Is a Chromebook a Real Computer

Microsoft has taken aim at Google’s Chromebook which is the ultimate sign of respect for a competitor. If Chromebooks were not a threat to Microsoft, then they would not bother to spend millions of advertising dollars to try and create a social media storm around the word, “Scroogled”. Hilarious that they chose Pawn Stars to give you the average tech buyer advice. Do people really take used laptops to pawn shops?

I am writing this blog post on my Chromebook. Here are actual things I have done in the last few days on my Chromebook.

  • Edited photos I took on my iphone and some that I took on my Android phone. I used PicMonkey (free).
  • Watched videos on Youtube
  • Social Media – Facebook, Twitter, Google+
  • Wrote a document in Google docs
  • Edited a spreadsheet
  • Wrote a javascript program
  • Read a book on my Kindle Cloud Reader
  • Watched a movie streaming on Amazon Prime
  • Surfed the web
  • Email
  • Listened to music on Google Play (but I could have used Pandora, Songza or any of the other music streamers)
  • Used the calculator

What does Microsoft think people are doing with their computers? No, I did not use a Microsoft office product because on a Chromebook you can do it all with free applications that do it all. I started a list of actual real things you cannot do on a Chromebook. That list is more helpful than Microsoft’s ad and it’s also free. You should also search youtube for videos as there are some good explanations on this topic.

Recently I was at a meet up for tech entrepreneurs where I live and the topic was funding your startup. In the meeting the speaker started a spreadsheet from scratch using google docs and completed a pro forma financial plan for a startup in about 45 minutes with everyone watching. It was cool. He actually did it on someone else’s Windows computer by accessing Google Drive on the web. He could have used Excel because he was using a Windows laptop, but he was pointing out that if you are starting a company you should not pay for Microsoft software that you don’t need.

Category : Chromebook, Technology