to sleep...just shut it off.

Use Acronis Disk Director to clone the current drive to the SSD. No need to reinstall anything. Clone and go.

Cheapest but best thing you can do to a computer. I'll never buy another one without a SSD. It was pretty much my only requirement when I took this current job, give me any laptop, but it MUST have a SSD.
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
Just noticed this thread.

Got my mom a Chromebox because all she uses is a scanner/printer/web browser.

Scanner/printer is okay, but a little tricky - it needs to be Google Cloud Print compatible, which is fine, but if it mysteriously goes offline it can be difficult to walk someone through troubleshooting.

Google Docs does just about everything you'd need for Word/Excel stuff if you're like 99.9% of the population.

The Chromebox is great, though. ~$200 Asus jobbie IIRC, and she's had nary a problem. It's virtually unbreakable, since she can't really accidentally download or install anything, and if it slows down, since everything is in the cloud, you just do the automated wipe that's built in, log back in, and everything is back to normal. Haven't had to do that yet, fortunately.

Similar to that, if something is really broken or requires an upgrade, you just get a new one, log in on the new one, and everything is there. Piece of cake.

Form factor is nice, too, it stops her from having to crawl around under a desk.

I'm a big fan.
 
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